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Buying Guide: The Best External DVD Burners
The built-in DVD burner is getting pretty hard to find in a laptop. The oh-so-portable ultrabook category skips the optical drive to maintain super-thin profiles and to shave a few ounces off of the total weight, but the optical drive is also becoming scarce in regular laptops, where losing the DVD burner can allow for a slimmer chassis or slightly lower price. Whatever the reasons, when buying a laptop today, the optical drive isn't always part of the package.
But while the drives are disappearing, not everyone is transitioning to a discless world of cloud storage and USB drives. Plenty of software is still bound to physical discs, and not every computer has the reliable Internet connectivity needed to take advantage of the cloud. While you can rip a movie from a DVD, not everyone has the know-how to do so or the patience to convert a large DVD collection. The drives may be out of vogue, but the need for an optical drive hasn't disappeared. Enter the external DVD burner.
Whether you need to burn DVDs on the go, or just want to enjoy a Blu-ray movie now and then, there are plenty of options to choose from. The desktop bound Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE gives you all the disc reading and writing capabilities of an internal optical drive, but it's not very portable, weighing 2.65 pounds and drawing power from a wall outlet. For a much more portable option, but without speed and advanced tools, the Editors' Choice Samsung SE-506AB External Slim Blu-ray Re-Writer or the top-rated Pioneer BDR-XD04 are both immensely more portable.
No need for Blu-ray? The stylish Samsung SE-218BB Ultrathin Optical Disc Drive ($59.99 list) has an attractive design while offering support for both Windows and Mac operating systems. And it's hard to beat to price of the Lite-On eNAU708, which might not be as pretty, but still reads and burns to a variety of DVD and CD formats and comes bundled with software for data sharing with iOS devices.
For a standalone solution that you can also give to a technophobic family member, the Plextor PlexEasy DVD makes copying files to and from discs dead simple, and you don't even need to have a PC handy to use it.
FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP:
Samsung SE-506AB External Slim Blu-ray Re-Writer
$139.99 direct
The Samsung SE-506AB External Slim Blu-ray Re-Writer is a convenient portable Blu-ray optical drive, with Mac compatibility, AV connectivity, and other goodies thrown in for good measure. Read the full review ››
Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE
$229.99 list
The Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE's speedy performance and support for several rewritable formats make it a smart for a portable optical drive, despite a few irritating faults. Read the full review ››
Samsung SE-218BB Ultrathin Optical Disc Drive
$59.99 list
Ultrabook users eager to blow off the dust from their DVD collection will find plenty to like in the Samsung SE-218BB Ultrathin Optical Disc Drive, a solid performer with an attractive, slim profile. Read the full review ››
Pioneer BDR-XD04
$149.99 direct
The Pioneer BDR-XD04 is a convenient and portable external optical drive, with support for bleeding edge formats like triple- and quad-layer Blu-ray. The slim form factor and reasonable price make it a compelling offer for anyone who needs a portable optical drive. Read the full review ››
Lite-On eNAU708
$39.99 list
The Lite-On eNAU708 is a competent portable DVD drive, with a price that will make it a good peripheral choice for ultrabook owners. Read the full review ››
Plextor PlexEasy DVD
$109.99 list
The Plextor PlexEasy external DVD burner provides a simple way to consolidate the data you currently have stored on memory cards, discs, USB drives, tablets, and smartphones—and you don't need a PC to use it. Read the full review ››