Blu-ray has turned out to be the winner of the HD format war. Sony has invested a lot of money to make sure that Blu-ray comes out the winner. Imagine how it would have looked if the most advertised feature of the PS3 would have gone down the drain. Sony would have been left out to dry with an expensive and somewhat worthless product on their hands. I mean the PS3 has problems as it is, I don't even want to know how things would have been had HD DVD won.

Anyway, Microsoft showed Sony the safe way to do it and NU is following the same trend with their external EBC100 slim Blu-ray drive. External solutions are safe. Users are not forced into buying an expensive product which they may never use, but instead they are provided with the chance to acquire that feature when/if needed.

The EBC100 is the slimmest external Blu-ray drive released on the market yet (just 17.6mm tall) and it is only powered by an USB connector. This solution doesn't require users to find an extra wall socket and will consume less energy than an AC-powered drive.

The specifications are on par with almost any standard Blu-ray drive. The device can read and write DVDs, CDs and BDs at the following specifications: 8X write speeds for DVD+/-R (2X for double layers), 4X DVD+/-RW recording, 5X DVD-RAM writing and 2X BD-ROM engraving. Write speeds for CD-ROMs and CD-RWs are rated at 8X and 4X respectively. Reading speeds are on par with most devices already on the market. BD-ROMs are read at 2X speed, 8X for DVD-ROM and 20X for the good old CD-ROM.

Smooth Link Buffer Under-run Prevention Technology clears out any buffer under-run failures that might appear during write time. A Dual Suspension Mechanism has been designed in order to provide silent and vibration free operation in business working environments.

Installation is as easy as it gets with the EBC100. Just plug it in an USB 2.0 port, the OS will detect it and install the necessary drivers. After this is done you just need to install Nero and take it for a spin.


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