Passionate notebook users are always looking for smaller, thinner and lighter computers, but lately it is also preferred to have a notebook with Blu-ray drives as well. The problem with Blu-ray drives is that the typical Blu-ray drive for notebooks is almost twice as big as the standard DVD drive.

Panasonic announced a new ultra-thin Blu-ray drive aimed at notebook computers and UMPC systems that measures in at only 0.37 inches thick. Last summer, the company became one of the first to introduce a drive with a 4x writing speed. The latest drive is 2x. This new drive is capable of reading Blu-ray discs and writing to Blu-ray media as well. The thin drive will also read and write to standard DVD and CD media. Panasonic says its new thin Blu-ray drive will be on display at CES 2008.