Samsung SH-S203B (SATA)

Blu-ray writers have been available for over a year now, but when we looked at them in issue 146 even the cheapest cost a stratospheric £407. Today, prices have plummeted, and an ever-expanding range of high-definition movies makes Blu-ray an increasingly attractive option.

If a SATA interface is more convenient, the Samsung SH-S203B is a fine alternative. It's a few pounds cheaper than the LG drive, but performance is similar. Writing single-layer DVDs was a little slower than the LG drive, with DVD+Rs taking 5mins 40secs and DVD-Rs taking just over five minutes. Dual-layer discs completed burning just past the 13-minute mark. With disc-authoring, video-authoring and media-playback software included as standard, its £14 price is very reasonable.

Conclusion

If you want to make cheap, fast data backups, DVD is still the format to beat. With even the cheapest write-once Blu-ray discs working out at around 45p a gigabyte, Blu-ray has a long way to go before it becomes a viable medium for anything other than HD video authoring.

If you're building a media-centre PC or fancy watching HD movies on your TFT, however, LG's GGW-H20L brings HD DVD and Blu-ray playback into the realms of affordability.

Author: Sasha Muller