Samsung SH-W162L

Review Pages

- CD Format

For our CD transfer rate tests, we used Nero CD-Speed utility and a set of Pressed CDs. Let's take a look at how the drive performed as compared with the other two drives.

The Samsung SH-W162L supports up to 48X max reading speed but surprisingly enough, the drive managed to read the pressed media at a maximum of 50X. The Plextor and NEC drives offer a max reading speed of 40X and 48X respectively.

Good reading speed was reported with USRW media also, where the Samsung drive reported an average speed of 31X and a max speed of just under 42X.

- AudioCD

In the case of AudioCDs, both the Samsung and NEC drives support 40X DAE speed while the Plextor supports 39X. All drives reported a perfect score in the Advanced DAE Quality Test from Nero.

- 90mins Audio disc

- 99mins Audio disc

The Samsung SH-W162L successfully read both the 90 and 99 min Audio discs.

- DVD Format

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

Same specifications for all drives and hence, similar performance.

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. Samsung and Plextor reported similar performance, with 8X support, while the NEC supports up to 12X.

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. Here we see similar performance to that with PTP media with an average speed of around 6.4X.

The supported reading speeds for DVD±RW are not the same for all tested drives. In the case of DVD±R, the NEC is the fastest since it supports 16X while the Samsung and Plextor drives support 12X and 8X respectively.