Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First, let me admit my biases: I love gadgets, Amazon, AmazonBasics products, Macs and giving opinions. Second, let's look at this DVD drive: It works and it's simple. While it comes with one of those double-pronged USB cables, Macs do not need to plug in both of the USB connectors; one is enough. The drive is a tray loader which at first I was going to deduct one star for, then decided against it as I thought I should review on what the product is rather than grade it against a wish list. Tray loaders in this day seem almost antiquated, but I decided that to balance cost and power efficiency that it was actually a decent choice. The same judgement goes to the 8x speed of the drive, which for most people is perfectly fine. DVDs are fast becoming a thing of the past and having this sort of device to plug in on the rare occasions when they are needed I think is much more practical than getting a heavier laptop with a drive built in - I have been a MacBook Air user since they were first released and have only been in a situation where I *needed* a drive maybe 5 or 6 times... not bad for three+ years. This is NOT a drive that is intended to use every day for hours. This is a utility drive and for $36 it is hard to imagine a better bargain. It is half the cost of the MacBook Air SuperDrive, and the AmazonBasics drive works on every computer I plugged it into (Windows Vista, 7 and a variety of Mac OSs). The SuperDrive does not. I will soon have one of these in every kit I have for my IT business. As an experiment, I made a Mac OS 10.7 Lion installer disc and installed it using this drive just fine on a MacBook Air. I played a Disney DVD for my niece, and then made a backup copy using Toast 10. There were no issues at all. The drive spins itself down quickly when not in use, so there is a second or two when you need to get it to come back up to speed. You also cannot use the front eject button to eject once media is inserted in the drive - you have to use your on-screen controls to wake up the drive and spit the disc out. It's not that unusual. My only wish is that this came with a case, or there was a cheap AmazonBasic case available for it. As it is, the small cardboard frustration-free packaging is great and should be durable enough to use for a while to transport the drive in. I think this is a great addition to the AmazonBasics line, after their high-quality cases, cabling and media. I hope this is a harbinger of more electronics to come with the Amazon brand on it.