Shipment volumes of Blu-ray disc drive-equipped notebooks are unlikely to take off until the second half of 2010.

Blu-ray notebooks are currently still limited to the high-end market due to high costs – a slim-type Blu-ray drive costs around US$100, while a slim-type DVD burner can be sourced for o­nly around US$20.

However, Blu-ray drives can be expected to drop in price in the second half of 2010, the sources estimated.

In related news, Toshiba recently announced a series of Blu-ray notebooks, the Qosmio X500, featuring a 18.4-inch display, Intel Core i7 CPU, 6GB DDR3 memory, Nvidia GeForce discrete graphics card and Windows 7, and is targeting to launch at the end of October.

Although Acer, Asustek Computer and Dell have all launched Blu-ray notebooks, they have not pushed them aggressively since slim and light-weight models have became the spotlight for 2009, the sources noted.