Samsung Germany, one of the world's largest electronics
manufacturers was kind enough to send us their latest external DVD burner for
review - the Samsung SE-W164C. This DVD burner features pretty much the
same specifications as their internal model, the SH-W162C, but with the exception that this is an external drive. This drive connects via USB2 and can operate in either a horizontal or vertical position with its included mounting stand. It also features air vents and a grooved front door design to protect the user from a disc rupture. The drive's software bundle consists of Nero Express 6 OEM suite and a firmware live update utility. Finally, its live firmware update feature makes it very user-friendly to load the latest firmware as the utility downloads the latest firmware as well as installs it.
Both European reviewers Jan and Dee-27 have worked together on this review and have just published their in-depth hardware review, which covers reading, writing and disc quality tests of a wide range of brand of media as well as many advanced tests such as how it copes with copy protected media, 99 minute CD-Rs, etc.
Specifications:
| Media Type | Write Speed | Read Speed |
| DVD+R | 16X (21.6MB/sec) | 12X (16.2MB/sec |
| DVD+R DL | 6X* (8.1MB/sec) | 8X (10.8MB/sec) |
| DVD+RW | 8X (10.8MB/sec) | 8X (10.8MB/sec) |
| DVD-R | 16X (21.6MB/sec) | 12X (16.2MB/sec) |
| DVD-R DL | 4X (5.4MB/sec) | 8X (10.8MB/sec) |
| DVD-RW | 6X (8.1MB/sec) | 8X (10.8MB/sec) |
| DVD-ROM | - | 16X (21.6MB/sec) |
| CD-ROM | - | 48X (7.2MB/sec) |
| CD-R | 48X (7.2MB/sec) | 40X (6.0MB/sec) |
| CD-RW | 32X (4.8MB/sec) | 40X (6.0MB/sec) |
| _ | ||
| Media Type | Average Seek Time | |
| DVD | 130ms | |
| CD | 110ms | |
| _ | ||
| Buffer Size | 2MB |
As usual, this review covers in-depth read and write tests on a wide range of brands consisting of both DVD plus and minus writable, rewritable and dual/double layer media as well as CD writable and rewritable media. After each disc is written, a Disc Quality test is performed to show a PI/PIF graph of how well each disc performs.
To find out how this drive performs, including further specifications and details, please check out the in-depth review here. Once you have a look over the review, feel free to comment or ask further questions about the drive or review on this forum thread.
Source: CD Freaks Reviews
