Pioneer Japan sent out a press today, announcing what it claims to be the world's lightest BDXL compatible Blu-ray Disc writer. The BDR-XD05J measures only 133 × 133 × 14.8 mm and weighs in at a mere 230g. This USB 3.0 equipped drive is capable of 6x BD-R, 6x BD-R DL, 6x BD-R LTH, 2x BD-RE and 2x BD-RE DL writing speeds and a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 6x. The BDR-XD05J also writes to triple- (100GB) and quad-layer (128GB) BD-R media at 4x and triple-layer (100GB) BD-RE media at 2x.
The BDR-XD05J includes features like Pioneer's PureRead2+ technology and an "advanced silent mode" for when playing movies and audio discs. The drive is also compatible with the company's new APS-WF01J wireless dock, which lets it be used with Windows-based tablets. The BDR-XD05J ships with authoring and playback software from CyberLink and is expected to hit stores in late January for about 10,000 Yen ($97US).