Dell, Apple Courting Sony for Blu-ray Notebooks

If you weren't already convinced that Blu-ray has completely dominated HD DVD, here's more in the vein of coffin nails: apparently Apple and Dell are both heavily courting Sony for Blu-ray drives on their respective notebooks. According to Electronista, Apple's Macbook Pro could come sporting a Blu-ray writable drive as early as...right this minute:

"Development is said to have been progressing far enough that the drives may have appeared in the most recent update to the portables but were held back by quality issues with both the blue laser and slot-load mechanism, forcing Apple to postpone its plans."

Sigh. Much like the iPhone, we're waiting for a lower price point and a generation or two of bugs worked out before we even start looking at any shiny new Apple products. And as for Dell, well, take a wild guess as to which route they're taking with Blu-ray (a feature already optionally available on certain Dell notebooks):

"...Dell plans to offer one of the least expensive Blu-ray notebooks yet, according to statements by technology strategist Brian Zucker. Without providing many details, the expert claims his company will have a portable below the $1,000 mark in March that can at least read Blu-ray media, setting a new point of entry for the format."

We don't know about y'all, but us here at QP, we still don't even own a PS3 (not for lack of wanting one, mind you.) Blu-ray sure looks nice, but it also still has a high barrier to entry. Aren't we supposed to be planning for a digital distribution future anyways? Yep, we heard that one before too.