The NEC 6500 is considered to be a very good laptop drive.

The problem with buying a DVD burner from anywhere else but Dell is that the front faceplate of the drive will not match the contours of your laptop. This is fine if you don't care about the cosmetics but many folk like everything to match.

Be aware that a slot loading drive will not play those mini CDs.

This is true about the bezel. I know the NEC is a perfect fit and I can purchase it at half the cost of what Dell is asking. I am really intrigued by the possibility of the slot load feature of the Pioneer. Thanks.

I tested out both Sony and NEC drive...
Here is some of my finding...

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Seems like NEC ND6500A is better...

ex. I am using Dynex 8x +R media (RITEK R03) on both drives...
Sony can only burn at 4x, but NEC can burn at 8x
Same as for mine Ridata 8x +R media as well..
As for the third media I tried, ESA 8x +R (CMC MAG E01), NEC will burn at 6x, but Sony won't even recongize it...

Sometimes Sony couldn't even burn DVD+R media... overall Sony is pretty unstable...
I would say stay away... I am very happy with my NEC drive now...

Yeah, you can get NEC drive at half price compare to Dell...
Only problem is you need to remove the caddy from your current drive and hook onto the new NEC drive...
It's pretty easy, just remove 6 screws, and double sided tape on the front of the drive...

Hope this helps...

Thanks for the info. My drive does not use a caddy it only has a small bracket on the back end held by two screws. I actually placed an order for the NEC drive this morning. Hope it works out.

Good luck

That 6650 looks nice but as I am hardly likely to burn dual layer DVD-Rs I'll be sticking with the 6500 for now.

Newegg just came out with the...... NEC nd 6650a.........which adds dvd-r dl its a must for the small money difference