Drives > Sony Drives > Less than 30 GBP

Advantages: plug in and use
Disadvantages: none so far

Having recently had my computer pack up on me whilst moving house I decided to go out and get a new all singing all dancing one to replace it. What I did not even think of checking out as did it have a floppy drive on it! And of cours like a lot of modern machines it did not. Well I only use the floppy to back up my accounts and take them to the accountant so he can do my year end, which i had done on the old machine so when the disk came back there ...
...these drives as i did not want to open the case and start poking about. Talk about easy I plugged it into the usb and away windows xp whent and installed it and allocated it drive a so it worked with my trusty old accounts program with no messing about. compared to the fixed drive on my old computer i find it a bit slow but so far very reliable and thats about all you can ask from a simple divise such as a floppy drive. ... Read review

Advantages: Well known brand.
Disadvantages: none

To begin with, it loks nice. The simple front design does away with exterior volume dials and headphone jacks, all there is, is one open/close button. It was incredibly easy to install. All i had to do was slot it in (making sure my jumper settings were correct for my set up) and install the cables into it. I used NERO to find out the results. To test the DVD i used CSI:Miami the game. Eject time: 1.62 seconds Close time: 1.56 seconds Spin-up ...
...DVD is 16x). Spin-down time (Time taken to reach standard revoloution rate after reaching fastest.) Spin -up time: 5.14 seconds Spin-Down time: 3.81 seconds Time taken for disc recognition: 10.05 seconds I would recommend this drive becasue it is simply fit and forget. I have given the instruction manual a totally unhelpful rating becasue it didn't come with one. With the drive you also get power DVD 5 ... Read review

Advantages: "works" with Mac and Windows
Disadvantages: Too many to list.

...work... (using Taiyo Yuden media bought from Microboards authorised retailers) >Manuals... inexistent! After days of bugging their support, a PDF was emailed over... > Support - rude and unhelpful most of the time. Takes days to get anything out of them In short? Stay well clear from this product! ... Read review

Advantages: Fast Write speeds, wide compatibilty, 20 speed dvd writing and CHEAP
Disadvantages: Not any that i've experienced!!

I found this to be an excellent drive as i picked up one for around £30 and that was when it came out(last year, june). I think that this is an excellent drive for the fact it has a wide range of DVD and CD writing features; 20 speed writing, my favourite feature is the light scribe feature which allows you to design your own cd labels on a special 'lightscribe disc'. The Drive was also quiet, but not too quiet. I found the OEM Box that the drive ... Read review

Advantages: Very Cheap, Changeable cover panels, Fast Speed
Disadvantages: No firmware, Region Locked, Major issues with burning regular cd's

...and thus bought it as LG has become more reputable. The Pros This drive was very easy to install. It was practically a plug and play drive. It also came with different front panels in order to change colors from black and white. Although this may seem pointless it is a factor to take into consideration if you are after certain specification like color for your computer. The drive has never had a problem playing any cd's DVD's and etc. It ...
...this drive as it seems LG has forgotten about this drive and moved on. 3) This final problem is the killer part of this drive and the reason it is ranked so low. When durng xvid files and various other files onto a CD to watch on an xvid player and part of the files which are over 350 mb will not work. Thus typically TV shows are 350 mbs and meaning half the disc is wasted. Despite the cheap prices of CD's these days it still is a waste. Conclusion ... Read review