One of my friends bought two retail SH-S223C yesterday. I was a bit apprehensive because of my own horrible 223B which produced loads of MCC 004 and Yuden coasters. I sincerely hoped that the chipset change improved things. So we loaded the latest firmware SB01 and put both drives to the test with both MCC 004 (Taiwanese and Indian) and Taiyo Yuden (Japanese), all of them proper Verbs from a variety of packs (from packs of 5 individualy wrapped Verbs to spindles of 50). To cut a long story short, ALL burns sucked. Big time. Both drives were even worse than my 223B (yes, the one I’m getting rid of).
If I was to lower burning speed it’d probably be OK (just OK, not great, my BenQ and Pioneer can do a much better job at up-to-x16 speeds anyway). Lowering burning speed is not the point. x22 speed is the main attraction of this drive and it just can’t do it; it destroys some of the best media on the market. We tried burns on 3 different computers, swapped sata leads just in case, tried discs from differend packs, still the same. It’s not only the horrible end of the burns, there were ugly spikes all over the place anyway. The contoller change made things even worse, it’s a feat that only the geniuses back at Samsung could accomplish… Seriously, are these guys getting paid to design such crap??? I’d love a job like that!
Samsung recently released two new x24 models… Why the hell would they do that when their existing x22 lineup is incapable of properly burning MCC 004 and Yudens at advertized speeds anyway? Instead of releasing new sub-standard rubbish they should have fixed problems with their existing models first. But we all know this is not the way these corporate boys operate. Smart companies have the sense to employ decent engineers who will create decent products. Smart companies also have decent, knowledgable managers who can identify and troubleshoot such issues with incompetent staff. It’s cruel, but simple: When engineers repeatedly design rubbish and then fail to correct real issues with firmware updates, they should be replaced. When their managers repeatedly fail to correct such issues before the sub-standard products hit the shelves, they should lose their jobs too. God knows, there are many talented techs and admins in the market who’d kill for a job at Samsung. In today’s ultra-competitive and oversaturated computer market I seriously can’t understand how the guys at Samsung ODD manage to hold on to their jobs. They must know something we don’t. They also don’t seem to give a crap, and you can tell that from something as important as the quality of their products’ burns, to something as trivial as the poor English translation of their product manuals and the ODD website itself. I mean, how hard is it for a giant like Samsung to employ a competent english translator??? The way they’re going they’re gonna completeley ruin the already massively damaged Samsung OD reputation.
One thing is for certain: Unless thing improve drastically in future models I will never buy another Sammie. And I would most definitely advice my clients, my friends, everyone, to stay well away. We don’t need useless gimmicks like Magic Speed and TruDirect. What we need is drives that can actually produce decent burns!
Imagine the average Joe/Jane who sees the nicely boxed Sammie at the computer store and buys one to do a computer backup. Or burn the kids’ pictures and videos for safekeeping. Or save work projects, client data etc on disc. Irreplaceable stuff. Then these people realize a few months down the line that the data they thought was burned OK, on expensive Verbatim media, cannot be read back. Just put yourself in that position. It’s crazy in our day and age to have a burner so bad, that it routinely coasters Verbs!
I will post some scans tomorrow. BTW Samsung, you owe me about £40 in wasted Verbs…
