Samsung SM 352

Author's product rating:   

Reliability	Good
Ease of Installation	Excellent - very quick and easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	saves space in the computer
Disadvantages:	a little noisy

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This drive combines the reading speed of CDs of 52x, with the writing speed of 52x for CD-Rs and 24x for CD-RW. Impressive already, 16x DVD read it added too. This makes it an excellent way of conbining a DVD player with a CD burner. It is ideal for me because I only have one available space in my computer for a drive so this is the best kind of drive to go for as it saves space.Box contents
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• Drive itself
• Nero Burning ROM and INCD 5.5
• Power DVD XP version 4.0
• User guide on CD
• Audio Cable
• Mounting Screws

Specs (in summary)
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• Samsung 52x24x52x16x Combo drive
• internal - 5.25"
• Interface: IDE/ATAPI - 40 PIN IDC
• Supported CD Formats: CD Text, CD Extra, CD-DA (audio), CD-I, CD-ROM XA, Photo CD, Video CD, CD-ROM
• Supported Media Types: CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW
• Access Time: 110 ms (CD), 130 ms (DVD)
• Buffer Underrun Protection is built in with 8Mb of buffer memory.
  
  Techie stuff
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  The Samsung 52x24x52x CDRW combo drive has a high capacity buffer memory of 8Mb. This
  8MB Buffer of memory is helpful as it ensures that the DVD isn played smoothly so it avoids the annoying stops and starts that can occur with the slower and older DVD drive..
  To reduce the noise and vibration, it uses the DVA (Dynamic Vibration Absorber) technology - i am not sure what that means but it sounds good!
  The drive can be mounted horizontally or vertically. I have mounted it horizontally but it can be useful if you have a computer case that is a desktop but is placed on its side under a desk or something.
  As with most new drives now, it includes technology to prevent buffer under run errors. This really just means that you are more likely to have CDs that are written without errors as it can be a right pain if you write masses of CDs only to discover after you have deleted the files that actually the disc never wrote properly in the first place. Anyway its always a good idea to check a burnt CD anyhow - just to be on the safe side.
  This drive supports packet writing which is great if you like the idea of using a CD like a floppy disk but the downside of this is that you dont get to use the whole of the CD's full capacity as you lose space as its used up by a bit of essential packet writing related data on the CD.

Appearance
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This drive comes in a beige colour. A little bit boring but even if it was pink, it wouldnt make any difference to the way it works so it is superficial really.You can buy this drive in a black if you want too.
The drive features a volume control wheel and a headphone jack (mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ) on the front of the drive.
This is a tray loading drive rarther than slot loading.Installation
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How well does it work?
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The drive seems a bit noisy compared to my LG so I think it might be a tad annoying when playing DVDs. Having said that, I only installed the drive last night so have yet to play a DVD. I did do a bit of CD burning today and thought it was fast.
Set on 52x, the drive burnt 700Mb of data in about 2 and a half minutes. This is pretty nippy. I usually verfiy my data after its been burnt so this will add a bit more time to the process.
I havent burnt a CD-RW as yet but its top speed is 24x and I am used to having a CD-RW at 4x so this will be a big improvement. You have to remember to use high speed CD-RWs or you wont benefit from the extra speed this drive can do.

Price
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It is around £40 if you buy it off the net and then postage and packaging on top.