AOpen announced a new pair of 52X Combo Drives - the COM5224 and the COM5232. AOpen is one of only two optical drive manufacturers based in Taiwan that is able to produce 52X combo drives of this type. "Our new COM5224 drive, which rewrites at 24X, will be shipping by late January, 2004, followed by our COM5232 drive, slated to ship in late February, 2004 with the capability to rewrite at 32X." said Sean Chang, director, Optical Drive product line, AOpen Inc.

-- All-in-one - read/write/rewrite CDs and read DVD-ROM discs.
-- Buffer under-run-proof technology for extra dependability.
-- Support DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW formats.
-- Support Ultra DMA Mode 2 with 2MB buffer memory.
-- Support Mt. Rainier for drag-and-drop disc copying.
-- Support Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) under background formatting.
-- Write speeds of 52X - CD-R and 24X/32X - CD-RW.
-- Read speeds of 52X - CD-ROM and 16X - DVD-ROM.
-- Standard E-IDE/ATAPI interface.
-- Smooth, steady DVD playback.
-- Support writing models of TAO, DAO, SAO and packet writing.

Both the COM5224 and the COM5232 have MSRPs of $65 USD each and come with a 1-year limited warranty.