A high quality cd-rom drive

Advantages: Quality and reliability of drive
Disadvantages: Outdated and discontinued model

...The Teac 532 cd rom drive is an cd-rom reader that is designed to be fitted internally into a PC. I had this unit in my PC for about 2 years before I decided to upgrade the whole system. I paid about £120 for this drive and at the time 32x read speed was about the industry standard. How times change as now we are looking up to 72x read speeds on cd-rom drives, which make this unit look positively tortoise-like! Specs This cd-rom drive is compatible with operating systems up to Windows 98. It has a 32x read speed and needs to be fitted into a IDE interface inside the computer. The drive measures, (W) 5.75? (H) 1.65? (D) 7.56?. It weighs 2.65lbs. Overall these are the standard measurements for a cd-rom drive, otherwise it wouldn?t fit into your computer! On the front panel of the unit, from left to right there are...

richard_richard 30.04.2004 · Read review
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Review of Teac Desktop CD-ROM 532E

Dorling Kindersley My First CD-ROM Toddler School

Advantages: Good range of tasks, keeps kids involved and interested, genuine learning tool
Disadvantages: have to wait for sounds and instructions to finish before you can interact.

...make an animal or object appear with a voice over telling you what it is. My son watched the screen with great interest for about 30 minutes and started trying to say some of the items and looked very pleased with himself so very fast results there. FInally, each activity also has a "printables" section and variable skill levels that affect the controls as well as the difficulty of the task in hand. A minor irritation was that you couldn?t use the mouse until any talking or animation had finished which may frustrate younger children that couldn't understand the need to wait. Apart from that though this is a fantastic title. If you only buy your toddler one CD-ROM, make it this one....

ilaskey 22.06.2007 · Read review
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Review of Dorling Kindersley - My First CD-Rom: Toddler School

Aztech CD Roms and others like it

Advantages: Aztech and Delta drives, as an example, are much cheaper than bigger names
Disadvantages: If you buy cheaper CD ROM drives expect lower performance

...I have mixed feelings about Aztech CD-ROM Drives ? and other cheap makes. Everything seemed fine until the speed's started to increase to 24x and beyond. I was used to slower drives and wonder quite why anyone would need a CD-ROM to go so fast ? but who am I to know? I have never had any problems with CD-ROM running at around 10 to 16 speed. Anyway, I found on a 32x Aztech drive that it couldn?t get up to full speed without cutting off before it could read data. It was a never-ending loop of stopping and starting, making installation of any program a long drawn out affair. Eventually I had the unit replaced with a Delta CD ROM. It?s better, but still seems to suffer from its high speed at times. I would recommend, and it?s only my opinion, that you spend a bit more and purchase a Yamaha, Philips, Teac or any other well...

m.holmes 24.07.2000 · Read review
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Review of Aztech CD ROM

The Sims 2 DVD-ROM

Advantages: Only 1 disc, loads of features
Disadvantages: Can be slow

...I have been a fan of the Sims for many years now, but only recently recently the Sims 2 for Christmas. When I opened it up, I noticed that it said DVD-Rom. At this point I panicked, thinking that I wouldn't be able to use it. Luckily, my computer has a DVD-ROM drive. The only difference between the normal CD-ROM version and the DVD-ROM, Is that the DVD-ROM only has one disc, making installation easier and quicker. Installation As I said, because the game is held on one disc only, you don't have to sit waiting for the computer to tell you top put in 'disc 2' or disc 3' etc. This means that you can leave the computer to happily go about its business of installing, whilst you go and watch the telly. As with most games, you can choose where to install the game. To keep you occupied during the installation (if there's noting on TV...

matty0501 30.08.2007 · Read review
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Review of The Sims 2 (DVD-Rom)

Great easy to use cd rom

Advantages: includes hazzard perception videos and monitors progress over time
Disadvantages: You have to run it from the cd

...This is a really good practice cd rom. You can do mock theory tests and mock hazzard perception tests plus it has all the theory eg highway code etc that you need. The clever thing with this cd rom is that it works out what areas you are weak on and can give you more of those specific questions. Plus it does various graphs of how youre doing over time and what you need to work on. An excellent cd rom which gives lots of tips and has lots of videos to help you along the way. Very easy to use and you can even download podcasts to your mp3 player to learn as you go. Highly recommneded and a bagain as well....

victoriarichardson1 25.11.2007 · Read review
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Review of Driving Test Success All Tests (2006/07 Edition)

The exciting Europress CD Rom

Advantages: Easy and simple to understand questions
Disadvantages: None

...An exciting CD ROM with many questions to test YOUR knowledge of key stage 3, Maths, Science and English. This makes Key stage 3 revision a whole easier and enjoyable to do. Using interesting pictures and easy to understand questions to answer as well as clear and concisely spoken audio clips in the English version imparticular. The maths CD ROM test the students knowledge of shape, space and measures, number and algebra and finally Data handling as well as other key aspects of the National curriculum required to be understood by every pupil/student at the end of Year 9 (although in most grammar schools, most exams are taken in Year 8 to motivate children, push them that extra bit further as well as letting them see how they are progressing before taking the real National Level exam at the end of Year 9). Throughout the period...

rohanarora99a 26.05.2006 · Read review
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Review of Europress Key Stage 3 Triple Test Pack Ages 11-14 Complete package

Driving theory test CD rom

Advantages: Can practise your test like it is the real thing
Disadvantages: Mouse pointer on hazard perception

..., road signs, hazards, driving safely e.t.c... In addition to this part of the test, the government introduced a second part known as 'hazard perception'. For this you are shown 14 video clips filmed from inside a car. On each clip there is one hazard, except on one clip where there is two. The cd rom which is made by a company called Focus and costs £9.99 from a number of retailers including W.H. Smith and Waterstones, really helped me with my theory test, in particular the hazard perception. On the CD rom there are the following features.... -The entired DSA driving theory question bank (1000+questions) -8 official hazard perception clips, along with an additional 50 clips - 280 video and photograpg questions on observation and common driving mistakes -a progress monitor which tells you how ready you bare for the exam -virtual...

lbr102 27.08.2005 · Read review
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Review of Driving Test Success THEORY 2003/2004 Edition Complete package

CD-OK

Advantages: Store yor data, free your hard drive
Disadvantages: come on a spindle and have no cases

...I recently managed to fill up my 80GB Hard drive with all sorts of rubbish and needed some CD's to store my information on. Usually I would buy them from Tesco's, but as I was In a hurry I popped into my local computer retailer (Northbridge Computers in Lowestoft) to see what he had available. All he had on this occassion was TDK CD-R80 discs. There was single CD's in cases, boxs of ten in cases and spindles of twenty-five and one hundred. I plummeted for the spindle of twenty-five as I wasn't rich enough at the time to buy the big fat one hundred spindle. ***Product*** The disc's themselves are light blue with a silver swirl on it. TDK CD-R80 is clearly stamped on it. There is plenty of room to write on them and they can store up to 700MB of data or 80 minutes recording time. They are ideal for backing up files, pictures, photos...

Kingkarliii 25.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of TDK CD-R 80 min

48 Hour CD Service

Advantages: Cheap chart and new releases. 48 hour delivery typical
Disadvantages: Postage may or may not be included in listed price

...101cd have always serviced me well with my CD needs. I tend to order from either these guys, or Amazon. 101cd have very good deals on chart and new releases. These go for £9.99 which includes p+p. Typically you can expect your order to arrive in around 48 hours. They always have a good budget range for sale, usually these are around the £6-8 mark. You pay p+p on top of these though. As expected you can search by artist, title etc, and look through the whole catalogue. There is very rarely a cd they do not have. Prices do vary though, and they may not be the cheapest around. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't! They do offer imports and rare releases. These often seem to be sourced from other retailers, so you may benefit by going directly to that retailer for the rare or import cd you may want. You can earn ipoints by...

alflavor 16.01.2001 (13.05.2001) · Read review
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Review of 101CD

Cd Wow Indeed

Advantages: Online/secure payment and free postage
Disadvantages: Takes a few days to arrive/limited choice

...I'd read a review here on Ciao on CD WOW and a few days later a friend of mine mentioned it too. So I decided it was time to investigate further...... So off I went to www.cd-wow.co.uk Simple site designed in black, red and blue. I decided to sign up. This whole process took, five mins max! You just had to supply a few details including email address etc. Your email address doubles as your username and you have to make up a password for your account. On the left hand side of the page is as the top twenty CDs (based on UK CHARTS) and in the middle pre-releases and a review of a new album (at the moment David Gray) then on the right hand side has a ad telling you about the amazing free delivery, customer service details, dvds, and games. A little background info on the company (all these details can be found on the page) are...

tracy2002 02.11.2002 · Read review
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Review of cd-wow.co.uk