 Great Little Drive for a Notebook |
| Review Date: August 28, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Nathan C, Los Angeles, CA |
I bought this drive to use with my new Acer 13" 3810T which doesn't have an optical drive. I rarely use one, but I needed to have one....just in case.
The drive itself is VERY small, and I don't see how they could make one any smaller. Aesthetically it looks great. It came with one cable, with an interesting design. It has two regular USB plugs, which BOTH connect to a single mini-usb plug. You plug in both USB plugs to your laptop, and plug the other end into your laptop, and you're good to go.
Obviously this would pose a problem if you only have 1 usb port on a side, because the cord is not long enough to reach around. In the manual they show a picture of using an extension usb cord to reach the other side. I haven't tried this using only one plug, because I knew ahead of time I had two side-by-side usb ports I could use. The cord itself is quite short also, so expect to have the dvd drive less than a foot away.
I used it to burn recovery disks for my Acer, but haven't done any "speed" tests, but I didn't buy it for that purpose.
It's small, light, looks nice, and doesn't need a separate power cord! |
Great Windows 7 compliant drive (and why people have given it 1 star reviews)
|
| Review Date: December 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Richard Wakefield, florida |
This is a great high quality drive that is Windows 7 compliant.(although the instructions don't say so) It is a compact external so it is not super fast, but it is fast enough for all my needs. Watching dvds, burning cds/dvds etc. Now onto why this Drive has gotten bad reviews.
Complaint- This drive does not come with a program to watch dvds, I had to pay extra just to do so.
Answer- This just an external drive. It will work with your current media software. The DVD industry licenses the coding to read DVDs and so it is generally not given away free with products. It does come with Nero which is a great DVD/CD Burning program. The program has a trial for DVD watching with the option to buy. There are free codecs that you can download also to accomplish this. Head on over to [...]
Complaint- The drive only opens a 1/2 inch, there is something wrong with it.
Answer- Actually this is a power saving feature and keeps it slim line. This Drive is powered completely by your computer, and is designed for netbook use. It slides open easily with your finger. When the drive is not being used, it shuts down and does not draw power.
Complaint- The drive does not open when the power is off like the description says
Answer- Actually it does. There is a small hole on the front of the drive where a paper clip can be inserted. This will pop the drive open and allow you to access your disc.
I hope this helps clear the water a bit. All in all I am much happier with the product that I thought I would be. In fact since getting it for my net book, the DVD drive on my home computer died and I have just been using this one instead. |
Works great with my Acer 1410
|
| Review Date: September 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: D. Hentze, United States |
| I needed an external DVD reader/writer mainly to load software onto my Acer 1410 which does not have a drive, and this Samsung drive works perfectly for me. The drive comes with Nero 8 "Essentials", which is a basic OEM suite of utilities for use with the drive. I find it neither great nor bad. If you need any of the utilities, it does the job. The drive itself does not use external power. It uses 2 USB ports. Some people claim it also works with only 1 USB port, but I have not tried it. Installing the drive couldn't be easier. I took it out of the box, plugged it into my system, and was up and running in probably a minute. The Nero software installed without issue. I loaded several programs from DVD onto my system without problems. I tried burning a couple of DVD's, and they all completed successfully and faster than expected. Although I have no intention to watch movies on my my netbook, I did pop a movie into the DVD drive, and it played without issue using Windows Media Player. I'm happy with the drive and does exactly what I bought it for. |
Works perfectly
|
| Review Date: October 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Morris, |
| The drive works perfectly connected to only one usb port on three laptops to which I have access. I have tried reading and writing DVDs with no problems. If you have an older computer with a lower powered usb port, you may need to use two ports. |
Attractive, small, provides excellent function and good value
|
| Review Date: December 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: M. Erb, Syracuse, NY |
I recently purchased a HP dm3-1030US laptopHP Pavilion DM3-1030US 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop - Up to 6 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium). I love everything about the laptop. It's much more powerful and capable than a typical netbook but like a netbook, lacks a DVD drive. This was going to take some getting used to so I decided to purchase an external DVD drive otherwise I did not know how I would be able to rip CD's, burn CD's and DVD's or install software. I guess I hadn't quite realized that, for me, a DVD drive is still a vitally important feature.
I was happy to discover this Samsung DVD slim writer drive. It was priced very reasonably and for under 50 bucks, I now have a solution to my lack of DVD drive problem.
The drive is well packaged and easily set up. Once it's out of the box, you simply attach the included USB cord to your computer and to the drive. The cord is a "Y" cord with two plugs that go to the computer and a mini-plug attaches to the drive. The full-sized plugs are not going to work for you if you only have one USB port on each side of your laptop since the cable is too short to make the reach. In that scenario you'll need an extention cable to reach to the other USB port. And yes, you will most likely need both cables plugged in to enable the drive to work reliably. I was able to get it to play CD's using just one USB connection to the laptop, but it wouldn't always work. Not sure why, but I don't fret about it because the unit won't be hooked up all the time and I've got 3 USB ports on my laptop anyway. Two ports on the right side and one port on the left side. Another question you may have is whether you can use an external powered USB hub for this device. I didn't try it because there was a disclaimer on the box which read, "Normal operation is not guaranteed when using a USB HUB or unspecified cables." Furthermore, use of a USB hub may void the warranty as stated on the box, "We do not guarantee any damage caused by using inappropriate USB cables or USB HUB"
As soon as I hooked the drive to my laptop, Windows 7 recognized the device and installed the necessary drivers. I didn't have to intervene at all. The drive itself has a nice sized button on the tray door to enable you to open the tray. A gentle push is all it takes to cause the tray to quietly pop open. I inserted the software CD and discovered NERO disc burning software and a firmware live update program. I chose not to install NERO but did install the live update software. It was a little quirky in operation and I honestly don't know whether it actually updated my firmware or not. But what I do know is that I have the latest firmware on the DVD writer. In the future the live update program will alert me if there is new firmware available and will install it. That's cool.
I decided to do a quick test burn to make a Windows 7 64-bit system recovery DVD. Popped in the DVD-R, the drive and computer recognized it right away and Windows 7 had the appropriate programs to allow me to make the system restore disc that I wanted to make. Burning was quiet and quick. I was happy.
I'm not sure how this drive could be any better. It is small, barely larger than the CD/DVD that goes into it. And it's less than 1" thick. The case is a really attractive shiny black... shiny for now anyway. I'm sure it will get scuffed and scratched in short order. But for now it's pretty slick looking.
With only a USB cable port and a button on the door, operation is as easy as it's going to get. The drive seems relatively "solid" for its size and weight. I wouldn't recklessly toss this thing into a bag or suitcase, but given reasonable care it feels sturdy enough to last quite a while.
I think this is just about perfect. It is quiet, compact and works with a variety of media at reasonable speeds: 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD+R DL, 8X DVD-R, 6X DVD-RW, 5X DVD-RAM, 8X DVD-ROM, 24X CD-R, 24X CD-RW, 24X CD-ROM.
I feel pretty good about Samsung products and with the experience I've had so far with this DVD writer, give it a 5 star rating. |
|
