Samsung SE-S084D/TSBS USB External DVD Drive Review | Product Meta ...

Part of what makes the Apple MacBook Air a thin and light notebook is the fact that Apple chose to leave out an optical drive.Â* To be honest, most of the time that omission isn’t critical.Â* You generally only need a DVD drive these days if you are planning to play a movie, burn some data to disc, or install some software.Â* And there are ways to handle most of those activities without keeping a DVD drive with you all the time.Â* However, for those occasions when you absolutely need a DVD drive, the Samsung USB 2.0 8x DVD Writer External Optical Drive SE-S084D/TSBS is a good choice. The SE-084D is housed in a gloss black case that gives it a “no-frills” look that some Mac users may not like.Â* I’m not <a href="http://www.boseling.com/"><strong>Dre Beats Headphones</strong></a> that much into the “style” of my computers, so that “cheaper” look doesn’t bother me.Â* Your situation may differ from mine. The first thing you notice when you unbox the drive is that it has two USB plugs.Â* Both of them are needed.Â* They provide both the power needed to burn a DVD and the data interface needed for the computer to interact with the drive.Â* On some <a href="http://www.boseling.com/"><strong>bose headphones</strong></a> Mac models (and undoubtedly some Windows laptop models) this can be an issue, since there aren’t two USB ports conveniently located next to each other.Â* You may need an extension cord to connect the second USB plug to a port. The drive itself works well and supports pretty much every optical format from the CD and DVD universe, including +R/RW, -R/RW, dual-layer, and DVD-RAM.Â* (Naturally, it doesn’t support Blu-Ray.) It ships with Nero’s Software Suite for Windows, which includes Nero Burning ROM, Nero Showtime, and PowerDVD.Â* If you’re a Mac or Linux user, this software won’t do much for you.Â*Â* Great for Windows, though. The drive works fine with Windows 7 (including 64-bit), Windows XP, Macs running Snow Leopard, and Macs running Lion. The “soft touch” eject feature works fine with Windows and Linux, but Mac users will need to use the GUI eject feature in Mac OS X to eject discs.Â* (Blame Apple for that one, as the OS locks the drive closed.) It’s very compact, about the size of a double-CD jewel case.Â* It’s relatively quiet.Â* At the price, it’s a much better alternative than Apple’s SuperDrive as far as I’m concerned. Other Reviews of the Samsung SE-S084D Following are some of the other reviews I’ve found for this device: Notebook Review’s review of the drive Engadget’s review of the red SE-S084D CNET’s page about the drive Epinion’s review and price comparisons If you own a netbook, MacBook Air, or other computer that needs an external USB DVD drive, <a href="http://qqegg.net/blog.php?do=showone&uid=312&type=blog&itemid=30891 1"><strong>my.HairLossFight.com - Blogs, Groups, Photos, Discussions, and ...</strong></a> this is a great and inexpensive choice.Â* I definitely recommend it. category: Computer Hardware &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; tags: external CD, external DVD, external optical drive, Samsung, SE-084D/TSBS, USB DVD