Via the Japanese Web site ASCII24 we can read that Matsushita (Panasonic) has announced the KXL-CB35AN external combo drive. The portable drive (305 grams) can write CD-Rs at 24x and CD-RWs at 16x. It can read CD-R(OM) media at 24x, DVD-ROM media at 8x, DVD-RW media at 6x and DVD-RAM media at 2x.

The drive operates via the USB 1.1 and 2.0 interface and for CD-ROM media it has seek times of 130ms and for DVD-ROM media 180ms. The KXL-CB35AN is shipped with a 2MB memory buffer and measures 130 x 157 x 18.5mm (WxDxH) in size.

The combo drive will start shipping from November 21st and will cost around US$ 230 (25,000 Yen). For this price the WinDVD software, B's Recorder GOLD BASIC burning software and packet writing software B's CLiP are included.

Source: ASCII24