Toshiba Toshiba SD-R5372

• Reviewed by: d3wyou

  Strengths: tip top for the dollar. let's be honest people, nobody thinks they will be happy with a burner that (in my experience) can be purchased for roughly $40.

  Weaknesses: not too quiet, but good software can remedy that. can be inconsistant with reading discs; you can tell it 'revs up', and quits for a second every once in a while, but no biggie.

  Overall: this thing is a champion. i have this model, along with the newest memorex 16x dual 4x dual layer unit. obviously the more you spend the better a product is, i don't care what anybody says. but if you are sacrificing the quietness of an expensive drive for one that simply works, and works well then to me it's worth the money. i would recommend this drive to anyone. oh, and by the way, if somebody can't get it to work, they're a moron, this has worked since day 1 for me, with ZERO coasters!

• Reviewed by: Linh50

  Strengths: haven't found any yet

  Weaknesses: will only burn limited brands of media (if you can figure out which ones)

  Overall: after rejecting at least 8 different brands, the drive finally recognized the Philips brand, burned 1 copy and failed the next, so I really don't know at this time which media brand the drive will take .After 21 days, I still not able to burn more than 1 copy .Call to tech support is like calling Santa Claus.Don't waste your time and money figuring out, buy another brand.

• Reviewed by: gonwk

  Strengths: None really!

  Weaknesses: Problems recognizing Media Blanks. Burn Speed does not go over 4X. Slows to 1.2X for no reason. NOT A DEPENDABLE UNIT

  Overall: It will not recognize many Blank DVD Media's. After many trial and error I found out I can only burn successfully without too many coasters using Maxell DVD media. Toshiba can not handle HP, Memorex, CMC brand (Staples, ...) forget about Fry's brands - it will not burn GQ's, on and on. It was a nightmare finding the right DVD Media for this darn unit.I never got this unit to burn any faster than 4X. It drops to 2X or lower (1.2X) burn rate at it's own. It seems this unit it has mind of it's own.Bottom line, If I had the money I would buy me another unit ... but this Toshiba unit it is a "Piece of JUNK".

• Reviewed by: jimmm

  Strengths: Cheap. Lots of features I can't take advantage of because I can't get it to work right.

  Weaknesses: No data cables. No instructions. I can't get it working right.

  Overall: This drive came yesterday. It comes with a poor-man's version of Nero. I've spent the last 24 hours trying to make it work reliably. It has produced a dazzling array of different failures. I spent 2½ hours this morning trying to contact Toshiba tech support. I followed a chain of 6 phone numbers (3 toll free, 3 not). Each tone maze ended up telling me to call different number which, in turn sent me to another number, and so on until I looped back going partway back around the circle to finally speak to their "one" tech support person for their DVD recorders (on a toll call) who couldn't conclude what was wrong, but sent me to Nero. He said I could send it in for an exchange and they'd send me another one in 30 days or so. I found no way to contact Nero by phone, so I sent a support request via their website and have heard nothing. This may be the most trouble I have ever had with a single component. I've assembled entire computer systems that took this long because of trouble with more than one component, but I think this is my record for a single component. Edited 7/28 to say: I returned it as defective and ordered a NEC ND-3540A Edited 12/2005 to say: The NEC ND-3540A has performed flawlessly. Edited 10/2007 to say:And it still is.

• Reviewed by: AlanOne66

  Strengths: Out of the box worked great, easy to install. But...

  Weaknesses: Possible probability of failure within 1-3 months.

  Overall: Worked great for the first month, then stopped reading or writing CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW disks. However, would still read DVDs, but not write them. Returned for replacement. The next one worked again for about 30 days, then same problem. Bought another brand, no problems to date. (It's been over 2 months.)