ASUS has shown us once again that their engineering expertise isn't limited to just motherboards and video cards. With the SDRW-08D1S-U, the company has delivered a compact and versatile DVD writer that offers good looks, useful features and some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available on a portable drive.
The SDRW-08D1S-U performed relatively well when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 8x. At this speed, it took a little more than 11 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. The drive also did pretty well in our rewriting tests, turning in some respectable times with DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media. Writing to DVD±R DL media wasn't a problem for the SDRW-08D1S-U either. Thanks to its 6x writing speed, it took the drive about 28 minutes to burn 8GB of data.
Finding compatible media really wasn't an issue with the SDRW-08D1S-U. The drive wrote to all of the DVD±R media I tried at 8x and was even able to write to Verbatim's 2.4x DVD+R DL media at 4x. The SDRW-08D1S-U's writing quality was also pretty good for the most part. However, there is still room for improvement, especially with Sony manufactured DVD±R discs.
The SDRW-08D1S-U also performed fairly well in our DVD read tests. While its seek times were a little higher than I would have liked, the drive was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's as well as DVD±R and DVD±RW media at 8x. The SDRW-08D1S-U also read DVD±R DL discs at 6x, but slowed to only 4x when reading DVD-Videos.
Reading CD's wasn't a problem for the SDRW-08D1S-U either. While its seek times were again a little high, the drive read pressed and recordable CD media at speeds as high as 24x. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at 20x. As a writer, the SDRW-08D1S-U performed as expected. The drive was relatively quick when writing to CD-R and CD-RW media and its writing quality was quite good.
ASUS's new DVD writer also has its share of features. A truly portable drive, the SDRW-08D1S-U is powered off a computer's USB bus. Without the need for an AC power source, you can burn and play DVD's wherever you go. The drive also features ASUS's FlextraLink buffer underrun protection as well as the ability to set the book type of DVD+R DL media. The SDRW-08D1S-U also includes a software bundle consisting of CyberLink's Power2Go. While Power2Go can burn and copy discs as well as password protect your files, you will need to pick up additional software if you plan to edit videos or playback DVD movies.
One thing the SDRW-08D1S-U definitely has going for it is its price. Available in your choice of black or white, the retail version of the drive can be picked up for about $60 through some of the online vendors listed on Pricegrabber.
| ASUS SDRW-08D1S-U 8x USB 2.0 DVD±RW/RAM |
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| Features: Installation: Performance: |
8 8 8 |
| Overall: | 8 |
Highs:
- Writes to DVD±R media at 8x
- Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
- Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
- Writes to DVD±R DL media at 6x
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 8x
- Reads DVD±R and DVD±RW media at 8x
- Reads DVD±R DL media at 6x
- Reads and writes to DVD-RAM media at 5x
- Features 24x CD-R and 16x CD-RW writing speeds
- Good CD writing quality
- Features ASUS's FlextraLink technology
- Very compact and lightweight design
- Powered off the USB bus
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R DL media
- Includes vertical drive stand
- Affordably priced
Lows:
- Doesn't include any DVD playback software
- Questionable writing quality with Sony manufactured DVD±R media
- Bundled version of Power2Go doesn't support disc encryption
- Reads DVD-Videos at only 4x
- Cannot set the book type of DVD+R or DVD+RW media
- High seek times
- Overburns to only 95:10
