Duet CD-R2-U2 slim CD-RW/DVD combo - Page 1

We have in our hands the new Duet CD-R2-U2 drive. It is a slim portable CDRW/DVD combo drive, provided by Dynamic System Electronics Corp.

Dynamic System Electronics Corp was first established in 1998, and is specializing in research and development, manufacturing and selling of computer accessories. The company mainly produces external cases for optical storage drives, card readers, flash memory drives, external CDRW/DVD combo's, as well as other PC accessories.

The Duet is a portable slim combo drive, which offers CD-R/RW writing along with DVD reading capabilities. As all the devices of this type, the drive is an alternative solution for Notebook and desktop PC use.

- Drive features

The supported writing speeds are 4x and 8x (CLV), 12x, 16x, 20x and the maximum 24x (Z-CLV). The 24x (CAV) speed is the supported reading speed for the CD-R and the HS-RW media, which can be written at 12x (Z-CLV). The maximum reading speed for DVD-ROM is 8x CAV ( 1.7x ~ 8x ).

All the supported reading/writing speeds are illustrated below:

The Duet drive supports the USB 2.0 interface. For writing/rewriting, the SMART-BURN^® function and the 2MB cache buffer both help avoiding buffer under run. These functions can also help getting the best writing quality by smartly adjusting the writing strategy. Besides, the SMART-X function smartly adjusts CD-DA/VCD/DVD data extraction to a faster speed according to both data request rate from the host and the disk quality. The drive is compliant to the RPCII regulations, allowing the user to change the region code of the drive at most 5 times.

The supported disc formats are: DVD-ROM (single layer/dual layer), DVD-R, DVD-RW DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM/XA , Photo-CD, Multi-session, Karaoke-CD, Video-CD, CD-I FMV, CD Extra, CD Plus, CD-R , and CD-RW. The supported writing formats are the DAO, SAO, TAO (Disk-Session-Track at once respectively) and fixed/variable packet writing.

- The package

The retail package includes the 24x combo drive, a USB 2.0 cable, and a Power AC Adapter. The attached CD-ROMs contain the USB storage drivers for Win98 users, Nero Ver.5.5 for Windows, In CD packet writing software and a User manual in English. The package does not include any blank CD-R/RW media or any software for DVD playback.

The dimensions of the drive are 20.4 x 148 x 151 mm (WxLxH) and its weight is approximately 500gr.

The severe design of Duet provides a stylish overall appearance, combined with its very slim structure. The basic colors of the drive are the black and white. As you can see in the picture above, the "Duet" and CD-R/DVD-ROM logos are stamped on the top panel. From this view the power/status LED is also visible.

On the front panel of the drive there is the disc loading tray, the eject button, the emergency eject hole and the busy LED indicator.

On the rear panel there is the USB 2.0 interface and the power adapter ports.

- Installation

The Duet drive was connected to our test PC through the USB 2.0 interface, and was identified as "Slimtype COMBO LSC-24081" under WinXP. The drive came with firmware v3M06 installed and it was used to make all the reading/writing tests.

In the test graphs, we compare the new drive with an already tested slim combo drive, the INcoder TS24C-C1.