Samsung SE-W164C

Review Pages

- CD Format

For our CD transfer rate tests, we used the Nero CD-Speed utility and a set of Pressed CDs. Lets take a look and see how the drive performed compared to the other two drives.

The Samsung SE-W164C supports up to 48X max reading speed, but surprisingly enough, the drive managed to reach a maximum of 50X, while the two other drives, offer a max reading speed of 40X and 48X respectively.

Good reading speed was reported with USRW media as well, with the Samsung drive reporting an average speed of 31X and a max speed of 42X.

- AudioCD

In the case of AudioCD, the Philips offers the fastest speed, while the LG and Samsung drives are a little slower with similar performances. All drives reported a perfect score in the Advanced DAE Quality Test from Nero.

- 90mins Audio disc

- 99mins Audio disc

The Samsung SE-W164C read successfully the 99 mins Audio disc, but in the case of the 90 mins disc, it took too long to completely read the disc, at a reading speed of 1X.

- DVD Format

Now let's have a look at how the drive performs with DVD media inserted. Again, a set of DVD media was used, both SL and DL.

All drives support the same speed for the DVD-ROM format, 16X. Similar performance from all... although the Philips drive produced a speed drop at the end of the test.

The two layers of a PTP DVD-ROM disc are read sequentially with the drive starting reading from the inner part of the disc, which is the beginning of each layer, progressing towards its outer range. All drives reported similar performance.

The first layer of an OTP dual layer DVD-ROM is read exactly the same way as the first layer of the PTP disc we tested previously, the main difference being the reading strategy of the second layer on the disc. The beginning of the second layer is located in the outer part of the disc, so the drive starts reading from the outer tracks towards the inner part of the disc. Similar performance here to what we saw with PTP media.

As we can see in the two graphs above, the Samsung drive confirmed its maximum reading speed of 12X with DVD-R/+R media. Amongst the three drives, the Samsung is the fastest with these media, whereas when it comes to +RW media, all three drives offer similar performance.