Advantages: Covers those nasty beige facias
Disadvantages: stuck on with tape, slightly awkward to fit

...After getting a new case when upgrading my pc I wanted it to look smart and tidy so there was something to show for my effort and money. This was slightly spoiled by the prominent beige CD and CD-RW drives I had and the floppy drive. A 'silver' floppy drive was easily found and not expensive to replace my old one. However to replace a CD-RW/DVD combo and CD-Rom drive would have been very expensive in comparison just so they didn't stand out. That was when I first noticed these. At around £6 each they were much cheaper than replacing the drives and provided the same benefits. Actually being made of aluminium also makes them more silver and less grey than the silver effect plastics you can get with some drives. The only slight problem with these is fitting them. You are supplied with extra strong double sided tape that has been cut... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent, reliable, robust, good value for money
Disadvantages: None whatsoever

...When I bought a LiteON drive three years ago I had never heard the name before except on some Internet stores. I was in London for some exams after which I went to Tottenham Court Road to look at a few CD-ReWriters (commonly known as CD-writers) before buying one. I had compiled some material in different formats for my exam and thought to bring it all together on a CD to help out colleagues in the future. Due to my exams I didn’t have much time to do any research or read reviews so I just went to the shops without any prior knowledge. The first drive I saw was a Yamaha CD-RW/DVD combo at around 80 GBP (Great Britain Pounds). Then there were a few HPs, Sonys etc in the same price bracket. Although I was shown LiteON drives in a few shops priced between 40 and 50 GBP I wasn’t much interested despite their assurances that this was a good... Read review

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Advantages: Fast 3D gaming on a laptop. Superior screen
Disadvantages: Have to wait 5 days after order before delivery

...The Dell Inspiron 8000 series 1.13GHz is the latest offering in Dell's line of top end laptops. As you may have already seen from my reviews I am a bit of a techie! If there's something new and the best then I buy it. I have always been delighted with Dell's service in the past and the reliability of their service and technical support. This lastest offering really is quite a stunner. The laptop supplied cost me £2245.45 including delivery. It comes with a 1.13GHz P3 CPU with 256Mb Ram, a 48Gb hard drive, 32Mb Geoforce TNT 2 3D card and a CD-RW/DVD combo drive. The best however is the ultra-high resolution 15.1" TFT screen at 1600x1200. Most of you will be quite familiar with computers so I will dispense with the irrelevant facts. The computer itself is well built. It does not pretend to be the prettiest laptop on the market... Read review

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Advantages: okay for Win95
Disadvantages: poor customer service

...I bought a Creative labs 48x drive a year ago, a CD4831. Until recently all was fine under Windows 95, the disk was very fast and reliable. An upgrade to Windows 98SE proved too much for this drive, it would frequently lock up, refuse to read disks and crash the pc. I searched for an updated driver having phoned the supplier, downloaded it from Cretive's site. The problems persisted, the supplier suggested trying Creative. One e-mail later they eventually responded saying they were unable to help as it was an OEM product. A visit to windrivers.com found a number of other users with similar problems..and no assistance from Creative. I have given up on this drive, the customer service is abysmal. Bought a Samsung 48x, this works very well. The shop said that they don't stock Creative due to the high levels of returns. The Creative... Read review

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Advantages: Functional, good software package
Disadvantages: Not as advanced as the pricey ones

...Wow! A new computer for my Masters studies! Wahey! The Dell Dimension like all Dell computers is only available online and only comes in the colour of black. It is a desktop computer- a decision I made after seeing just how much cheaper desktops are becoming than laptops. The other benefit, of course, is the generally greater disk space available in bulkier machines. My particular package was pretty low-spec in that it came with a normal-sized monitor (no flat-screen magic here) and a single CD/DVD-Rom drive rather than the optional 2. Here is my exact specification: HARDWARE: Dimension 3000 Celeron 320 (2.40GHz) List D09305 Dimension 3000 256MB RAM FREE - Double Memory Promo 512MB (2x256) Dual Channel DDR333~512MB DDR333 Dual Channel Memory (2x256) 40GB IDE Hard Drive (7200rpm) 429-11152 48X DVD/CDRW Combo Drive~48X DVD... Read review

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Advantages: Fantastic Value, Easy to Set-Up, Fast Delivery
Disadvantages: Poor build quality, Dell Printed on Everything

...I was lucky enough to get the following package for only £351 delivered direct from Dell (I think they are charging slightly more at the moment?): Pentium 4 Processor (2.8Ghz 1MB Cache) 512MB DDRAM 80Gb Hard Drive 48x CDRW/DVD Drive 17" CRT Monitor Mouse Keyboard Stereo Speakers Built-in modem Colour Inkjet 720 Printer with cartridges Windows XP Microsoft Works 7.0 Trial Versions of McAfee Security Centre & Paint Shop Pro 1-Year Collect and Return Warranty A lovely Dell Mouse mat The delivery service was fantastic, as only 3 days after my order I was called to find out the most convenient time to take delivery. I opted for the evening delivery (not many companies provide that option!) and they told me which day it would be coming and that it would be between 7pm and 9pm - I was even able to track the package online, so... Read review

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Advantages: Fast & Versatile
Disadvantages: Slightly large

...connector so the bay was obviously intended to house CD/RW/DVD drives as well as hard disks. A small 40mm fan at the back keeps the bay from getting hot and obviously does the job well as the case is cool to the touch. The packaging states that the IDE connector supports up to ATA100 drives but even so it's pretty damn quick. It can handle a 700MB file in around 1-2 minutes. It comes with drivers for win 98/SE and should be auto detected under win2K & XP. Conclusion: If you have an old drive gathering dust somewhere or want to share a CDRW/DVD among multiple computers then get one of these.... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap to upgrade, good features and upgraded its not too slow
Disadvantages: Not a laptop to go out and buy new.

...-M 2200+ with 768Mb RAM and a 5100rpm 80Gb HDD. In short. If you have one look into upgrading the HDD to 5100rpm 80Gb HDD. And adding the 512Mb RAM to give you 768Mb RAM total. If you looking for a new laptop, look at another laptop.This is too old and not worth buying and upgrading. Tech Stuff *Processor = AMD Athlon XP-M 2200+ 1.6Ghz *Standard/Max Upgradeable RAM = 256Mb/768Mb (DDR SDRAM) *Hard Drive Disk = 40Gb *Graphics Processor = SiS Real256 * CD/DVD = CD-RW/DVD ROM combo *Battery Life = 2.5 hours *Screen = 15.1" (1024 x 768 resoultion) * Operating Systems = Windows XP Professional *Weight =2.6Kg... Read review

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Advantages: Thin, light and reliable
Disadvantages: Very slow (but efficent) Hard Disc.

...working. Over the past year they has been many BIOS updates that fix problems, and create new ones. At the moment my laptop seems stable, and I'm not experiencing any of the ususal laptop problems. So why do I like this laptop so much? Well, it's extremely light. It has a removable CDRW-DVD combo drive which is exchangeable for either a blanking plate (reduces weight further) or a floppy disk drive. It has 256MB of DDRRAM (Double Data Rate Random Access Memmory if you were wondering) which means it has plenty of memory to play with. The memory is also in a one chip chunk meaning there's room for more under all that casing. The graphics card is a non-shared 32MB ATI card. This is also DDRRAM so it's pretty nice and fast. The processor is 1.7gighz P4 and runs like a dream, even when you enable the power saving speedstep mode (special... Read review

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Advantages: Portable, CD-RW/DVD Combo, everything I needed!
Disadvantages: None, yet!

...I am a software developer and I have a desktop computer at home. Due to daily train travel and my starting a University course in my spare time I decided that I also needed a laptop. My budget was £1500 including VAT. After looking at various makes including Dell, NEC, Toshiba, Tiny IBM and Compaq I settled on the Sony Vaio PCG-FX503 (£1300 including VAT). Standard spec: Intel P-III 1.00 GHz Processor 256 MB SDRAM 20 GB Hard Drive CD-RW/DVD Combo 14.1" Screen Windows XP Home There are other models in the FX500 series based on AMD Athlon or AMD Duron chips but these suffer with less battery life (2¼ hours compared with 3½ hours of the FX503). The FX503 is the only model in the range to use the Intel processor. Why the Sony? Why did I discount the other makes (in reverse order!)? - IBM & Compaq - price, price, price and price. Too... Read review

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