Introduction
I have always been sceptical about external optical devices, and was always worried about things like sync errors and buffer under-run errors, although I have never actually used one until now. Freecom were kind enough to send me one of their latest external DVD burners to test out and review.

The Freecom Classic external DVD writer comes in black and silver variants, and the one being tested here is the black version. The drive comes with everything you need to get going, including a 1m USB lead, a 2.5m power lead (complete with a variety of international adapters), application CD¡¯s (including Roxio Media Creator, and Roxio DVD Max player) as well as a blank 4.5GB DVD+R disk.

The drive consists of a sturdy plastic enclosure, with a USB port and power socket at the rear. The front panel has a eject button, pinhole for emergency opening, and a single green activity light. The drive does look very simple, but don¡¯t let this mislead you into thinking that it is also a simple performer.

Installation
Installation could not have been easier. I plugged in the power lead, and connected the drive to my PC with the USB lead, and Windows XP immediately recognized the drive all by itself. That was it¡­..easy! The next step was to install the Roxio Media Creator software (this is not necessary for the drive to operate, but is just a burning suite which gives Nero a good run for its money), which was a straightforward autorun CD installation. The Roxio software is very good, providing a intuitive interface with descriptive links from the initial screen, and then step by step wizards to guide anyone through many disk authoring tasks. It is very different to Nero, but essentially does the same job, and has the same powerful abilities, although I think the Roxio suite is a little more novice-friendly than Nero.

Testing
On to the testing, this is carried out using the Roxio software.

Firstly, I burned 4.5GB of MP3 files onto a 4.5GB Datawrite Yellow DVD-R at 8x speed. This took 12 minutes and 40 seconds to write, and no errors were encountered. That¡¯s not a bad time at all for a large amount of data.

Next up is the main test. I made a compilation of 8.5GB of data from ¡®My Documents¡¯ folder, and moved some random files about so that the data was as close to 8.5GB as possible. Then I started the burning process on an 8.5GB Verbatim dual-layer DVD+R disk at 2.4x speed (interestingly I was given the option to burn the disc at 4x, but I chose 2.4x as that was the certified/recommended speed of the media), this took 44 minutes and 3 seconds to burn the whole disk. This is quite a long time for a single disk, but is on par with the rest of the marketplace. You do have to consider though that it a very large amount of data being written at a slow speed to a single disk.

Some of you will still want to burn some CD¡¯s too, and the Freecom Classic is more than capable of this. I made another MP3 compilation of 699MB, and burned it onto an Infiniti 730MB CD-R at 48x speed. This took 3 minutes and 2 seconds. Very respectable.

I also took the opportunity to get some seek times using Nero¡¯s CD-DVD Speed, and measured a average random seek time of just 122 ms, and full seek time (move from start to end of disk) of 258ms, both of which are fairly average results.

                                                 
Conclusion
Overall, the Freecom Classic performs excellently, despite its simplicity, and is supplied with everything needed to get you started. It¡¯s super easy to install and use, and can even be quickly hot-swapped between machines. The multi-format compatibility means the drive is capable of writing to pretty much any media you care to stick in it. Performance wise, the drive is quick and quiet, although not necessarily faster than the majority of competing drives. The lazer used in the drive must be better than some others though, as when I inserted a badly scratched DVD that would not read in other drives, the disk was read with no problems. One of the best things about this DVD writer is the price, you get all of the professional features this drive offers at a budget price for a external drive.

There aren¡¯t many negative points at all to comment on about this drive. It is quite large compared to some others on the market, but its ease of connection/use far outweighs this. I would personally like to have seen a longer USB cable than the 1m one supplied, in order to allow greater flexibility, but at least the cable is supplied in the first place. I would also like to have seen a different colour activity light to indicate when the drive is actually writing

Review: FREECOM Classic External 16x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Writer
Reviewer: Vince Cutting (Cache-man)
Date: 26th July 2005
Manufacturer: Freecom
Available from: Aria
Price: £68.15 (inc. VAT)