Samsung SE-406A Portable 6x Blu-ray Combo Drive

The SE-406A is a good example of what we've come to expect from Samsung's optical drives. This compact and versatile BD combo drive offers good looks, a number of useful features and some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available on a portable unit.

Using the bundled software, the SE-406A played all of the Blu-ray movies I had on hand, including those protected by BD+ and with BD-Live enabled features. The drive also performed fairly well in our transfer rate tests, reading BD-R discs at 6x and both BD-RE and BD-R DL media at a respectable 4x. Unfortunately, the SE-406A slowed to only 2x when reading AACS protected BD-ROM's. While this doesn't have any effect on movie playback, there are better drives out there if you want to rip BD movies.

For a portable drive, the SE-406A performed very well when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media, taking about 11 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. It also turned in some respectable times when writing to other types of media. However, the writing quality could have been better with some DVD±R DL discs. When it came to reading DVD's, the SE-406A was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 8x and most other types of recordable DVD media at 6x.

Reading CD's wasn't a problem for the SE-406A either. While the drive's access times were a little higher than I would have liked, it read both data and audio CD's at 24x. As a writer, the SE-406A performed as expected. The drive was relatively quick when writing to CD-R and CD-RW media and its writing quality was quite good.

Samsung's portable BD combo drive also has its share of features. A truly portable drive, the SE-406A is powered completely off a computer's USB bus. Without the need for an AC power source, you can watch a Blu-ray movie or burn a DVD wherever you go. The SE-406A also supports Samsung's AV connectivity technology which lets you connect the drive to an AV device via USB and play back the music, pictures and videos stored on a CD or DVD. To top it all off, Samsung has included a great software bundle from CyberLink which includes software capable of playing Blu-ray movies in 3D.

The Samsung SE-406A is available now in your choice of black or white and can be purchased from online vendors like Newegg.com for about $80.

Highs:

• Reads single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R media at 6x
• Reads BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 4x
• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 8x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 8x
• Reads DVD±R media at 8x
• Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 6x
• Reads and writes to DVD-RAM media at 5x
• Features 24x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
• Good CD and DVD±R writing quality
• Features Super Link buffer underrun protection
• Supports Samsung's AV connectivity technology
• Compact and lightweight design
• Powered off the USB bus
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R and DVD+R DL media
• Anti-fingerprint surface
• Includes CyberLink Blu-ray Disc Suite
• Affordably priced

Lows:

• Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R  DL media
• Reads AACS protected BD-ROM's at only 2x
• Cannot set the book type of DVD+RW media
• High access times