Makes me wonder: if their design engineers made such an obvious usability mistake here, what else did they get wrong? Requiring a screwdriver tells me they think you will only swap very infrequently. Or maybe they just weren’t bright enough to come up with a rugged alternative.

Seems like a really big deal to me. Having screwdriver in your carry on luggage is not an option – at least in the countires I travel in. A huge desigm flaw I would say.

My dell D600 has a screw to hold in the optical drive. But it’s not needed. I took it out several years ago and haven’t had any issues. I was told it was for security. Do you have to put it back in on the X300

“…it’s a shame that some button or latch mechanism couldn’t have worked in this case.”

Oh, I dunno. I used to have a Dell Inspiron with a latch-locking battery that that had the plastic latch fail causing me no end of troubles until I sent the entire laptop back to Dell for a fix (Duck tape only goes so far). Slide it in an screw it down, I say.

I fail to understand why a more elegant solution could not be implemented.

That’s strange, my Fuji Lifebook just has a latch – flip it out and the drive/battery in place pops out and you can swap between the two to your hearts content.

A screwdriver? No thanks…