Calling all Laptop geeks.

[PCBONEZ]

I rebuilt laptops back in the day when DVD R/RW were rare in laptops because they cost several 100 $$.

I'm now needing some laptop format DVD R/RW for some Laptops and mini-systems.

What models of slim DVD R/RW are good, bad, crap, and not crap?

Thanks for your time in advance.

.
edit:
Some HAVE to be IDE, the others can be either/or IDE/SATA.

[yyonline]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

I like the Hitachi/LG ones... Usually identified by the bios as HLDS (Hitachi LG Data Storage). I have a Hitachi-LG in my personal laptop.

Toshiba, Samsung are okay.

I don't like the Lite-on laptop drives...they feel cheap and flimsy, so I'd question their long-term reliability although I've never seen any issues with them personally.

[dood]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

Hard to find retail IDE drives anymore. The only ones Newegg sells are SATA, as far as I can find. Don't really have a preference, but as above, the Hitachi/LG ones are good... as are the Sony Optiarc.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

Meh, Sony... no.

LGs are good but just for regular use, burn too much and they will die. If you're doing mostly reading though, they'll work fine. Stay away from Pioneer, the one that came on my DV9000 is rubbish. I've had nothing but good experiences with LiteOn drives, maybe they feel flimsy but they are perfectly good in the long term as long as accidents don't happen.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

Hard to find retail IDE drives anymore. The only ones Newegg sells are SATA, as far as I can find. Don't really have a preference, but as above, the Hitachi/LG ones are good... as are the Sony Optiarc.

try
http://www.ultradrives.com/

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

Has anyone used the NEC like ND-6550A?
.

[stevo1210]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

Has anyone used the NEC like ND-6550A?
.

I have and still do. I've had no problems with it whatsoever through the many years of use.

[yyonline]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

My work laptop has NEC...not sure what model as I don't have it with me at the moment. No issues thus far, and it burns things pretty frequently.

[mockingbird]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

LiteOn: Their older desktop drives were solidly built and reliable. when they became popular, their quality started to slip on their CDRW drives. Their DVDRW drives are usually the most capable of all when it comes to FES, booktype changing ability, RAW writing capability, etc... The quality of their newer drives are batch dependent and therefore hit or miss. Usually my preferred choice.
TS: "Toshiba-Samsung". Toshiba sold their optical drive division to Samsung. Usually, "TS" drives are Toshiba engineered and have good capabilities feature wise. One may become unlucky however and receive a Samsung drive.
LG:Very reliable drives but usually have the elast features of all drives. Their older DVDRW drives will not allow you to change booktype, don't know about their newer stuff.
Panasonic: "UJ" series drives are hit or miss. Some people like them, some don't. They are not immune to failure and usually have even less features than LG drives.
Samsung: Junk. Stay away and shun.

[yyonline]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

LiteOn:
LG:Very reliable drives but usually have the elast features of all drives. Their older DVDRW drives will not allow you to change booktype, don't know about their newer stuff.

I have a recent LG blu-ray burner on my desktop, and a Hitachi-LG DVD+-R DL on my laptop. Nero won't change the book type, but I suspect that's a software issue as I have a really old Nero version. No issues setting book type on either one with ImgBurn.

Both of those drives were bought new from newegg, so they have the factory firmware on them. I know some manufacturers tweak the firmware, so I don't know how that might affect features.

[toastygoodness]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

LiteOn: Their older desktop drives were solidly built and reliable. when they became popular, their quality started to slip on their CDRW drives. Their DVDRW drives are usually the most capable of all when it comes to FES, booktype changing ability, RAW writing capability, etc... The quality of their newer drives are batch dependent and therefore hit or miss. Usually my preferred choice.
TS: "Toshiba-Samsung". Toshiba sold their optical drive division to Samsung. Usually, "TS" drives are Toshiba engineered and have good capabilities feature wise. One may become unlucky however and receive a Samsung drive.
LG:Very reliable drives but usually have the elast features of all drives. Their older DVDRW drives will not allow you to change booktype, don't know about their newer stuff.
Panasonic: "UJ" series drives are hit or miss. Some people like them, some don't. They are not immune to failure and usually have even less features than LG drives.
Samsung: Junk. Stay away and shun.

i think this is spot on. with the addition of NEC with LiteOn, although NEC has less features, it is consistent in quality.

[MXM]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

^ agree.

-im not a laptop geek but had some experience on em from jobs in the past-

peace.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Calling all Laptop geeks.

Thanks for all the responses guys.
[Just so you know I'm following along....]