Only Macbook Pro review other than the one above:

doesn´t work/not macbook pro compatible

Pros: thin

Cons: doesn´t work: uses too much power for a laptop usb port, so the usb port gets automatically disabled by a computer to prevent the circuit board from blowing out. Not only that, during the minutes before it is automatically shut off, the player fails to create readable signal for my brand-new MacBook Pro 2.6GHz core 2 duo laptop with 2 GB RAM.

Other Thoughts: DO NOT BUY IT!!!

As an alternative if burning isn't needed, how much does an xbox HD DVD drive cost ?

Before I launch here just lemmie say this is a heck of a deal for anybody than can afford it. If you can, grab it.

But this is FatWallet so maybe me and a few others would notice the expenditure of fifty bucks.

I have way too many desktop computers around here. Years ago it dawned on me that a burner in every one of 'em was not going to fly. Like everybody else I got (actually I built from old parts) an external 5.25" DVD burner that I move around as necessary from computer to computer. It works with my laptops, too, but that's only practical here at home.

For laptops or netbooks on the road, the OP's item is great. It allows you to do with laptops and netbooks what most of us do at home with desktops using a 5.25" portable DVD drive.

But on the road you really need a slim drive. Carrying a 5.25" drive, any 5.25" drive, on the road just doesn't fly. I already have just one slim DVD drive; it fits my Thinkpad 600. How to adapt that slim drive to my other laptops on the cheap?

Here's what I found, strictly FWIW:

Link to Adapter

Is this as good as the OP's solution? Of course not. It's a little less expensive, that's all. It's nowhere near as nice.

Do they make these for other brand DVD slim drives? Don't know - have not looked.

One thing, I just posted the first link I found. I think the prices on these slim drive adapters vary a little. You have to shop.

Anyone know if you can boot to this drive from a mini 9 to load osx on a netbook. i tried 2 external dvd drives already and no luck.

Usually any dvd burner or cd burner and any media will burn slower than rated. The rating is a max. You can burn a 16x media at 1x if you want. An 8x burner should burn 16x media at 8x.

The problem you usually run into is feeding the drive (especially on slow computers with slow hard drives)....You can burn at 16x and it'll burn at 16x for 10 seconds then stall for 30 seconds...and it ends up taking forever.

I mean with these new fangled burners they'll stop burning and start back up again, without an error...not like it was in my day! In my day, we used to have to pray that the buffer didn't underrun, then we'd have a coaster!

GEt off my lawn!!

this thing is really slim. i ordered yesterday and received it today. that's super fast shipping!

poisonz said:TrueMark said:If you have an old/broken/unused laptop with an internal dvd drive, you can also buy an external dvd enclosure to re-use that dvd drive by converting it to a portable external dvd drive. Search around (or on eBay) for "slim enclosure".
I guess, in the other hand you can buy this and upg your current CD-rom/DVD-Rom drive to DVD-RW for your laptop and move your laptop CD-Rom to this slim case.

but is it sata or ata inside..

Great deal.
I got one a couple of months ago on another, not quite so good, deal. Works fine with my Lenovo Thinkpad X61 running XP -- no built-in optical drive, so really useful.

Have used it to burn recovery disks, and have used those disks in it to boot the Thinkpad when installing a new hard drive. I haven't done a lot of burning with it, though -- more reading, since nowadays I tend to make ISO files and mount them as virtual disks.

Hi, I'm looking to get this Samsung drive, but I was wondering if it supports bitsetting DVD+R discs to DVD-ROM? Does anyone know? Thanks.