Strapping itself firmly on the Blu (sic) bandwagon, Panasonic officially unveiled the world's thinnest Blu-ray drive, designed for laptops, and measuring an industry-standard (super-slim) 9.5mm high.

Weighing in at a svelte 150g and able to read and write to BD-R (write-once) and BD-RE (rewriteable) material at 2x, it has full support for all the currently-available media, including 50GB dual-layer discs. Needless to say, it's also compatible with older DVDs and CDs, as well.

Panasonic is currently shipping final-qualification samples to its customers, and we see it being equipped on high-end thin-and-light laptops in Q2 2008. No word on pricing, as usual.

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