Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Bought a new laptop that didn't have a dvd player/writer, and for any of you struggling to make that decision as I was, I'm glad I did. Reason being, while I'm a convenience freak and was worried I'd be all aggrevated to have to hook up an external, I realized that heck, I only use that feature very rarely anyway, so on that rare occasion, sure, hook up the external. Otherwise, the other 99.8% of the time, I have a lighter, thinner laptop. Now then, back to the review I was 'supposed' to be writing :) Pros (in order of importance): * USB-only, no power adapter required (the fewer cables the better!) * Thin, not much bigger in area than a dvd disk so minimal space on the table when I'm using it * Attractive * Price * And oh yeah, it works! (Ok, duh, that should be #1) Plays DVD movies and most computer disks (haven't written yet) Cons: * Somewhat noisy during certain operations, but not a deal killer upon further analysis. What I mean is, first time I used it was installing software, during which it was quite noisy, lots of clicking and humming. So, plugged in a movie and was a little concerned when at first it did it then too, but then I realized it was only doing it during transitions, such as loading, between movie previews at the beginning, from menu to first scene, etc, etc. However, once the movie was actually playing, it was pretty quiet, just a very faint hum that, even the puny little laptop speakers drowned out. So, though I've only done that one little test to see if I wanted to return or not, so far, I'm pretty convinced it's a keeper, again, especially for the price. Tip: Just to save others the hassle. When I plugged in that first dvd movie, I got a popup that said the disk's country origin was incompatible with the player, said the disk was USA/Canada (correct), but the player was "Free," that I could only change the country code 5 times and, did I want to continue. After a little online searching to no avail, I just went for it and can assure you, just click that yes, if it happens to you, don't worry, just click that yes, you want to change it, and it will automatically change to match the disk. You don't need to look up some country code or anything, just click the button and you're done, period.