Why not more CDRW/DVD combo drives?

[scourge]

I know of the following combo drives:
Toshiba R1002
Samsung SM-304 and SM-308
HP 9900ci

I can't even find the Samsung drives for sale anywhere. Are there more drives like this? And why aren't they more popular?

[This message has been edited by scourge (edited 04-17-2001).]

[spidey_joe80@hotmail.com]

I think its because they suck! Why would u want one it costs about the same of a separate dvd and cdrw but with the combo the dvd is slow and the cdrw is slow. buy them separate. Good Luck

[araaraara]

A combo unit costs less than a good quality dvd and cdrw drive. It's just a way to make more money. I'm sure that when everybody has a cdrw and dvd drive, then combo units will come out.

[JayMan]

Ricoh make a dvd/cdrw drive.
http://www.ricoh.co.jp/cd-r/e-/e_asia/drive/index9120a.html

JayMan

[DanU]

I've got the Ricoh 9060A in my computer. True, you can buy a separate DVD drive and CDRW drive for the same price, but having a combo drive is nice because it only uses one slot. I don't mind the slower burning speed. I don't burn a lot of CD anyway.

[AuraEdge]

Its not just that. With a seperate DVD drive, you can do on the fly CD to CD copies. With a combo drive, you'll still need another CD drive or you cant do CD to CD dupes.

Price is usually the reason that theres not that many combo drives on the market. Also with all those lasers in there, thier not exactly as easy as a DVD or CD-RW drive is to manufacture.

[JayMan]

Aura, i actually thought they still only contain a single laser, not multiples. I remember reading a thing about the ricoh's having superious focus for their cd-rw laser since it is also used for dvd reading it had to be able to read the dvd's data. Can't remember exact words they used, or where i read it. But somehow i don't think they would put more than one laser in a drive.

JayMan

[scourge]

I'm having a really hard time even finding these for sale on the internet. At pricewatch, only one place sells the Samsung, a few sell the Toshiba, and a couple more sell the Ricoh. They really must not be that popular. The way DVD and CDRW drive (and combos aren't) prices are dropping, it doesn't really make sense to buy one unless you don't have the room in your case or you only have one available space on your mobo's IDE.

[DanU]

I believe the Ricoh combo drives use a separate laser for the DVD functionality.

I bought mine at FRYs, although I've seen them on sale at CompuUsa, and a local place has them here too.

Doing CD to CDRW copying is nice, but like I said, I don't do a whole lot of that. I'm normally burning MP3s or doing backup with my drive. When I do have to copy a CD, it only takes about 5 minutes to build an image file on the hard drive. Not too bad IMO.