PC maker competes with Sony and Toshiba on hi-def video on notebooks.
Dell today added Blu-ray disc capability to its notebook PC line, making an effort to compete with Sony and Toshiba in the growing market for mobile high-definition video platforms.
In addition to showing high-end movies and games, Dell's XPS M1710 notebook could serve as a central node to support digital entertainment throughout the home, the company said. Customers can save 50G bytes of either data or video on a single Blu-ray disc.
The ability to read and write data to the discs differentiates Blu-ray from HD-DVD, the competing standard for high-definition video, analysts said. Laptops with HD-DVD capability have lower prices but cannot save data to the discs, said Samir Bhavnani, research director at Current Analysis.