ASUS doesn't appear to be choosing a side in the battle between Blu-ray and
HD DVD. At this year's Computex, the company unveiled the BC-1205PT Blu-ray Disc drive and HR-0205T HD DVD drive. As Tech-On reports, these drives will be priced at
$270 and $180 respectively.
At COMPUTEX
TAIPEI 2007 being held in Taipei, Taiwan, Asustec computer Inc. (ASUS) of Taiwan is exhibiting the BC-1205PT Blu-ray Disc (BD) drive and
HR-0205T HD DVD drive, both for a desktop PC.
These models are available at very low prices of about $270 and $180 (USD),
respectively, because they do not have data writing functionality for BD and HD DVD. Reportedly, the company is also planning to launch
the products in Japan, targeting the release as early as summer 2007.
The BC-1205PT boasts a high reading speed of 5x from
BD-ROM/R/RE. It is capable of both reading and writing various types of DVD and CD formats. The HR-0205T can read at 2.4x speed from HD
DVD-ROMs.
If I had to guess, I'd say that the BC-1205PT and HR-0205T are based on the Pioneer BDC-S02 and Toshiba SD-H802A.
I'm sure we'll find out when they ship later this year. In the mean time, you can read more about ASUS's new drives here.
