I bought this external DVD drive to use with the Asus EEE PC. I have never owned or even used an external DVD drive before. I also didn’t know external optical drives are so expensive!
The drive uses the USB interface and is also USB powered. If the USB port cannot supply enough power, a second power to USB cable is provided. This is a very nice setup as it does not require a power socket for true mobility. The only problem is that the power to USB cable is shorter than the USB data cable. The unit is very light but it does have a very plastic feel. There is a bit of flexing towards the edge where the CD tray is but I guess that’s understandable. It does use the glossy finish so you will get finger prints on it.
The size of the unit is very thin but not the thinnest I’ve seen. The unit is slightly bigger than the CD which can be seen in the pictures below. It hardly weighs anything so it won’t be a huge problem for travelling.
I used the drive on the Asus EEE PC. It was recognised with no problems and had the ability to boot a CD using it. There were times if you moved it too much, it would cause problems when the disc was spinning at it’s highest speed. I was able to watch a DVD from it with no problems. I have yet to burn a DVD or CD on the unit. It came with Nero 7 sofrware but I won’t be using it in Linux.