Customer Reviews

Hewlett Packard DVD300e 4x2.4x8 External FireWire/USB 2.0 DVD+RW Drive

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I bought the 300i (internal) a year ago and have been very frustrated with it. If all you want to do is copying CDs/DVDs, that is fine. But if you want to have more control over it, good luck! The biggest complaint I have is the accompanying software. It treats the users like they don't know anything by hiding all the options.

Here are the problems I have:
1) If you have used Nero before, the hp woftware is going to really disappoint you. I spent "a lot" of hours getting this to work with my Win2000 Pro.

2) Watch out: The default is set to burn only one session rather than multi-sessions. And you have to change the settings in "option". Although this is the default setting for some other brands too, but at least with the other brands, you get to see the settings before it starts burning.

3) It is not compatible with other commercial DVD software. It conflicts with MS windows media player's Roxio burn-ware. And Nero doesn't work with it either, I heard. Again, google to find out.

Side note: although not designed for it, it does not work well with Linux SuSE at all.

It is very proprietory and it sucks. I am getting ready to invest in another DVD burner that actually works the way I want it to. Because of this DVD writer, I have been shunning away from buying another HP product... I have a HP inkjet that works pretty well and produces good quality printings, but the software that comes with it takes up more than 100Mb of my harddisk space... No lie!

I had a HP DVD200e. Dreadful. HP replaced it with a HP DVD300e. No improvement. We burned coasters on both, before getting a playable DVD. Even then that DVD would only play on the computer that transcoded it. We couldn't get it to play in 3 different laptops. It played in a Sony consumer DVD player, but the audio had a high noise content. I will never buy a DVD product from HP again. I now own an external SONY DRX510UL which is more reliable. However, I have an internal LG GSA-4040B DVD RW which is the best of the lot. If you can't fit the latter into your system, get a USB or Firewire caddy and have it as an external drive.

Didn't Amazon notice that ALL the 5 star reviews on this product are from the same person? It gives the product a higher total review then it deserves.

I bought this DVD burner thinking it would burn CDs and DVDs. The programs it came with wouldn't burn onto a CD-R or and RW. It wouldn't even erase the DVD-RW, Or CD-RW. I know the programs it came with are junk, but even the expensive programs wouldn't burn a disc. This error message kept coming up everytime the CD is almost finished, and before it even starts. This burner only recorded two DVD discs. But it can read the DVD's and CD's. I've had problems with all the HP products I've ever used. I don't ever plan on buying another HP product again until I see they've imporved on their stuff. I returned this item to the store and now I just ordered the Sony DVD dual format burner to see what that's like. The Sony DVD+/-RW drive model DRX510UL is what I'm getting.

I have been happy with his DVD burner since I bought it a month ago. I successfully backed-up 3 commercial DVDs and burned 2 home video using Memorex DVD+R media without a problem. I did not install the software that came with the burner though for I heard that was where most complains came from. I used Nero and it worked like a charm. Overall, I recommend this burner and I am glad that I bought it.

Please do not buy this item.

I bought one. It is broken right away (after two week; pass the store exchange time). I have called the technique service in India. I spent 2 times 3 hours with them try to figure out what was the problem. Even they figure out the machine is broken; they will not exchange my machine. They said the machine warranty is expired for 1 year warranty. The fact is that my machine is less than one year (made October 2003). I sill have the bad machine and I do not know what to with it. I have to buy another one from other manufactory.

Terrible experience! Terrible support! What more can I say other than I will never purchase HP products again.

I have used this burner for many months, and it has worked great. I was having problems with the included software, but once I switched to Nero 5.5, they all went away.

Bought this as I was low on cash, and I haven't been disappointed since!! Worked like a charm out of the box with the provided USB cable!! But its not without its pros and cons:

CONS: Big and bulky. For those with limited space, you might want to rethink a smaller external model or an internal model. DVD write speed might not seem such a big deal, but waiting half an hour to burn a full DVD at 4X speed is slow... I think 8X drives are already out on the market. Another drawback is that the burning software included is Record Now (not the Max version), which is not really useful. You would have to get a copy of Nero 6 to make full use of this burner.

PROS: Works with almost all media I throw at it!! Plus, the DVD+R discs I have burnt so far work with both a Sony and Shinco DVD Player, my Dell DVD-ROM, and my beloved XBOX (phillips drive). Also, the design of the drive looks kinda cool... several friends have had that "OOOOO" look when they first spot it.

I don't know about the quality of the technical support and warranty, as I have never had a problem with it!!! All I know is that there's a standard warranty for 1 year, but really... for a $200- product it is not really worth the time running around to get it repaired if it breaks down.

All in all... I would recommend it to anyone who is just starting out with DVD burning. There are better drives on the market, but this will suit the beginner and even experts just fine.

Buy this burner, it is the best +R/RW burner in my opinion, I researched for over 3 months before decided on this HP DVD300e (external, dvd300i is internal). I bought this ... 1 month ago... Very happy with it since. So far I have not had a coaster. Successfully burned with Memorex, HP, Ritek, Meritline.com own brand, Supermediastore.com own brand +R or +RW discs. I can make backup of my DVD movies &play on my Pioneer 606D &all Apex DVD players. Works with both +R and +RW discs!

Ironically, my very expensive Denon 5000 DVD player does not play the +R/RW backups, yet the cheapest DVD players like Apex have not problem playing them...