Pioneer DVD-104SZ
What is immediately apparent with this DVD-ROM drive is the absence of the drive tray prevalent in all the other models. Featuring a æSlot-inÆ interface, the drive accepts disks through a slit in the front panel that is protected by a foam lining. The CD is inserted partially into the drive and the internal mechanism draws the disk inside. This is rather unconventional but looks good.
There is no risk that youÆll insert two disks into the drive-youÆre prevented from inserting a disk if the drive is already occupied. This approach also eliminates the possibility of any of the drive components breaking, as is common with the tray mechanism.
The front of the device is very simple in appearance and has only an Eject button, drive access LED, volume control knob and a 3.5 mm headphone socket. There are no additional CD control buttons. The rear of the drive features connectors such as the IDE connector interface, drive configuration jumper block and analog and digital audio outputs.
The performance of the drive in the data transfer test was very respectable, at 3.08 MBps in the inner and 5.94 MBps in the outer regions of the disk. The access time and the CPU utilisation were logged at 82.4 ms and 2.79 percent respectively making it the second fastest drive in this roundup.
With very commendable performance, this drive is a good choice for users who need smooth DVD playback, good CD data transfer performance and very sleek looks.