One Drive Fits All
By Bruce Brown

(PC Magazine) -- Apr. 24, 2001 -- Bought a notebook computer recently? If so, you probably had to make the tough choice between a DVD-ROM drive and a CD-RW drive. Now you can have both, with the Addonics Mobile DVD/CDRW ($450 street).

The drive is rated for 8X DVD playback, 12X CD-R recording, 10X CD-RW recording, and 32X CD playback. Complete with MPEG2 decoding software and CD mastering software, the drive was reasonably easy to install via a PC Card and worked almost exactly as documented.

The Addonics drive is hefty, measuring 2.0 by 6.2 by 10.0 inches (HWD). An IEEE 1394 version is also available ($490 sttreet). Both versions come with Cyberlink's PowerDVD MPEG2 decoder. Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.03, and Direct CD 3.03.

During testing with a Compaq Presario 12X1300 notebook, the first CD we put in the sliding tray made a loud racket and did not work. We reseated the dist and tried again, with the same results. On closer inspection, we found four tiny tabs located around the media holder. The tabs aren't mentioned in the documentation, but when we turned them outward they held the media in place. This significantly decreased the noise level. The media tabs are often used on vertically mounted drives, but in this case they were required even when using the drive in the horizontal position. The tabs do not make it difficult to insert or remove media.

After installing the drive and software, aided by a sparse manual with only a few illustrations, we were successful with several types of disks. We played an INXS audio CD, watched the WishMaster DVD in both regular and wide-screen modes, and copied an audio CD directly from the original onto CD-R media. We successfully played the copy on the CD-ROM drives on other computers and on a portable CD player. We also used CD-RW media as removable storage, dragging and dropping files and folders with Windows Explorer.

To give your notebook PC new life or both DVD movie playback and for CD-R/RW creation, the Addonics drive is a fine choice.

Addonics Mobile DVD/CDRW -
Street price: $450, Requires: 266-MHz processor or better; 32MB RAM; 1MB hard disk space; Type II PC Card slot; Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, or Me. Addonics Technologies Inc., Fremont, CA; 800-787-8580. www.addonics.com.

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