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Disadvantages: Outdated and discontinued model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 best CD-R Software

Advantages: Capable, Stable CD-Recording Software.
Disadvantages: A little tricky the first time, but its not hard to learn.

...I have been using Nero from version 3 through to version 5. It was the best software I have used for the production of original CDs and for making backup copies of commercial CDs. The software has many features and the main talking point of version 5.x is the improved MP3 support and the ability to use multiple CD-Recorders. The MP3 Support allows the production of standard audio CDs directly from MP3s, whilst the Multi Recorder support allows the user to burn to many recordable drives (of the same type) at the same time. Just about every recorder is supported and new recorders are added with every update to the software. Whether you make heavy or occasional use of a CD-Recorder Nero 5.x is a great investment, as it will perform any CD-Recording task you may have with ease....

andrew_newton 11.07.2000 · Read review
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Review of Nero Burning ROM 5.5 Licence

CD-OK

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

...pen, do not spill your drink on them, keep out of sunlight, store at the right temperature and keep away from magnets and magnetic devices. ***Price*** These CD's cost me £5 on the button. ***Useful Addresses*** TDK Recording Media Europe S.A Z.I. Bommelscheuer, L-4902 Bascharage www.tdk-europe.com ***Conclusion*** Well what can I say, they are just as good as the tesco disc's, if not slightly better. They are easy to use, simply put them in the recorder then use your desired software to put the information on them. They are the same price as my usual discs and I would certainly recommend them to a potential buyer....

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

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)

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

The swiss army knife of the CD burning software world

Advantages: Additional features such as MP3/WMA/VQF Encoding
Disadvantages: Poor CD Cover inlay software

...Nero is the king of CD writing packages. As well as having all of the standard CD writing features (such as multi-session support, multi format CD support etc) it offers additional features not found in other CD writing packages. These features include: Enhanced CD format support: As well as creating data and audio CD's, Nero can produce Macintosh format disks, VideoCD (VCD) and SuperVideoCD (SVCD). VCD's created with Nero can be played on software VCD players on PC and Macintosh machines, and also on DVD players which support playback of CDR media. Direct burning of MP3 to audio tracks: Other CD writing packages require that audio trakcs are burned from wav files, or converted from MP3 to wav files before burning. Not Nero. Nero can burn MP3 files to a CD as standard audio tracks on the fly, as well as being able to apply audio...

djbenson 04.08.2000 · Read review
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Review of Nero Burning ROM 5.5 Licence

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

Ahead Nero Burning Rom 5

Advantages: easy to use and install, downloads quite fast
Disadvantages: none

...A mate told me about ahead nero burning rom, so i thought i would check it out for myself. I had easy cd creator but wanteda different one as it did not allow you to record on to 80 minutes cd,s and was told on nero that you could. You can burn both 74 and 80 minutes on nerom which do not take too long to download. It takes about 15/20 minutes to burn music on to a disk, which isn't too long at all. On nero you can create labels for your discks, but i've never actually tried this out so i can not say what it is like at all. With nero you can burn music, data and games so there is a choice of what you can do. I mainly use it for music but have used it for data a few times as well. You can use nero with most makes of cd writers. Nero costs abgout £30 in the shops from computer places like pc world. This is not a bad price...

tabyorky 24.08.2001 · Read review
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Review of Nero Burning ROM 5.5 Licence