One of the things that’s set netbooks apart from fuller featured computers from day one is that most netbooks don’t have optical disc drives. They take up a lot of space, cost money, and add more breakable moving parts. With more and more software available in downloadable form and the preponderance of cheap USB flash drives and SD cards for transferring data, the only time I need to plug an external disc drive into my netbooks is when I want to try installing an operating system that can’t be booted from a flash drive.

But if you have a slow internet connection, a large collection of applications on CDs or DVDs, or want to be able to watch DVD or Blu-Ray videos, a disc drive can come in handy. Still, we’re starting to see companies putting out laptops that are too large and expensive to be considered netbooks without optical disc drives. Laptop Magazine recently reviewed the $649 Dell Studio 14z, a 14 inch laptop without a built-in disc drive. And the reviewer didn’t miss it at all.

What do you think? Are disc drives something that some computers can do without? Or is it time for optical disc drives to go the way of the floppy?

Don’t forget, there are just a few more days left to enter the Liliputing/Asus slim USB DVD±R/RW giveaway. Asus has been kind enough to sponsor the latest contest in our month-long Liliputing Birthday Bash (I think we look pretty good for a one year old).

The contest is open to contestants in the United States. We’ll send an Asus SDRW-08D1S-U external slim DVD±R/RW to one lucky winner. But you have to enter before 12:00AM Eastern on Wednesday morning to win. Don’t worry, we’ll have another contest starting on Wednesday.

Make sure to check out the contest page for the complete rules. Once you do that, go ahead and enter by filling out the form after the break.
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One of the things that sets most netbooks apart from higher priced ultraportables is the lack of an optical disc drive. Sure, there are plenty of ways to install software and operating systems or enjoy music and movies without a disc drive. But sometimes life is a lot easier if you do have one — especially if you want to backup your media to DVDs.

And that’s where external optical disc drives come in. The Asus SDRW-08D1S-U external slim DVD±R/RW is one of the more attractive options. Not only is this DVD burner slim and light, but it can also be powered via a USB cable. That means you don’t have to carry around a USB cable to connect it to your netbook and a separate power cord to plug into the wall. The drive can burn 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-R and 5X DVD-RAM media and access 8X DVD-ROM and 5X DVD-RAM discs. It comes with CyberLink disc burning software and is compatible with Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Vista.

The folks at Asus were kind enough to provide me with one SDRW-08D1S-U disc drive to give away to a lucky reader. If you don’t win, you can pick one up yourself for between $65 and $80  from a number of retailers including Buy.com, Amazon and Newegg.

To enter, just answer the poll question after the break. This contest will end in one week. But we’ll have another giveaway set to start next Wednesday, so make sure to check back then!

Fine print: This contest is only open to entrants in the US. Entrants located outside of the United States are barred from entering, as are close personal friends or family members of Brad Linder or employees of Asus. If you’ve won another prize from Liliputing within the past 60 days please sit this one out as you’re also disqualified from winning.

Please make sure to enter a valid email address which I will use to contact the winner. If the winner doesn’t respond within 24 hours, a new winner will be randomly selected.

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Remember floppy disks? Once upon a time, every computer came with a floppy drive for saving files and loading documents. Now you’ll be hard pressed to find a PC with a floppy disk drive thanks to the prevalence of CD, DVD, and even Blu-Ray drives.

But we could be moving toward a world where even optical disc drives are obsolete. If you have a broadband connection, it’s easier to download and install many free and commercial applications from the web. The same goes for media like music and movies.

While a few years ago it was hard to imagine a computer without any sort of floppy or optical drive, it really doesn’t seem like that much of a sacrifice today. So it should come as no surprise that one of the first things companies like Asus, HP, Acer, and Lenovo dropped from the current generation of netbooks was the disc drive. It’s much easier to make a portable system if you don’t need to shove a bulky disc drive into the chassis.

But what do you do if you want to watch DVDs, install software that only comes on a CD, or change the operating system on a netbook? There are certainly ways to accomplish most of these tasks without an optical disc drive. But having installed operating systems on several ultraportables using a USB flash drive and a second computer, I have to say, things go a lot more smoothly and quickly if you just have a USB DVD drive that you can plug in to your PC.

Apparently I’m not the first person to come to this conclusion. DigiTimes reports that external DVD burner sales are up in Taiwan thanks to the surge in low-cost ulrtaportable sales.

Some people might want to pick up an optical disc drive for use on the road, but I imagine most folks who buy one want it for the same reason I do: installing software at home. Most of the time my external drive hangs out in a box on a shelf. I just pull it out when I need it.

I envision a future where optical disc drives are entirely optional. In fact, some of us are probably already living in that future. But for many folks, the future is still tomorrow, not today. Broadband isn’t exactly universal yet, which means that while some of us can download the latest version of Ubuntu in under an hour, other folks might have to wait days or weeks to download a 600MB file on a dialup modem. Or they could just request a free disc from Canonical and pop it into a $70 USB DVD drive.

So I just picked up a cheap USB DVD-RW drive to make the process of installing operating systems and other software on optical disc-less liliputers a bit easier. And when I took it out of the box, I couldn’t help but notice just how much larger it is than the computers I’ll be using it with.