detail information

Positive:

• Can reach 16x write speed on DVD±R through USB2.0
• Stylish enclosure
• Good writing quality on most DVD±R media
• Excellent writing quality on CD-R media
• Very fast at writing DVD+R and CD-R
• Good DVD±R/RW media compatibility
• Supports DVD±R/+R DL/-R DL writing at 16x/6x/4x
• Supports CD-RW writing at 32x
• Can write DVD+R DL certified media at higher speed
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/+R DL (booktype to DVD-ROM)
• Can read Pressed DVD-ROM/DVD-Video SL at 16x
• 'Two Sheep" writer
• Can overburn CD-Rs up to 96 minutes
• Supports DAO-RAW writing
• Supports Mini DVD-R/RW discs
• Good software suite
• 'OFF switch" to turn the drive off, when it is not used
• Lead free product

Negative:

• Does not support Mt. Rainier
• Does not increase the burn speed (over-speed) of DVD±R media
• 48x media compatibility on CD-R could be improved
• DVD-RW writing quality needs improving
• Reads SL and DL DVD±R discs at only 12x/8x
• CD-R/RW/CD-DA/VCD read speed locked to 40x/40x/40x/16x
• Some sync issues with CD Audio extraction
• Single colored LED for read/write

Conclusion:

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

The main positive points: The Samsung SE-W164C can write DVD±R media with very good quality. The write performance on DVD+R makes the SE-W164C one of the fastest external DVD burners currently available, with 16x burns consistently around the 5 minutes 35 seconds mark, and an impressive 6 minutes 10 seconds at 12x write speed. The performance of this external drive will quite easily outperform most internal drives.

CD-R write quality is also excellent with the Samsung SE-W164C, with all tested CD-R media returning impressive results. Write performance was also impressive with many burns well under 3 minutes.

Good DVD media compatibility is also very important, the Samsung SE-W164C was also impressive in this department, with all but one of our test media been written at its rated speed, and in most cases with very good write quality.

The supplied software package was also good, and should provide the beginner and the more advanced user with all the necessary tools to author and write DVD and CD recordable media.

As a last point we would like to mention that this DVD burner is a 'lead-free" product, which will meet the recycling standards that will come into effect on the 1^st of January 2006.

The main negative points: Although as already stated above. The Samsung SE-W164C can write media with very good quality, however, we would like to see selected media being burned faster than its rated speed. This applies to both DVD and CD-R media.

The writing quality on DVD-RW media is one area where the Samsung SE-W164C needs improving, perhaps this is something Samsung can address with future firmware updates.

The Samsung SE-W164C also had some issues with our DAE tests, where sync was lost during 16x 'copy on the fly" tests.

Although the Samsung SE-W164C is a good reader, read performance on DVD±R at only 12x read speed is a bit slow by today's standards. The same applies to CD-R which is restricted to 40x read speed.

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: 'The Samsung SE-W164C has outstanding performance for an external USB connected drive, and also good write quality. But also an affordable price compared to other external writers". With this in mind, we would like to award the Samsung SE-W164C our CD Freaks 'Safe Buy" award.

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we found no offers, but at getprice the drive is listed at 78.40 EUR (October 2005). 

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Thanks to:

Bell Technology spol s.r.o. - Czech Republic for providing the media used in this review.

SVP Communication - The United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

Conrexx Technology B.V./RITEK Europe - The Netherlands for providing the media used in this review.

Medea International - United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review

Ricoh Europe - For providing the media used in this review.

E-Net Distribution - United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.