PCs shed weight and optical drives, gain touch screens

Netbooks helping to redefine exactly what our computing needs are. Photo / AP

SEATTLE - Personal computers are changing - and not just because of the recent launch of Windows 7. Visit an electronics store and you might also find laptops are missing a familiar component. You could experiment with new ways of controlling some computers. And you'll see portable PCs slimming down.

Even with all the attention lavished on Apple's iPhone and Amazon.com's Kindle this year, your PC likely is still the centre of your digital universe. Here's a look at what the season's computer trends mean for you.

We're over drives

Computers have come with "optical drives," slots for CDs or DVDs, for years. They've been useful for installing new software, watching movies or transferring music libraries into digital form.

But one of the biggest lessons from the craze for "netbooks" - inexpensive little laptops designed mainly for browsing the Web - is that people were so excited about the small, easy-to-carry size that they didn't miss having a CD or DVD drive.

Apple got rid of an optical drive two years ago when it introduced the first sliver-thin MacBook Air. That wasn't seen as a trendsetting step at the time because the computer, which cost $3000 then, wasn't meant for mainstream consumption. But netbooks, which start at around $500, surely are made for everyone.

The wee laptops' popularity is proof that people are finding it easy enough to download software, movies and music to portable computers, especially with the widespread availability of Wi-Fi and cellular internet service. And plenty of services let you store files over the internet, eliminating the need to burn backups to discs.

Taking out the optical drive doesn't significantly lower prices. Doing so does let PC makers design much thinner laptops. Companies including Dell and Hewlett-Packard have pulled DVD drives out of mid-range to more expensive computers, such as HP's Pavilion dm3z, all the way up to the $4499 HP Envy and Dell's similarly-priced Adamo.

You just might want to think twice if you're hooked on transferring CDs into MP3s - or if you spend a lot of time watching DVDs on airplanes and don't want to squint at your iPod screen or get a separate portable video player.

Good enough is plenty.

It might sound impressive when a PC sales pitch mentions multicore processors, state-of-the-art graphics chips, 4 or 6 or 8 gigabytes of memory and hard drives with a terabyte - 1,000 gigabytes - of storage. But another thing netbooks showed is that with a few exceptions - such as professional video editing, and maybe hard-core video-game playing - having lots of PC power is overkill.