Dell Announces Blu-ray Laptop Less Than $1,000

If you've been waiting for a low-cost laptop with a built-in Blu-ray player for HD video, your wait is over. With the demise of HD-DVD and the rise of Blu-ray Dell is now selling the Inspiron 1525 with optional Blu-ray disc player starting at $879.

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Just as video rental companies stop offering HD-DVDs and retail stores begin to flood shelves with Blu-ray discs Dell comes to the rescue with an affordable all-in-one Blu-ray solution.

The popular Inspiron 1525 laptop features a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display with 720p resolution. It also includes an HDMI port for easy connectivity to high resolution displays and HDTVs.

The Blu-ray player disc drive is fully backwards compatible, and will play as well as burn traditional DVDs and CDs. If you're willing to spend a little more, you can also chose a Blu-ray burner drive, which is great for backing up and storing large files like high-resolution digital photos, HD videos, or just tons of Word documents. A Blu-ray disc will hold up to 50GB of data, vs. 8.5GB available on the typical DVD disc.

For those of you who are concerned about the lack of dedicated graphics on the Inspiron 1525, you'll still be able to benefit from Blu-ray HD video quality. All Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops with Blu-ray disc drives use Broadcom Media PC technology that allows PCs with integrated graphics to play high definition video. The high-definition video playback is enabled through a built-in dedicated accelerator located in a mini-card slot.

The Inspiron 1525 laptop with Blu-ray is available today from the Dell website in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

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Read our review of the Dell Inspiron 1525