dvd-r playback on laptop

[WHATSUP]

I am thinking of buying a laptop...
I have a lot of dvd-r movies, which play in playstations and most settop dvd players. However I have noticed that a lot of dvd rom drives cannot read the dvd-r discs in PC's.
I am getting a combo drive with the laptop dvd/cd-rw. I am really concerned that the laptop will not be able to play my dvd-r collection.
It's a dell inspiron 8500...
Any one got one?
Do not know the make of combo drive...
Maybe its just older dvd-rom drives that cannot read dvd-r discs...
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated...

[Lord of the Discs]

For the combo-drive you should check dell´s website, I actually want
to remind you that there´s NO notebook (except those new Centrinos)
which can play more than 1 DVD without recharging or spare accu.

LotD

[TactX]

This is actually not a DVD-R specific experience, but it could be interesting to you.

We've once had problems with some Toshiba (Tecra 9xxx) notebooks that simply denied to read our CD-Rs (these were ~6 notebooks out of 20!).

Calling Toshibas support, the only answer we got was that Toshiba doesn't guarantee that their CD-ROM drives read CD-Rs :rolleyes:

I would read a lot (really a lot) of tests about the notebook you're thinking to buy, just to make sure it is not as buggy as our Tecras...

[erbuk]

I have the doubtful pleasure of owning a Compaq Presario 1700 :angry: She (it has caused me so much trouble, so it must be a she) has spent a large part of her life travelling to and from repair.

They have changed the DVD four times (and everything else too) so I have now tried two different Toshiba drives, one LG drive and one (if I remember correctly) Sanyo drive. I should add that none of the drives was defective. They just changed them to be on the safe side.

None of them had any problems reading DVD+R discs. There were some problems with two -R discs but that was probably caused by crappy media. I had no problems with other -R discs.

+RW and -RW didn't work at all on any drive except the LG (the newest model of the four).

So I don't think you will have any problems with R discs. But, if you can, you should as them for some kind of guarantee so that you can have it replaced if it can't handle RW-discs.