detail information

Positive:

• Supports DVD+R9 DL writing
• Supports 16x DVD+R speed
• 16x CAV burns leads to faster burns when compared with 16x Z-CLV
• Reads CDs at 48x and DVDs at 16x
• Good writing quality on CD-R's 
• Fast and perfect audio extraction
• Can rip protected audio discs
• 'Two sheep" writer
• Supports DAO-RAW writing
• Supports 99 minutes CD-R discs

Negative:

• Does notsupport Mt. Rainier
• Only 40x burn speed on CD-R
• Questionable DVD-R and CD-RW writing quality
• Questionable DVD+R 16x quality
• Poor media compatibility
• Write some certified media at lower speed
• No bitsetting on DVD+R/R9 DL/RW media
• Read CD-RW discs at 32x only
• 8x reading speed on DVD+R/RW/DL & DVD-R/RW media

Conclusion:

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

The main positive points: The first point we would like to mention is the DVD+R9 DL support, the technology is quite young and it is an interesting format to experiment with. The next point is the 16x DVD+R CAV writing technique that leads to faster burns when compared with 16x Z-CLV. The drive is a very good reader and it can read CD-R's at 48x and DVD's at 16x, even audio cd's can be read/ripped at high speed. Due to 'two sheep" burner and the DAO-RAW writing mode - the drive can be used to backup copy protected CD's. It also supports 99 minutes CD-R's and writing quality on CD-R's are quite good.

The main negative points: This drive has some negative issues, like the questionable write quality on DVD-R's, CD-RW's and DVD+R at 16x. We also like to mention the poor media compatibility and that some media will be burned on lower speed then certified. (I.e. DVD+R 16x with Philips media code will be burned at 12x and DVD+R9 DL with Ritek media code is not implanted in the firmware). The drive does not support booktype bitsetting on DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R9 DL which lead to very low compatibility on i.e. DVD standalone devices. Another point is the 8x reading speed on DVD+R/RW/DL and DVD-R/RW - other drives can do this at 10x. The same goes for the reading speed on CD-RW which is locked at 32x.

To sum it all up, this is the best we could say: 'Good CD-R writing quality and an excellent reader, but poor media compatibility and quality on DVD's".  If Samsung had fixed these issues with the media compatibility and quality in their latest firmware update, we would have brought out an award for it. We feel that this drive was rushed too fast onto the market. Remember - this drive was the first Korean made 16x DVD+R drive that was launched in Korea.

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

Conrexx Technology B.V. - The Netherlands for providing the DVD+R 16x, DVD+RW 4x, DVD+R9 DL 2.4x, DVD-R 8x, CD-R 52x and CD-RW 24x for used in this review.

EMTEC (MPOTEC GmbH) - Germany for providing the DVD+R 8x, DVD+RW 4x and CD-R 52x media used in this review.

MMORE International B.V. - The Netherlands for providing the DVD+R 8x, DVD+RW 4x and DVD-R 8x media used in this review.

Sky Media Manufacturing sa - Switzerland for providing the DVD+R 8x, DVD-R 8x and CD-R 52x media used in this review.

Verbatim GmbH - Germany for providing the DVD+R 16x, DVD+RW 4x, DVD+R9 DL, DVD-R 8x, DVD-RW 4x, CD-R 52x and CD-RW 24x media used in this review.