Conclusion:

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

The HP DVD-1040e is a stylish drive which wrote our tested DVD±R/DL media with good quality.

The HP DVD-1040e is an excellent reader. It reads most media groups at high speed and reads all media groups reliably.

The drive supports the LightScribe Disc Labelling technology.

The main negative points:

The specification of the HP DVD-1040e tells us that the drive supports DVD+/-R writing with up to 20x speed, but the truth shows us that 20x speed couldn’t be reached. The Drive also shows questionable writing quality on some CD-R / CD-RW media.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The HP DVD-1040e is a stylish, average performing, external DVD Writer, with additional Lightscribe support. There shouldn’t be any problems as long media are burned at their rated speed”

At Geizhals.at we found the drive listed, starting at €49.80

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Introduction