The super-slim, USB-powered Samsung drive makes a perfect Netbook companion.
(Credit: Newegg)Got a Netbook? Then at some point you've probably longed for an optical drive, whether to install software, watch a DVD, burn a CD, or whatever.
Newegg has a Samsung SE-S084 portable CD/DVD drive for $48.99 shipped. It's perfect for netbooks, though obviously it's compatible with desktops and laptops as well.
The SE-S084 is about as compact and lightweight as an optical drive can get, weighing 14 ounces and measuring just 0.75 inch by 5.5 inches by 6.2 inches (HWD). You'll barely notice it in your travel bag.
Better still, the drive runs on USB power, so there's no AC adapter to bring along. However, it does require two close-proximity USB ports; if your Netbook has one on either side, you'll need a cable extender (not included) to reach both.
(Or maybe not: A few of the user reviews on Newegg's product page indicate the drive needs that second port only for power-intensive tasks like burning discs.)
I haven't tried this drive firsthand, but there's a fairly extensive review over at Hardware Secrets. Verdict: very positive.
What do you think, Netbook owners? Have you been dying for a drive like this, or do you get by fine on downloads and other CD/DVD workarounds?
Astro Boy to the rescue for our macro shots!
(Credit: Leonard Goh/CNET Asia)DIY site Make.com wrote about how one reader ripped an old DVD player apart and fitted the optical drive lens onto a camera phone for some awesome macro shots. We couldn't resist trying it out with an old CD reader that we have.
While we did get some pretty impressive closeup shots with the puny lens and our Nokia E71, here are a few things we noted.
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Does including an external drive make it a better deal?
(Credit: MSI)Despite many Netbooks and thin-and-lights ditching optical drives in favor of more compact computers, corporate folks are apparently still concerned and looking out for us suddenly-DVD-free folk. MSI has announced availability of a new thin-and-light ULV (ultra-low voltage) notebook, the MSI X600, which comes with its own external DVD/CD drive right in the box.
For $899, the X600 comes with a 1.4GHz Intel SU3500 ULV processor, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320GB hard drive, ATI HD 4330 graphics, and a 15.6-inch 1366x768 screen. It includes a six-cell battery, an improvement on the X340, which had a somewhat disappointing battery life. It also packs HDMI-out and Bluetooth while being a hair under an inch thin.
This all sounds good, with two exceptions. One: its processor is a single-core ULV. Two: this "thin-and-light" weighs 5.5 pounds. That's a serious chunking up from the X340's 2.9-pound frame.
Will a Core 2 Solo processor--the same that's in the X340--be enough for a 15.6-inch laptop? Time will tell. Until our review, we invite you to check out some images of the external drive, which at least stylishly matches the big sibling it comes packed with. The MSI X600 comes in black and silver.
Though Toshiba has bowed out of the format race, there're still about 1.5 million HD DVD movies already on the market. This means you can't just ignore them all together. For this reason, it's good news for consumers today that Plextor announced two new internal Blu-ray drives that also read HD DVD.
The first drive--the PX-B920SA--is a Blu-ray recorder capable of recording BD-R media up to 4x (18MB/sec) and BD-RE media up to 2x. The second drive--the PX-B300SA--doesn't have Blu-ray recording capability.
Both drives can read Blu-Ray media up to 4.8x and HD DVD media up to 3.0x. They are also backward compatible with all DVD and CD formats, both in playback and recording at high-speed. These drives are internal and use a Serial ATA interface that offers better throughput than the traditional IDE interface.
Plextor will ship the new drives with a complete package of playback and recording software including: InterVideo WinDVD 8, Ulead MovieFactory 5.5 SE, and Burn.Now 4.5 SE.
Both the PX-B920SA and the PX-B300SA are available for consumer purchase by the end of this month with hefty price of $599 and $499, respectively.
Even though we rail against tiny products that defy common sense, we still like small laptops (we're an enigma). So we naturally clicked on Pocket-lint's headline trumpeting a "smallest and lightest" notebook from U.K.-based Evesham.
(Credit:
Evesham Technology)
The dimensions are certainly small enough for a laptop with 12.1-inch screen: It measures about 11 by 9.4 inches and 1.4 inches thick. But the "Light Book" tips the scales at more than 2.6 pounds--not tubby, but certainly nowhere near as light as Sony's recently announced laptop under 2 pounds.
The reason for Evesham's claim, as Pocket-light points out, is one adjective: "optical." It says the Light Book is the first laptop of its size with an optical drive. That's great, but we don't know if people who want small laptops are also lusting after optical drives. It does, however, have finger-print identification, which we think would be a more attractive feature to the thin 007 crowd.
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