Introduction
When we reviewed the Samsung SM304 a few months ago it made quite a splash: Its combination of the functionality of a CD Burner with a DVD-ROM drive made it a great all-around computing tool. Now finally Samsung has released its amazing new brother, the SM-308. At 8/4/32/8 the SM-308 is double the speed of the
SM-304 on CD-Burning and DVD Reading operations, and finally brings combined CD/DVD devices into their own.
Specs
Specifications
Write on CD-Recordable 8X (1200 KB/sec)
Write on CD-Rewriteble 4X (600KB/sec)
Read CD Titles 32X (4,800KB/sec)
Read DVD Titles 8X (10,800KB/sec)
Burst Transfer Rate PIO Mode 4 (16.6 MB/sec)
DMA Mode 2 (16.6 MB/sec)
Ultra DMA supported
Average Access Time CD:120ms, DVD 140ms
Supported Disc DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-Video, CD-ROM,
CD-R,CD-RW,CD-DA, CD-ROM/XA
Video-CD, CD-I/FMV, Multisession Photo CD
Extra CD, MixedCD, CD Text
Recording Capacity CD-RW Disc 650MB(type 74)
CD-R disc 700/650/550MB (Type 80/74/63)
Drive Type Internal
Interface EIDE/ATAPI
Buffer Memory 2MB Flash Memory 512KB
Drive Mounting Horizontal/Vertical
Writing Method DAO (Disc At Once)
TAO (Track At Once)
SAO (Session At Once)
Packet Writing (Variable, Fixed Packet)
Physical Specification Dimensions (WxHxD mm) : 149 x 42.5 x 200
Box Contents
SM-308 Drive 1- 2 plug IDE connector CD-RW Disk CD-R Disk Screws PowerDVD Easy CD Creator Manual The SM-308 comes bundled with Easy CD Creator for its CD burning software. With Easy CD Creator, Easy is the keyword; installation is simple, and the whole program is based on an obvious and clean interface. Although Easy CD Creator is a good program for beginners, experienced users may wish to use a program with more advanced features such as Nero. Samsung included PowerDVD with this unit as its DVD playing software. In addition to playing DVDs PowerDVD can also play other movie types like VCDs and MPGs.
The User manual included with this unit is a thin pamphlet with pictures and clear instructions on installation of the unit, making the already simple installation process even simpler.
Impressions
The SM-308 is a great drive; its finally fast enough to use all of its functionality with no problems. DVD playback was always clean, there was problems changing layers, and I never had frame-skipping problems. The SM-308 never generated any coasters during my testing, and with double the speed of the SM-304 I never had to wait for a long burn to complete. Installation was simple and the drive was always totally whisper quiet. I found that I could easily replace all the optical drives on my computer with just this one. I found no problems at all during subjective testing of this unit.
forums
send article 
hardware newsletter 
article comments (1)
Digg this!
del.icio.us