I had a horrible run of luck with a Toshiba DVD-ROM drive (see my dabs.com story for the gruesome details), so I got this one. I thought the slot drive looked really cool and had heard good things about this drive. Everything was true.

The speed is excellent, the slot takeup of discs is just right - not so slow that you feel like you're shoving it in, but not so fast that it gobbles the disc out of your hand like a sugar cube deficient donkey. It has been 100% reliable so far and performs good digital audio extraction (a must for listening to CDs properly and for ripping to MP3).

If I had to make a complaint, it's all too easy to leave a disc in the drive and shut down your computer. As there is no emergency eject (too complicated to implement I suppose) you have to power up the machine to eject your disc. I'm sure you get Windows programs that will eject the drive at shutdown. I've always meant to look into that.

Of course, being a slot drive, you can't use small (8cm) or odd shaped discs (like those business card shaped ones) - but it's a small price to pay.

All in all, unless you have to have a tray for odd shaped discs, this is the one to go for.