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The Liteon eTAU108 is an impressive drive on the whole. The build-quality isn't the best we've experienced but for the price it's quite acceptable. The lack of a pull-out tray means there are fewer parts in the drive, allowing LiteOn to keep the weight to an absolute minimum and making it as easily portable as possible.
Our performance tests showed the eTAU108 lagging behind the Hitachi drive in our Macbook in the write tests but we suspect this is a result of the limitations of a single USB connection; the drive didn't seem to reach as high a maximum speed which is a likely result of power limitations.
At a price of around £30 at Ebuyer, the eTAU108 provides reasonable value for money. Although the drive isn't specifically listed as compatible with OS X, we found both read and write functions to work perfectly, making this drive perfect for use with a Macbook Air as it is approximately half the price of the Apple-branded alternative. It will also make a perfect companion for someone wanting to watch DVDs on the move with a netbook or a laptop without a DVD-drive.
KitGuru Says: A stylish drive that is perfect for people on the move.
Liteon are a good optical drive maker, always buy them for internal DVD drives for my system builds. This time however id like to get a usb 2 powered blu ray unit, like the one zardon reviewed last month in the HQV article. seems to make more sense in 2010 for media options also.
This is a very good product, interesting to see more of these reviews on kitguru, rather than just the high end cpus and graphics cards. monitors and these little items are great reads.
Very cool idea of using macintosh computers now and then. like to see a balance on tech sites.
Seems the first thing to go on Netbook and ultra light Notebook computers is the DvD R/W. This small USP plug and play fills my need for a DvD on both a Netbook and a Ultra light.