LG Electronics has announced a release date and price for its GBW H10N Blu-ray drive for PCs.
The drive will be on sale some time this month, and both reads and writes to Blu-ray discs; however, the catch is that it only writes to 25GB discs, and not 50GB dual-layer discs. Hopefully this will be upgradeable via firmware later this year.
LG has posited itself as a Blu-ray supporter from the start, but there were rumours circulating several months ago that it was planning to release a dual format HD DVD/Blu-ray player by the end of the year, after a US spokesperson said as much.
LG later confirmed the plans were in the pipeline.
The company’s standalone Blu-ray drive burns Blu-ray discs at up to 4x, and is backward compatible with CD and DVD media.
The drive doesn’t come cheaply at £500, but it’s half the price that Samsung is planning to slap on its standalone Blu-ray player in the UK.