Lite-On SOHW-1693S

• Reviewed by:

  Strengths: Great combo drive, fast, does what it's supposed to do! Two bezels, black and beige! If only they made a silver one.

  Weaknesses: Loud, vibrates.

  Overall: The computer that this drive is installed in is very small and light, and this drive vibrates when it spins up sometimes, that it makes the computer move across the floor. For the normal computer though, this will not be a problem. It is a bit loud for my personal tastes, but then I like my computer to be so quiet it isn't noticable. Would purchase again.

• Reviewed by: Jaguar07

  Strengths: Burns fast, mine is relatively quiet compared to my Plextor.

  Weaknesses: None.

  Overall: I have had this for about 3 months now. It burns on any media I've placed inside it. It's screaming fast. It's black or beige on demand.

• Reviewed by: Danchu

  Strengths: Quiet and Fast Speeds

  Weaknesses: CD reading sketchy...

  Overall: I been using this product for a month and it plays everything real well and quiet. However, I've had the instance when trying to burn a CD it locked up and gave me an error. I tried to create the cd again, but this time, the drive didn't even respond. It sounded like it was spinning, but stopping and clicking, as if the laser was misaligned. I popped in a DVD and it played flawlessly however, and even burned a DVD. So maybe it was a bad egg I got, but I've read this situation has happened to other customers. Updated to the most recent firmware, but to no success. I've RMA'd it for a replacement and will see how this works out again. Reading DVDs, but not CDs? Weird

• Reviewed by: lilkrissey

  Strengths: Works very well and was very easy to install for a newbie.

  Weaknesses: Haven't found one yet

  Overall: This drive is allot faster than others I have had. Have not had any trouble with it as of yet and am not obviously planning on it. The software bundle works well with it and the entire drive is a great value for the money. They are going for over 80.00 locally in the computer stores.

• Reviewed by: alphabasic

  Strengths: - One of the fastest read/ripping speeds on the market today.- Very good error correction.- Better than average writing speeds with most formats.

  Weaknesses: - Dual layer burning speed a tad slower than most 4xDL brands.- Doesn't support overburning DVDs. - A tad noisy, but I've never seen a 16X DVD-R drive that wasn't.

  Overall: Supports whatever you put in it, no more picky DVDR shopping. The $160 burners won't outperform it in most tests, which leaves you with no reason to not pick this one up.