Slimline USB External Dual Layer DVD+-RW drive. Reads and writes both CD & DVD media. Slim and portable drive for laptop

This thing is extremely loud. I can't stress just how loud it is without typing in capitals and looking like a clown, so I'll say again, this thing is EXTREMELY LOUD.

The machine's whirring and clicking and vibrating across the table, that is, not the audio level of the cd's it plays. It honestly sounds like a power tool is being used in the house. You will probably regret buying it.

Very prompt delivery, but the item didn't work properly: it played CDs fine, but not DVDs, despite everything I tried. I contacted the vendor, who sent a replacement (again very quickly) but that didn't work at all - again I tried everything I could think of, but it refused to play any discs of any type.

I asked the vendor again, explaining how many different discs, computers, ports, drivers, and reboots I'd tried, and he was stumped too. He could only suggest returning both faulty items for a refund. I had to pay the return postage myself of course, so I'm now £4.30 out of pocket with nothing whatsoever to show for it except a week of wasted time.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

This drive works fine - it only needs one USB port, by the way - and it is indeed slim-line. My only reservation is that although it has a metal casing, it feels like one slight impact could easily knock the laser out of alignment. Impacts happen when you're on the move, and this worries me, especially with all the Chinese bits of paper that greeted me whenn I opened the box (I mention this because in my experience Chinese electronics are more prone to breakdown than those from other countries - but please feel free to regard this as unfair prejudice if your experiences are different; I have no desire to come across as biased).

As already mentioned, it comes with a mains adaptor.

I had to run the USB 2.0 driver the first time I used each USB socket rather than just once for the laptop as a whole.

Recommended, but treat it with real care!

Update 15/10/08 - it's been a couple of weeks now, and the drive is still working fine, even though I've been carting it around all over the place. It seems that my misgivings were unfounded.

The Drive is very good for the price, slimline and portable. It works very well as a plug an dplay device, and goes very well with my Eee PC 1000H. However, when the drive arrived i was a bit annoyed that it was not black as advertised, but silver. its not really a problem, just a bit of false advertising on the part of amazon. But the drive is a fantastic bit of kit, and i would thoroughly suggest buying it.

I bought this to go with my EEE PC 900. It has the option of drawing external power from mains or can both read and write using just the power from the laptop through its usb connection. If you have the black EEE PC this drive is a must, ultra thin and portable, just the way the EEE PC like it.