Thank you, Patok! I think the slim one will work for me because I don't plan
to do much burning. I was concerned about not being able to use an external
power supply, but I gather that for my purposes this should be OK.

Jo-Anne

"Patok" wrote in message
...
I wish to address another point that nobody else seems to address.
Depending on how many DVDs you plan to burn, choosing a full-size
high-speed burner (with an external power supply) might be a better
option.
The slim-size one you've been looking at is limited to 8X, for a reason.
The USB can't supply the power for higher speeds, even with two
connectors. But the main point is, that burning many DVDs at such slow
speeds is a PITA. Especially since the advertised 8X is only really 8X at
the very end of the DVD; in the beginning and during most of the time it
is in fact 2X, 4X and 6X. And the read speeds are higher on the big ones
too, in case you want to copy or read large files quickly.
The only limitation on the big drives might be the USB transfer speed.
The 16X speed is 22MB/s, while on my laptop USB2 can't achieve more than
20MB/s. Thus, I can't actually burn at 16X, and do it at 12X. The
difference in burn times is not big between those two, however, as most of
the time is spent burning at slower speeds from 4X up to 12X anyway.
Oh, and apart from reading the customer reviews, avoid SONY drives like
the plague, no matter what the reviews. It helps that they are overpriced,
too.


Jo-Anne wrote:
Although I planned to buy an external DVD burner when I purchased my
WinXP netbook in 2009, I didn't do it. Now I have more of a need for one
(installing some software, copying files, playing CDs and DVDs) and have
found an enormous number to choose from.

The advice I received here in 2009 was to check reviews and not to go by
price--that more expensive wasn't necessarily better. But what else
should I consider? For example, will all burners work with WinXP? Is tray
loading better than slot loading? Should any brands be avoided? I'd be
grateful for advice.

--
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