detail information

Positive:

• Supports CD-R/RW writing at 48x/32x
• Supports DVD+RW/DVD-RW writing at 8x/6x
• Writes DVD±R media at full 16x write speed via USB2
• Overall good writing quality
• Supports Bitsetting for DVD+R/+RW/+R DL (BookType to DVD-ROM)
• 'Two sheep" writer
• Supports DAO-RAW writing
• Can rip copy protected Audio-CDs
• Reads CD-ROM at 48x
• Reads DVD-ROM/DVD-Video SL at 16
• 'Two sheep" writer  
• Can overburn CD-Rs up to 96 min
• Can read 99 min CD-Rs
• Good Software package
• Can do disc quality scanning
• Supports LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling
• Lead free product  

Negative:

• Does not support Mt. Rainier
• Does not increase the burn speed (over-speed) of DVD±R media
• Reads CD-R/CD-RW/CD-DA only at 40x
• Reads DVD±R/RW/±R DL only at 12x/8x/8x
• Can not overburn DVD±R media
• Green LED for both reading and writing

Conclusion:

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

The main positive points: The Samsung SE-W164L can write most DVD media with good quality and the writing performance on DVD±R is respectable with writing times starting around 5 minutes and 56 seconds and up. Given that the SE-W164L is an external drive, the performance is very good.

The Samsung SE-W164L sports an elegant enclosure, and can also be vertically mounted using the supplied stand.

The CD-R write quality is excellent with the Samsung SE-W164L, with most tested CD-R media returning impressive results. Write performance was also impressive with many burns well under 3 minutes.

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

Bitsetting support on DVD+R/+RW/+R DL is also a welcome inclusion and ensures good compatibility with set top DVD players.

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

The main negative points: There are few negative points about this drive, we would like to mention that other drives offer faster read speeds on CD-R/RW/DA and on DVD±R/RW/±R DL media.

Further, it was a little disappointing not to find some media that could be burned at higher than its rated speed.

We would also like to see a dual coloured LED, with one colour used for read and a different colour used for writing, instead of the present single coloured green LED.

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: 'The Samsung SE-W164L is an impressive and overall a good performing drive with really nice features".

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we were unable to find a listed price for the drive, but at getprice the drive is listed at 79 €. (June 2006).

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

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

SVP Communications - 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 Infiniti and HP media used in this review

 Plextor SA/NV (B) for providing the Plextor media used in this review.

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