The WH10LS30 is a good example of what we've come to expect from LG. While affordably priced, this Super Multi Blue drive offers some of the fastest BD reading and writing speeds available as well as support for technologies like LightScribe.
The WH10LS30 is the first drive from LG with the ability to write to both BD-R media at 10x. At this speed, it took about 11 and a half minutes to burn an entire 25GB disc. While this wasn't enough to top the 12x Blu-ray Disc writer from Plextor, LG's new Super Multi Blue drive gave it a serious run for its money. The WH10LS30 also performed very well when writing to BD-R DL media, burning a full 50GB BD-R DL disc in a little more than 27 minutes. The drive wasn't nearly as fast when writing to BD-RE media. However, its performance was on par with the other Blu-ray Disc writers I've tested.
Using the bundled software, the WH10LS30 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 WH10LS30 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.
LG's new drive also has the ability to read and write to all standard DVD formats, including DVD-RAM. The WH10LS30 performed very well when writing to DVD±R discs, taking about 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. The drive also had no problems holding its own when writing to other types of media. However, the writing quality could have been better with some DVD±R DL discs. Nevertheless, the WH10LS30 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 WH10LS30 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 WH10LS30 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 Super Multi Blue drive also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the WH10LS30 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.
The retail version of the LG WH10LS30 is available now and can be purchased through retailers like Amazon for less than $170.
| LG WH10LS30 10x Blu-ray Disc ReWriter |
|
| Features: Installation: Performance: |
9 9 8 |
| Overall: | 9 |
Highs:
- Writes to BD-R media at 10x
- Writes to BD-R DL media at 8x
- Writes to BD-RE media at 2x
- 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 BD-ROM's and BD-R media at 10x
- Reads BD-RE and BD-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-R and DVD±R writing quality
- Low seek times
- 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
- Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R DL media
- Cannot set the book type of DVD+RW media
- Overburns to only 95:10
