Sony BC-5600S Blu-ray drive

When it comes to fitting a Blu-ray drive to your computer for watching high-definition films, there are several choices.

If you have a desktop computer it’s relatively easy. You pick up one of the many drives available that fit into the standard 3.5in drive bay.

If you are using a laptop or the smaller ‘media centre’ entertainment computers that don’t have room for a full drive, it’s more complicated. Most laptops will be able to use the standard slimline drives with a tray that pops out when the button is pressed. However, our test media centre PC uses a slot-loading DVD drive without any tray at all.

Fortunately the Sony BC-5600S is exactly the right tool for that job: it’s a slimline, slot-loading drive that can read and write all CDs and DVDs, and it reads Blu-ray discs (it can’t write to them).

It’s fast enough to cope with all the Blu-ray discs we tried, which played back perfectly. How easy it is to fit will depend on your computer. On our Dell model it was a matter of lifting out the cage in which the drive sits, unscrewing the old one and screwing the new one into place.

Our only problem is that it’s relatively expensive. For this price you can pick up a desktop drive that will write Blu-ray discs and read them. But if you need a slot-loading Blu-ray drive this is a good buy.