Samsung SE-W164L DVD Burner Review

By
Wendy Robertson
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Review:
Samsung SE-W164L
Reviewer:  Dee-27 & Jan70
Provided by: Samsung
Germany
Firmware: TS01 -
TS03
Manufactured: October
2005


Samsung
Germany was kind enough to send us the SE-W164L for review. In this review we
will be seeing how this drive from one the world's largest electronics
manufacturers performs in our tests.


The Samsung
SE-W164L supports 16x DVD±R,
8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW, and 8x/4x DVD+R DL/-R DL
writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be
written. This drive is also the first drive from Samsung that
supports LightScribe direct disc labelling.


 Company
information:


We are sure
that most of you know Samsung already, but let us take a look at some of the
company information found at: www.samsungoms-europe.com














As a
world leader in the field of digital media, Samsung Electronics
produces Optical Disc Drives (ODD) since 1994. In the past few years
Samsung was able to take a central market position in this
field.



With
subsidiaries all over Europe and a large part of the former USSR,
Samsung Europe can offer the consumer a complete selection of disc
drives, for all types of computers.

With
large and continuous investments in research and development Samsung
is able to be more and more at the forefront of disc drive
technology.


As one
of the first companies developing COMBO drives (DVD-ROM and CD-RW
combined in one disc drive), Samsung is a frontrunner in this
technology.


In the
field of slim-line technologies, Samsung is expanding the line-up,
in order to meet the demands of the market for desktop and notebook
PCs.

Samsung
offers a wide range of Optical Disc Drives, allowing customers to
choose the exact combination of capabilities and features. Our
products feature the latest noise suppression technologies. If you
are looking for a high performance Optical Drive, you need look no
further than Samsung.


If you are interested in
reading more company information, please visit: www.samsungoms-europe.com


 


Drive
specifications:





Now let us take a look at
the specifications of the Samsung SE-W164L, found at Samsungs
website:



 


What's inside the
box?





In this section we will
take a look at what the drive came shipped with and take a look at the drive and
its technology.



Front



Back



Top



Bottom


 


Right and Left Sides


Below you will see the
contents of the retail box:




The drive supplied was
the retail version. As we can see the drive is supplied with power supply, power
cable (EU), power cable (UK), USB cable, vertical mount stand, software, and
instructions. 


Now it's time to take a
look at the drive itself:



The bezel of the Samsung
SE-W164L is pleasingly styled. We can see an emergency eject hole, a single
green coloured LED for read and write (we prefer a different led colour though
for writing) and an eject button. The logos include the LightScribe
logo, the WritemasterTM logo, the SAMSUNG logo, a DVD Forum DVD-R/RW logo, a DVD Alliance DVD+ReWritable logo and a CD-RW
High Speed+ logo.



Top



Bottom



On the underside of the
drive we found two labels and we can read it was made in Indonesia '“ October
2005.



On the back of the drive
starting from the left, we can see the USB connector, cooling vents, power
connector, and finally the power switch.


We installed the drive
without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero InfoTool:


 


From the screenshot of
Nero InfoTool above, we miss Mt.Rainier support and a larger buffer size. Our
drive came shipped with firmware TS01, but was later updated with firmware TS02
and TS03.


On the
next page we will take a look at the test machine, the software, the drive
features…………

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