LG GP08NU10 slimline portable DVD writer

Apple's MacBook Air may have put off some potential purchasers by eschewing a built-in optical drive, but it's not the only laptop to do so. The whole new wave of Small, Cheap Computers skimp on opticals for size and price reasons. Which is good news for makers of external optical drives, among them LG. Where once it would …

[Greg]

Cheaper than the Mac version?

Surely not! ;-)

[Iain Gilbert]

Eye on Macbook Air owners

If LG have got an eye on Air owners for this product it must be a glass one. From the review it seems that you require two usbs to run this device (one for power and one for power/data), the Air has one usb!

Personally I don't think those who bought Airs will want this anyway, if they can afford the Air they can probably afford the extra cost for the SuperDrive and will want to keep everything nice and pretty.

On the other hand, great for a netbook although imho you may as well start saving for a ultra portable laptop if you're going to start lugging around/paying for extra CD drives etc. The netbooks seems to be getting more and more expensive, personally I'd rather save my money and get the better spec of a proper laptop.

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar product

Plextor PX-608CU

http://www.plextor.be/products/PX-608CU.asp?choice=PX-608CU

[Neil Daniels]

MacBook Air...

...has only one USB port though...

[Simon McGarry]

Perfect Netbook Partner

I've got an LG GSA-E50N which I use with my EEE PC 701 and it works great with Linux or Windows and fits in the case I bought for the EEE, I was really surprised at just how small, cheap and good it was. I also get less coasters with this little drive than I do with either of my internal desktop dvd writers.

[Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware]

@All Re. Air and USB

The drive operates from a single USB port - the second cable's there if you're still on USB 1.1, or your laptop's vendor has reduced the USB power output. This drive works just fine on an Air's single USB port.

[spegru]

Dumping

Very nice. Works with all my PCs including Linux and EEE.

So nice not to have to use an external power brick

By the way, you dont normally need more than one USB since power seems more than adequate from just one - so presumably would be ok with the Air

[spegru]

All your burning needs covered... unless you're a Mac or Linux user

Don't need any stinkin' included software with linux - just use k3b (which is standard) and works just fine!

[Anonymous Coward]

If ...

If you needed a DVC/CD reader/writer then what was the point of buying a netbook? Why not just get one of them thar new-fangled laptop thingies and get the DVD built-in 'for free' - and a decent screen resolution as well?

[Tom Hawkins]

What goes around comes around

and I well remember the 'portable' CD-ROM drive I bought at great expense (and returned for a replacement as the first one was DOA) in the mid-'90s. It connected to my Powerbook 165 via SCSI and could allegedly be powered on about 12 AA batteries. The CD mechanism sort of detached so you could use it as a portable audio CD player. Either way it was shit.