Hardware: Samsung's little (not quite) black box
There is remarkably little to say about Samsung's latest DVD Writer. It just plugs in and works.
But it looks very cool and is exudes quality.
It's amazing how quickly one gets impressed with Samsung's “Super-Writemaster” SH-S182 – even the box is a particularly attractive design, almost but not quite black and white. Picking it up, the next thing that surprises is the weight of the box.
There is genuine interest to see what comes out of the box. And if it's possible for a disk drive to please the eye, this is the only one we've ever seen that does. The black theme is carried to the front panel which, although it is laden with logos, remains an elegant looking device, albeit one that would be still further enhanced by having just the Samsung logo . More, all of that weight is in the drive itself – it's the most robust CD / DVD etc drive to pass through our hands since an old HP CD drive that was proud to announce that it wrote at double speed.
Now we have moved on: this drive write CDs at 48x – that's 24 times faster than the HP that seemed miraculous at the time. CD-RW is at 32x. And DVD-R writing is at 18x. DVD+ or – RW is at a more sedate 8 or 6 times respectively.
Fixing the device is simplicity itself – just open the PC case, find an empty CD drive slot and push out the blanking plates. Using the supplied cable, fix the supplied cables to the sound and data ports and apply the power supply. Then screw the box into the slot. Turn on the PC and the operating system will find it.
It's at this stage that if there is any criticism, it must be made. Like most manufacturers, Samsung ignores the fact that Linux is finding its way to the desktop with increasing frequency. No longer are Linux users fringe – they (we) are now mainstream. And all the supplied software is for Windows users.
The bundled software has a couple of annoying tweaks: first, at first sight, the “auto update” feature for firmware seems like a good idea but it gets annoying after just a few hours, sitting in the system tray and phoning home every so often. Secondly, somehow the bundled Nero application became the favoured player for WMV files – but the player frequently hung and, this being Windows, that meant the whole machine became pretty useless until it was sorted out.
Under Linux, the whole thing was much simpler, in part because SUSE 10 OSS recognised the drive for what it is, and all the necessary software was already installed in the OS. And because it's a SUSE installation, applications software is installed, too.
The most satisfying thing about the drive is its build quality. Unlike every other drive we have had recently, this one has a drawer that slides with a reassuringly solid action; it closes with a feeling of weight and quality. It just feels like it will outlive all the rest of the kit in the office.
And it's cool black face fits in nicely with the cool black machine it is sitting in.
Best of all, though, is the price. This one came out of Malaysia where the price was the equivalent of about GBP20. The HP mentioned above cost, if we recall rightly, almost GBP200. The price / performance / quality ratio of this drive is outstanding.
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