Conclusion:
The Lite-On iHES208 8X Blu-ray Reader and DVD Writer Combo is a very
silent and feature-packed all-in-one drive that takes a unique position in the
market for being the only optical drive you really need.
There isn’t much of a
demand for Blu-ray burning in the IT consumer space due to the fact that a
10-pack of BD-RE discs exceeds the price of buying a 64GB flash drive that also
has faster start-up and transfer speeds. Nevertheless, the introduction of
higher storage NAND flash solutions in the upcoming years will wage an
interesting competition war against optical storage and its lasting
effectiveness for holding audio, video, film and priceless sensitive data.
In
the meantime, Lite-On’s latest solution holds a temporary time-gap
responsibility by featuring support for the ability to read almost every
optical format on the planet at very reasonable speeds. At the same time, it
can play back Blu-ray High Definition content with incredible precision and
silence, as the drive was quieter than every fan in our system during use. In
the future, it is possible that the company will develop a 16X Blu-ray Reader
with a larger buffer and a higher Burst Rate speed, but the need for anything
more is quite unnecessary considering the future of flash-based media storage.
For
the reasonable price of $109.99
from Newegg,
Amazon,
TigerDirect
and B&H
Photo, the Lite-On iHES208 offers the best value on
the price to performance scale over the other drives we tested and deserves to
be noted for its achievement as an all-in-one optical drive solution for the
majority of consumer usage scenarios. In Europe you will get ripped off as usual. For about €106,- you will get the black bulk version.
