Over the years, we've had a number of LG's Super Multi Blue drives in the 'Labs. With each new drive, they've raised the bar in regards to performance and features. While lacking BD writing capabilities, the UH10LS20 continues this trend by offering some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available on a BD combo drive as well as support for technologies like LightScribe.
Using the bundled software, the UH10LS20 played all of the Blu-ray movies I had on hand, including those protected by BD+ and with BD-Live enabled features. The drive also performed fairly well in our transfer rate tests, reading BD-R discs at 10x and both BD-RE and BD-R DL media at a respectable 8x. Unfortunately, the UH10LS20 slowed to only 4.8x when reading AACS protected BD-ROM's. While this doesn't have any effect on movie playback, there are better drives out there if you want to rip BD movies.
With a maximum DVD±R writing speed of 16x, the UH10LS20 is no match for the current crop of DVD writers. Nevertheless, it was faster than most of the Blu-ray drives I've tested, taking about 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. The UH10LS20 also had no problems holding its own when writing to other types of media and was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and other types of recordable media at 12x.
Reading and writing CD's wasn't a problem for the UH10LS20 either. In our tests, it read pressed and CD-R media at speeds as high as 48x and CD-RW discs at 40x. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at speeds as high as 40x. As a writer, the UH10LS20 performed as expected. The drive turned in some respectable times thanks to its 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds and its writing quality was quite good.
LG's new BD combo drive also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the UH10LS20 is equipped with a 4MB buffer that is backed up by some sort of buffer underrun technology. The drive also supports HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system and has the ability to set the book type of DVD+R and DVD+R DL media. Last but not least, LG has included a great software bundle from CyberLink.
In the end, it usually comes down to price. For what it offers, LG's BD combo drive is surprisingly affordable. The retail version of the UH10LS20 can be purchased from Amazon or through the retailers listed on Pricegrabber for about $115.
| LG UH10LS20 10x Blu-ray Combo Drive |
|
| Features: Installation: Performance: |
9 9 8 |
| Overall: | 9 |
Highs:
- Reads single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R media at 10x
- Reads BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 8x
- Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
- Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
- Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
- Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 8x
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
- Reads DVD±R media at 16x
- Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 12x
- Features 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
- Includes buffer underrun prevention technology
- 4MB buffer
- Good CD and DVD writing quality
- Includes software from CyberLink
- Nice looking design with bright blue LED
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R and DVD+R DL media
- Affordably priced
Lows:
- Reads AACS protected BD-ROM's at only 4.8x
- Cannot set the book type of DVD+RW media
- High CD access times
- Overburns to only 95:10
