Lite-On eSEU206 Portable 6x Blu-ray Disc Combo Drive

The eSEU206 is a good example of what we've come to expect from Lite-On's portable optical drives. Along with a good looking design, this compact and versatile BD combo drive offers a long list of features as well as some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available on a portable unit.

Using the bundled software, the eSEU206 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 single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R discs at 6x and BD-RE and BD-R DL media at a respectable 4x.

For a portable drive, the eSEU206 performed very well when writing to DVD±R discs, taking less than 11 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD.  It also turned in some respectable times when writing to other types of media and its writing quality was fairly good, even with DVD+R DL discs. When it came to reading DVD's, the eSEU206 was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD-Videos as well as DVD±R and DVD±RW media at 8x.

Reading CD's wasn't a problem for the eSEU206 either. In our tests, it 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 24x. As a writer, the eSEU206 performed as expected. The drive was relatively quick when writing to CD-R and CD-RW media and its writing quality was quite good.

When it comes to features, Lite-On's new BD combo drive definitely delivers. A truly portable drive, the eSEU206 is powered completely 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 includes support for Lite-On's SMART technologies as well as HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system. Last but not least, Lite-On has included a great software bundle from CyberLink.

The Lite-On eSEU206 is available now and can be purchased from Amazon or the retailers listed on Pricegrabber for less than $110.

Highs:

• Reads single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R media at 6x
• Reads BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 4x
• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 8x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 8x
• Reads DVD±R media at 8x
• Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 6x
• Reads and writes to DVD-RAM media at 5x
• Features 24x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
• Good CD and DVD writing quality
• Supports SMART-BURN, SMART-X, SmartWrite and OverSpeed technologies
• Compact and lightweight design
• Powered off the USB bus
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
• Includes CyberLink Blu-ray Disc Suite
• Supports LightScribe technology
• Affordably priced

Lows:

• Poorly designed USB cable
• Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at only 4x