Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)If you're shopping around for BD-ROM drives, you should be aware that the software required to play bluray movies can cost as much as the drive itself. It's therefore pretty crucial to find a drive which includes some software if you're on a budget. Keywords in the product description like "BULK" or "OEM" can indicate that software may not be included, so bear that in mind when choosing. The amazon page for this product does not give details on the included software, so I took a chance.
I'm relieved to report that this drive comes in a retail box which includes four screws and PowerDVD 9 software. I had been tracking prices of BD-ROMs on this and other sites for about a year, and at the time of purchase this was the least expensive option for a BD-ROM with software that I had ever seen.
As for the quality of the PowerDVD 9 software, I'm sure you can get an earful from its product page. For my purposes, it is able to play blurays, and I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. A notable difference between PowerDVD 9 and 10 is that only 10 will support 3D movies. If you're interested in watching 3D movies with this drive, know that you'll have to shell out some extra money for the upgraded software. Of course, if you're a 3D movie enthusiast, you're probably used to shelling out extra money.
Please note that a SATA cable is NOT included. Go ahead and add it to your cart now; you won't want to wait another week for amazon to ship it, nor will you want to shell out twenty bucks at Best Buy for one. I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but also make sure your power supply has available SATA power cables and your motherboard has available SATA slots.
I can't really review the comparative performance of this drive verses other drives. I expect higher speeds are more useful when it comes to ripping blurays or using data BDs, but the 4x speed is sufficient to play movies. The mild imperfections I observe when watching movies (more to the sound than the video) I'm more willing to attribute to my modest supporting cast (a 1.8 GHz Core2Duo, Radeon HD 3450, for reference).
Anyway, five stars for meeting my expectations of the drive, coming with software, and VALUE!
Click Here to see more reviews about: ASUS Internal 4x Blu-Ray Reader SATA Optical Drive BR-04B2T (Black)
ASUS BR-04B2T - Enjoy High Definition Movie Playback. BR-04B2T is a Blu-Ray disk drive capable of high definition playback. It provides you with a superior read quality of BD-ROM (SL/DL), BD-R (SL/DL), and BD-RE (SL/DL) discs as well as a wide range of CD and DVD formats.
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