Top laptops with CD-DVD drives in 2025
Best laptops with CD-DVD drives — one of the hottest search topics. Although I am exaggerating a bit there, it is true that many people like you want these laptops in 2025. Unfortunately, there aren’t any brand new mainstream laptops with CD-DVD drives, but I’ve scoured the internet for the best options you can buy today, and I have one more suggestion.
I highly recommend checking out the best external DVD drives rather than buying a laptop with a built-in drive. If you need a new laptop, buy one of the premium laptops and pair it with an external drive instead.
Yes, I know it’s convenient to have a built-in CD-DVD drive — especially if you want to access medical scans or physical media not available digitally. However, these laptops are much older than we recommend, and you sacrifice performance and battery life, to name a few important features.
They’re hard to find, but if you must have a laptop with a built-in CD-DVD drive, I’m here to help. Here are the best laptops with CD-DVD drives available today.
Quick List
Very good overall
The Dell Inspiron 15 5000 features a hard disk drive, multiple ports, 1TB of storage, and options for an Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 processor, all for under $500, making it one of the best laptops with a built-in hard drive.
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A very good budget
This 15-inch Lenovo sports an Intel Core i5-7200U CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. You can get it for as low as $200, making it a solid budget alternative to our top picks.
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Excellent performance
The rock-solid HP ZBook 17 G5 features military-grade durability and an Intel Xeon processor. That’s a lot of power even for an older machine, making this a good choice for power users who need a built-in disk drive.
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Rami Tabari
Rami has reviewed and tested dozens of laptops over the course of 6+ years. You know that a budget shouldn’t compromise quality, and that you’re getting the most bang for your buck. Rami also knows that the best laptops with CD-DVD drives are rare, and if you’re looking for an advanced laptop, you might be better off going with an external DVD drive.
The best laptops with CD/DVD drives in 2026
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Very good overall
The Dell Inspiron 15 5000 offers you the best balance of specs and price you can find in a laptop with a CD/DVD drive. You may have to hunt around, but if you’re serious about tracking down a laptop with a built-in disk drive, this will be the best value for your money. You can get it for as low as $300 with an Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. There is also a version with an Intel Core i7 CPU for about $500.
This laptop is not without its faults, however, especially when compared to newer laptops. 1TB of storage is on HDD, which is a much slower storage type than the SSDs used by modern laptops. There is a version available with SSD, but it only includes 256GB of storage, which is much less than most modern laptops. Additionally, the Core i5 or Core i7 processors available for this laptop may once have been powerful but now pale in comparison to the latest chips.
So, you’ll be sacrificing processing power and speed, but if a built-in hard drive is a must-have, start your search with the Dell Inspiron 15 5000.
Read our full Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Review.
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A very good budget
If you’re looking for a decent laptop with a CD drive that won’t break the bank, the Lenovo ThinkPad E570 is an excellent choice. One of the best features of this laptop is that it is equipped with a variety of ports for all your local needs.
It includes an Intel Core i3 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 240GB of storage. It is important to note that these features are much lower than what you would find in a modern laptop. Although you can get this laptop for around $300, you will be compromising on power and storage. The Lenovo ThinkPad E570 will probably be able to run basic, lightweight applications and won’t have much space to store files and photos due to its limited specifications.
Of course, those drawbacks may be worth it for some users. With the Lenovo ThinkPad E570, you’ll have a comfortable keyboard, a decent variety of ports, and a CD-DVD drive (that’s rare these days) – all for a low price.
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Excellent performance
HP knows that sometimes professionals need optical drives, too, so it still offers the premium-grade ZBook 17 G5.
The ZBook 17 G5 isn’t just any plain old laptop with a CD-DVD drive, either: it has a Blu-ray CD-DVD drive, which is rarer than conventional optical drives. This system also features the military-grade durability and blazing speed of an Intel Xeon processor. It includes 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, providing much faster storage than HDDs commonly seen in laptops with CD/DVD drives.
Be aware, however, that this 17-inch laptop weighs 7.05 pounds, so it may not be ideal for everyday toting around. It is also very expensive considering the wear and tear features it incorporates. You can get it for around $1000 to $1200. You can get a very powerful laptop for that price today. However, the HP ZBook 17 G5 is still an option if a built-in drive is a must-have.
Read our full HP ZBook 17 G5 review.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Do they still make laptops with built in CD/DVD drives?
A: No, no traditional consumer laptops will still be produced with built-in CD/DVD drives in 2025.
Question: Should I buy a laptop with a built-in CD/DVD drive or an external drive?
A: In Laptop Magwe want to make sure you get the best laptop for your money. That’s why, in this case, we strongly recommend that you choose a laptop from our guide to the best laptops of the year, and one of the external CD/DVD drives, instead of one of the old laptops above.
While there are still a few laptops with built-in disk drives available, unless there’s a clear reason you need a CD/DVD drive built-in, these laptops feature outdated specs that make them an absolute bargain.
Choosing a modern laptop will increase the value of your money as it will continue to perform well for longer than these outdated laptops with built-in disk drives. An external drive can even give you better image quality from your DVDs and Blu-Ray discs compared to the drives found in these older laptops!
If portability is a concern, there are external disk drives that are small and lightweight enough for easy operation. Here are some top-rated external disc drives to consider on our best external CD/DVD drives page.
External DVD drives
Do you need an external DVD drive to access all desktop platforms? Check out the ASUS ZenDrive U9M. It’s a great option for accessing physical media on laptops without built-in DVD drives.
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Power through DVD reading and data burning with OWC Mercury Pro, a fast virtual environment daemon. It offers impressive performance in a sleek and stylish chassis and also supports Blu-Ray discs.
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Looking for a DVD drive compatible with your premium Apple products? Check out the Apple USB SuperDrive, which offers great performance and works well with macOS. It looks good too thanks to the polished aluminum chassis.
see more
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We are 100 percent independent and have years of experience helping you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades and continues to deliver reliable reviews you can count on.
Our team of experienced writers and editors sift through the available information about laptops and rank them to decide which one is best for you. But before they get started, the testing team puts each system through a rigorous process of synthetic and real-world testing to see how the system handles the type of work and games you’re likely to throw at it.
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