Why they disappeared: USB storage, streaming, and cloud services replaced many optical drive functions, leading manufacturers to omit them for sleeker, lighter devices. When they’re essential: They’re ...

5 dead PC hardware features that make me miss the beige box era ...

I converted my quarter-century old DVD collection into a free, personal streaming service, and it hardly took me any time to ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Laptops with a physical CD/DVD drive feel like relics of the past. But they do still exist. And no, they are not necessarily weird, unknown ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. It's time for physical media to make a comeback. With streaming services constantly adding and removing content, it can be hard to find the ...

We love that modern laptops have become so slim and light, but we aren’t happy about the disappearance of ports and features. It’s been forever since I’ve seen a laptop with an optical disc drive! If ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. How we listen to music and enjoy media in general has changed radically over the past few years with the growing dominance of streaming.

What’s happened? PlayStation 5 was never meant to be a regular CD player. Sony intentionally disabled CD support on both the PS4 and PS5, so inserting a standard CD into the console simply doesn’t ...

Optical drives are still practical for many users, whether to play old CDs and DVDs, install software, or create backups—especially with modern laptops, which are usually supplied without a drive.

In this increasingly digital era, physical media has become a thing of the past in most circles. There is, however, sustained interest in such supposedly antiquated tech. Some examples of this include ...