LG Electronics External Slim DVDRW 8X with Software, Black GP50NB40

Many modern portable PCs have no CD/DVD drive or ability to internally install one. The omission is partly driven by the smaller form factors designed for mobility in size and weight. But even for systems physically large enough to house one, there is an ever-decreasing need for using an optical drive in the first place. Almost all applications and device drivers are available on the Internet which negates the need to ship software on physical media of any sort where it’s likely to be obsolete before such media ever arrives to its user. Yet there remain times where a CD/DVD reader and/or writer is still needed. People who haven’t transferred all of their old CD collections still need to rip them onto their hard drives. Burning custom audio CDs from iTunes playlists is still a reasonable way to give friends a nice gift (a carryover from the “mix” cassette days). And if you don’t happen to have ready access to the Internet, having physical media is the only way to go. So is the case for my situation where I have a couple of systems that don’t have an optical drive and need one every so often. The LG GP50NB40 external drive is just what I needed for supporting my Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S ultraportable and a Mac mini (mid-2011). Apple was an early mover in eliminating optical drives from their products, and many Windows vendors have now followed suit. While there are lots of choices in the market for external drives, many are way more expensive and likely overkill in features for most users in the modern world of 2015. This LG drive is perfect for my needs. My son uses the Yoga in college where he’s a music performance major and needs to view and rip music from CDs. My daughter in high school and needs occasional software installs that still ship on physical media and wants to rip and burn audio CDs for her friends once in a while. They will not be heavy-duty users, but when they need it, they’ll now have it. I tested the unit on both of their computers and on my traditional desktop machine that already has an optical drive. Everything worked as expected. No manual or automatic installation of drivers or applications were needed—it just worked right out of the box. The product comes with a CD of apps, but I don’t need them and didn’t try them out. Other units I found while shopping required a separate power adapter or a second USB line for providing sufficient power to the drive. This one is superior in needing only one USB cable to handle both data and power. Before I made this purchase, I read reviews already posted and some warned of issues with Mac compatibility regarding Mac OS not recognizing the drive unless a disk was already inserted in the unit. I found this to be true, but see no issue. The Mac OS X Finder will show the device once a disk is placed in the drive. If a disk gets stuck in the unit for whatever reason, there’s a pin hole where a paper clip point can be inserted to manually eject the disk easily enough. Having just received and tested the product for basic functionality, I cannot claim how well it will endure use over time. But the small size and price with the convenience of a single cable for both data and power, this product looks like it’ll be perfect anyone with modern-day computers that have no internal optical drive.

Considering the price, this is basic external CD/DVD drive that works. For some who use external drive extensively, might want to consider higher end product that will endure wear & tear of the drive. Others who use infrequently (once in a while), this LG might fit the bill. 1. It is decently built. Made of plastic, while somewhat sturdy, still it will break if dropped. So handle with care. 2. It works with Windows 7, 8, & 8.1 out of the box. You do not need to install separate driver. Windows (7&8) will recognize the drive. So you can read & write CDs and DVDs. Read & Write speed is average among this price range. 3. You can play DVD as well, but EITHER you can install the software (CD) that came with it OR download & use VLC media player. Windows Media Player will not play DVD. 4. You do not need 2nd USB cord to power the drive. A provided single USB cable will connect and power up LG drive through your notebooks. It also works well with netbooks. I connected the LG drive to ASUS eee PC 1000HA (2gb RAM, Win 7, 128gb SSD), and it worked great! 5. Works with Linux as well. I dual-boot eee PC 1000HA with Win 7 and Xubuntu 14.10, and Xubuntu 14.10 recognized the drive and played the DVD in VLC media player. 6. You can also connect the drive to your TV - provided that your TV has USB port. So you can play your DVD and watch it on your TV. 7. You can read/write M-Discs. This is a great advantage of this drive. M-Discs can store your files (docs, pictures, & movies) for 1000 years. Yes. 1000 years. 8. The box comes with DVD drive, manual, 1 USB cable, and Software CD (to play DVDs, install drivers, etc). But I did not need the software CD for my purpose. But it is good to have it handy, just in case. All in all, this is a simple CD/DVD drive that will work well with your notebooks and netbooks, including Linux OS. Again, if you are going to use the drive extensively (every day), then you might want to purchase something more sturdy, but if you are going to use it occasionally, then this LG model is a great product for you. Highly recommended.

I needed something to burn CDs on a laptop where I removed the DVD burner in order to put in a second harddrive to more easily dual boot windows/linux. It is always a pain to put the DVD burner back in so figured I would pick up an external. I rarely burn so I didn't want to spend a lot. I have found LG products to be low priced and usually functional so I went with this model (the one with 50 in the model number). Linux had a little trouble recognizing so I just booted into Windows instead. Worked fine in windows. I am not sure why linux had trouble recognizing it, since I have the option to dual boot Windows it was not a deal killer and I didn't bother tearing my hair out to get it going in PCLinuxOS. Those of you who run linux are probably familiar with hair tearing. Sometimes it is just easier to go over to the dark side and boot windows. One thing about this item, it is SO lightweight that the usb cable which is a bit stiff can actually flip it all over. You have to get the USB cable to lie nice in order to have the unit sit flush.

Bought this LG GP50NB40 burner/player as I needed some light duty drive for my laptop which came sans dvd. This thing sure is the lightest and most fragile-seeming drive I've ever seen. Don't think I would just toss it in my laptop bag without some sort of hard case. My main concern, with such a low price, was whether it would play nicely with linux. So I connected to my ubuntu 14.04 laptop, stuck in a dvd and it played (after some adding some libraries). Using the VLC player the intro video part worked but the menus would not. Some libraries need installing, that is "sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 libdvdread4 libdvdnav4" and also you have to do something akin to "sudo apt-get install libdvdread4 && sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh". After that, the disc menus would function. Then I stuck in a run-of-the-mill Imation 700MB blank CD (bought probably 10 to 15 years ago) and using the ubuntu stock burner "Brasero" burned the disk with 7 ~100MB files (668MiB) with the speed set to "maximum". While burning it ran from about 7x to 13x, peaking at about 20x towards the end and it took 4 min 23 sec to burn but with finalizing and creating the image checksum the total from hitting the start button to finish took 9 minutes 20 seconds when the disk ejected. For my purposes, this ain't too shabby. Then I reinserted the data CD, which had mp4 video files on it, and it ran fine, and for kicks tried it out on a windows machine and it also worked. I had no blank dvd's handy so I can't say what the story is there. But for now I know it plays dvd, writes cd, and for on-the-go I would say get a hard case because I think one trip to the floor and it is toast. For the price though, it's a 5 star buy and if it breaks on me too soon I'll return here and revise the review as needed.

This LG Electronics 8X USB 2.0 Slim Portable DVD+/-RW External Drive is exactly what I expected: inexpensive but perfectly functional device that does its job. This LG drive is slightly thicker than I expected (my other drive is made by Samsung and is slimmer). However, this dimensional difference does not take away from its performance. One thing I noticed about this external drive that it is light, feels kind of hollow and a bit flimsy. It is not as quiet as some external drives are. Its write speed of 8X is not as fast as some internal or external drives. *However*, I did not want to spend more than $20, and for the price, this is exactly the device I need. The drive does not require any drivers, it is immediately recognized by Windows, Linux, and even BSD-based firewall distributions. It comes with free disc burning software for Windows. Overall, I'm very pleased with this LG Slim Portable DVD+/-RW External Drive.

The LG Electronics 8X USB 2.0 Slim Portable DVD Drive is a great product! I was looking for a product that I could play DVD movies* and PC games on, since my laptop did not come with a DVD port. I got this product on time, plugged it in to a USB port on my laptop, and it worked! Given, I had to download one FREE program to play the movies, which was VERY easy, but other than that it was simple to use. I think I have used it around 15 times, and still works like a charm. My onlty complaint, if I had one, is that it is not loud but still not quiet. It hums like any DVD player! *This product ONLY plays DVD and PC/CD discs, NOT Blu-Ray discs.

This does NOT work on the HP Chromebook with Windows 8.1 or on the Acer 720P Chromebook. Save yourself the trouble of reading all the questions to see if it will work. This is the second external DVD writer I have purchased. The other was a different brand but behaved exactly the same. It lists the contents of your DVD (when trying to play one) as a folder of contents but won't actually play a DVD. Do NOT be fooled into thinking if you down load an app this will fix the problem. This DVD player works perfectly when it is simply plugged into the USB port of my desk top for example. The other one I bought worked immediately on my dad's new Mac Pro as soon as we plugged it in. That one, I gave him. This one I am returning. I read all the questions and you will get some who say it may work, does work, and should work. This is misleading, so I am giving it one star to alert readers that after reading all the reviews but more importantly trying it myself...it will NOT work.

I am updating this review and lowering the stars from 5 to 3 stars. The reason is we have only used this product a few times and the last time we attempted to use it the cd wouldn't play. Then, the cd got stuck inside and we couldn't get the unit to open by pressing the eject button. My husband resorted to prying it open with a thin blae and now we are leery about using it at all. My husband's cd/dvd player died on his old computer so we bought this to replace that drive. This product arrived in excellent condition and works great. It seems to be rather flimsy/fragile so we treat it very gently when inserting and removing the discs but so far my husband is very happy with this item. The compact size doesn't take up much space either and he just leaves it in the box it came in between use. This took quite awhile to download originally but his computer is an old Vista so maybe that's why. Other than that it is a good deal for the price. No problems while using it either. I'm not sure how it would hold up with very heavy use but it is fine for someone who needs an external cd/dvd player from time to time

E' un ottimo prodotto e molto affidabile. Ne avevo già acquistato uno 2 anni fa e questo era un regalo.

Low price Good brand Use to easy No errors in burning Mac OS compatible No drivers needed Good Performance

Totalmente Plug and Play bajo Windows (probado en 10 y 7), se conecta y listo, a grabar o reproducir. Algo que me agradó de este modelo es que usa un conector mini USB, para mi gusto más sólido y menos propenso a las fallas producidas por los ya "estándar" micro USB. Es también importante recalcar que es muy ligero, así que hay que tener cuidado en su manejo. Como bien está señalado en la descripción, el quemador de DVDs tiene una velocidad máxima de 8x, que en mi caso no genera problemas ya que prefiero siempre grabar a la velocidad mínima, en este caso 4x. Por el precio y respaldo de la marca sin dudar le doy las 5 estrellas. En cuanto al envío fue rapidísimo, un viernes lo encargué y al lunes ya estaba en casa, para un artículo enviado por Amazon USA me sorprendió gratamente.

New build didn’t include an internal CD drive as I didn’t think I needed one, until I needed to burn some CDs! Picked this up on sale, I prefer LG and this is as good as any of their products. It’s light and feels maybe a bit flimsy but it is well made. Burn rate is pretty quick and no errors. Reads as well as it writes. Totally recommended!

Funciona bien.