The SH-B123L, Samsung's first 12x BD combo burner, could be considered as an upgrade to the company's previous 8x BD combo drive, the SH-B083L. Based on the same chipset, the drive offers the same reading speeds for CDs and DVDs. However, the BD reading speeds have been boosted to reach the 12x for BD-ROMs, 8x (CAV) speed for the BD-R/RE and BD-ROM/BD-R DL discs and 6x for BD-RE DL/ BD Hybrid discs. Let's summarize our findings.

First of all, the Samsung SH-B123L has the same front panel that was also met in the SH-B083L model. The black polished finish with the mirrored tray and the blue back-lit operation/eject button on the front will add some extra style to your PC or HPC case.

The drive proved to be a good CD reader, performing all the tests as we expected and matching its specifications. DAE tasks will be performed fast enough at approximately 28x (average) , while the CD error correction is adequate with the drive to sport increased error hiding capabilities. This means that the drive will do its best to read your old CDs and has many chances to play your scratched audioCDs without annoying clicks or skips.

Next on are DVD reading tests. The drive was fast again, reading all the DVD formats we tried including 12x DVD-RAM discs. However, the drive could not read some heavily scratched dual-layer DVD Video test discs.

The Sh-B123L is possibly the fastest BD drive among all those currently sold at the market, potentially reaching the 12x max speed BD-ROM discs. However, the 12x speed can only be achieved with data BD-ROMs such as as game discs or other BD-ROM discs. So don't expect to read your BD movie disc at 12x. In this case the speed will be 6x for both SL and DL movies. Your BD-R SL/DL and BD-RE SL discs will be also read pretty fast at 8X CAV. We were a little bit concerned about the compatibility of the drive when it comes to reading BD recordable and rewritable discs recorded by other BD burners. So we ran many reading tests with such discs. That the drive was very much compatible with BD-R SL and BD-RE SL /DL discs including BD-R LTH, but it had problems reading (read errors) specific BD-R DL discs that had been recorded at speeds higher than 4x. This does not mean that the drive will not read your BD-R DLs discs. It seems that it is just a little bit picky with BD-R DLs have been burned at high speeds and as such, their "writing quality" may have been affected.

Moving on, the SH-B123L will playback your BD-ROM and BD-R/RE disc smoothly enough for a great HD viewing experience using the CyberLink's PowerDVD software bundled with the package. CyberLink's PowerDVD is also supporting the 'TrueTheater' image enhancing technology, which will make your DVD videos look greater using up-scalling agorithms.The drive was also responsive to any navigation and FF/RW test we did while playing the movie.

Of course, the Samsung SH-B123L is able to burn CDs and DVDs. According to our tests, the drive can reliably burn on CD-Rs and DVD R discs. Of course, we identified specific cases where some CD and DVD recordables gave low writing quality results. These issues can be addressed with firmware tunings. On the other hand, the writing quality of DVD-R/+R DL discs was disappointing. We run the DVD-R/+R DL burning tests with the latest SB02 firmware installed, which is supposed to correct the DVD R DL issues. However, the results showed that the drive cannot reliably burn DVD-R/+R DL discs. It seems that problem has been "inherited" by Samsung's previous BD combo drive, the SH-B183L, which had also problems with DVD R DL discs. Let's hope that Samsung will also look at the issue more carefully.

The SH-B123L can be purchased online for less than €90, which is a reasonable price for a BD combo drive. It's impressive specs give a great potential and some firmware tunings could help the drive become a great performer.

Positive

• Fast CD/DVD reader
• Strong error concealment with defected audio CDs
• Fast Blu-ray reader - 8x BD-R SL/DL, 6x for BD-RE DL/ BD Hybrid discs and 12x for BD-ROM SL discs
• Smooth playback ob BD movie titles
• Good compatibility with BD-R SL and BD-RE SL /DL discs
• Generally good DVD-R/+R writing quality
• Writes/reads 12x DVD-RAM
• BookType support
• Overburns DVDs
• Reads 90/99min CDs
• Complete software bundle
• Lightscribe disc labeling

Negative

• Writing quality of DVD-R/+R DL and specific Verbatim DVD-RWs
• Has problems reading scratched DVD-ROM DL and DVD Video DL discs
• Problems reading specific BD-R DL recorded at speeds higher than 4x
• Low writing quality with Verbatim CD-Rs 74min 52x