CD Freaks is proud to present a review of the Samsung SH-W162L DVD writer, which Samsung Germany, one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers was kind enough to send us for review. Like the SH-W162C, which we reviewed last November , this DVD writer features 16x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW and 4x DVD-R DL writing speeds. The main improvements with this drive include 8x DVD+R DL writing speed and LightScribe direct disc labelling. The retail drive ships with the Nero 6 Express & LightScribe OEM suite. To simply upgrading the drive's firmware, the drive also ships with "Live Update" software to automatically check online for a new firmware update as well as carry out the firmware update process for the user.
Our European reviewer Jan has worked on this in-depth review, which has been published in our review section.
| 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 | |
| _ | ||
| LightScribe Quality | Time | |
| Best | 36 minutes | |
| Normal | 28 minutes | |
| Draft | 20 minutes | |
| _ | ||
| Buffer Size | 2MB |
This extensive review covers reading, writing and disc quality tests over a variety of media and brands, covering CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW and dual/double layer DVD media. As this is a LightScribe drive, the review includes LightScribe tests to see how quick and well this drive is capable of writing labels.
To see how this drive performs in its test, LightScribe testing, ability to cope with copy protected media and CD/DVD overburning, please head over to the review here. Once you have a look, feel free to leave comments or ask questions about the drive/review in this forum thread.
Source: CD Freaks Reviews
