Customer Reviews

Dekcell USB Slim External Rewriteable DVD +/- RW Drive, DVD Burner

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I plugged this into my laptop XP and it started up in seconds. Perfect.
Really slim and tight. Sweet.
I got this for my Samsung Q1 Ultra. Awesome.
So this drive can be bus powered or take power from the included AC adapter. For those like me who are a less technically inclined "bus-powered" means that the drive will be powered through the USB cable when you plug it into the computer. That's good if you want to use it with your portable devices because then you will be free from having to deal with another cord (a power cord). The downside to that, of course, is that it will draw power and make your battery life much shorter if your computer unit is running only on batteries.
But you want bus powered! More convenient. This guy will do that. But can also can be plugged into the wall.

UPDATE 2/8/09-- Replaced it- it never would write to dvd or cd, I just never noticed it because it used it only for reading dvds or cds, never writing. TOTAL CRAP!!

Well First of all, if you buy a slim drive most likelly its because you plan to carry it around but the case of this drive is just too weak. if you hold it by the top to close the drive, the plastic is so weak it bends down preventing the drive from closing. The drive inside it was a Sony drive, but for some reason, it WONT read CDRW disks unless you use the external AC adapter (tried with several systems and all possible solutions found in forums including firmware updates). Now some good things: basically no problem to get it recognized by XP, Very quiet operation (considering other laptop drives i've heard). Conclusion: Not recomended unless you are a very very careful person and dont want to use it to write or read cds (DVDs work great)

Same as other customer. Ive struggled for weeks now, to make this drive work on my Sony Vaio w/ WinXP. Same error, "USB device not recognized or malfunctioned." Ive tried every drive I could find on the planet, to no avail. And BrilliantMedia's web site is no help. Giving up.

I bought this product I month ago and I have not been able to use it. It says it is corrupted even though I have the system requirements Windows XP. This is not plug and play!!!! What a waste of money.... now too late o return! YOU do not waste your money too!!! BTW, I tried it on many laptops and desktops and it just doesn't work

I bought this affordable drive and tried to use it on my XP laptop at home and my XP desktop at work. Both have all the recent service packs and updates, but the device will not start. Plug and Play reports it as an unknown usb device.

I'm going to have to send it back. I'd go with a recognized Plug and Play compliant manufacturer.

This DVD Player works well with my Asus eee PC 901. It is small and does not require external power. I have used it to watch movie DVD's and audio CD's. I have also used it with the Asus recovery DVD (to boot from the DVD and recover the eee PC operating System).

I would recommend it for folks with netbook computers that don't come with DVD Players.

this product has become an everyday part of my computer use. It works great and was easy to install. I had to download an add-in from windows but other than that it was plug and play.

it just doesnt communicate with the 3 computers(pc and laptop) i have tried to use it with. worthless

This disk drive couldn't be any easier to use. Mine was refurbished and didn't come with any documentation or a power adapter. However, I didn't need any instructions or an extra power supply to get it working.

Keep in mind I use a desktop and a laptop with Linux (Ubuntu and Xandros respectively) as my operating system. The cd/dvd drive works right out of the box without the need for any installations. This might not be the case for Windows users, although I have used it successfully with my parents' XP desktop every time. With that said, I've burned music, video, and data files to cd-r and dvd-r/+/-rw as well as ripping music, video, and data from cd's and dvd's. The only problem I've encountered is when I try making an iso file from a dual layer dvd. It reads dual layer dvd's fine, but it always fails when trying to make an iso file from them. I'm not sure if it's a hardware problem or a firmware problem, but I have as of yet not been able to remedy this. As a side note, I haven't tried burning to dual layer disks, so I'm not sure how well the drive can handle them.

Certain usb ports may not feed the drive with enough power. All ports on my desktop power it up fine, but one port on my laptop doesn't. So if your drive doesn't power up, you may just need to reconnect to a different usb port.

Lastly, the build could be a little better. The plastic feels quite thin, especially the roof of the drive. Putting just a little bit of pressure on the roof of the drive is enough to depress it and prevent proper closing of the disc tray.

Anyway, the pros far outweigh the cons. If you need an ultraportable disc drive with writing capabilities, you cant find a better price than this.

I received the item minus the extra USB/PS2 power cable. I wrote to the seller regarding this and they said they will post me the missing part. I'll update the review when I get this. But looking beyond this, the product itself is working fine and I can still use the inconvenient but functioning AC Power adapter if I am using a notebook which doesn't send enough power via the single USB cable.

The device itself is a regular notebook NEC DVD writer covered by a soft rubberized shell which gives it a very cheap feel. Thus it offers limited protection to the drive and as other reviews have pointed out you should not place anything on top of this device as it will put pressure on the drive mechanism. You should also exercise caution when packing it for travel. Loading CD's can be a bit messier than similar but more expensive products but once you get around to holding the front of the drive tray this shouldn't really be a big issue.

In operation it is quite fast and trouble free.