In addition to high-speed recording on CD-R and CD-RW media, the Samsung SM-352BRNS DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive ($80 street) can play DVD-ROM media and movies. The drive ships with cables for installation, the usual pair of blank media, Nero Burning ROM for burning CDs, and the PowerDVD XP software DVD player for watching DVD movies. DVD movie playback is smooth, with no visible dropping of frames. The Nero DVD Speed test showed no deficiencies in DVD playback or performance.

The combo drive is set as a master ATAPI device by default and installation is no different than with the other internal drives reviewed here. Software installation is also easy, and Nero Burning ROM presents a Windows Explorer-style interface as well as a wizard that walks you through the process of burning.

The Samsung drive completed our CD-R burn test in 2 minutes 32 seconds, slower than the other 52X internal drives, but the differences were quite small. At 3:43 on the CD-RW burn test, the Samsung SM-352BRNS was the slowest of all the 52X drives—even slower than the Asus CRW-5224A external drive, although only 6 seconds slower than the CyberDrive CW099D, and substantially faster than the older PlexWriter 40/12/40.

The Samsung drive completed the DAE test with an extraction rate of 4,939 KBps, which essentially tied it for second place with the Asus CRW-5224A external drive.

We did notice that the Samsung drive scored somewhat lower on our CD-ROM read tests (from CD WinBench 99 2.0 and Nero CD Speed), probably because of the heavier pickup the drive needs to perform double duty as a DVD-ROM reader. Still, the Samsung performs well as a CD reader.

All in all, the Samsung SM-352BRNS DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive offers adequate write speed with the added bonus of DVD playback capability. And at $80, it's a great value, too.