Home > Consumer Reviews > Pikaone Ripcase External CDRW Drive 40x12x48 USB2.0

I never thought that i could get external cd drive for less that 50 quid. So when browsing amazon, i saw this product and read all the reviews i immediately ordered one and have never repented it.

It was a breeze to get it started on Windows 2000. Installing Nero 5.5 that is bundled along with it was equally smooth. And within 5 mintues I was on to burning my first Cd (that comes free) and in 3 minutes i had it burned and done with.

Using USB 2 the burning speed for CD-R is amazing. On CD-RW it takes till longer upto 7-8 minutes. Up till now i have burned 20-25 disks and not had a single coaster.

The drive is small and sleek to look at. The build quality is good and it does not make as much noise as others suggest. But it is not silent either.

Overall a definitely good bargain! Happy burning !!!

This CD Re-writer was bought for my 15 year old daughter by her big brother. When we got it out of the box I couldn't believe how cute it was although it is a bit "chunky".
My daughter has a 4 year old laptop and only USB1 and windows 98 so needed to install a driver. The ancient cd drive could not load up the CD (this is not unusual) but we obtained a driver very easily from the website and intalled the nero programme as supplied also very easily.
Nero is very easy to use and you can do all sorts with it from just copying your CD's (very useful if you want to keep the originals in good condition) to compiling your own music disks and backing up all your files (we saved all our important files on CD-R when we reformatted our computer)
An added bonus for my daughter is that the Pikaone can be used as a CD drive (much needed as ours is very old and worn out, though it is a bit noisy when starting up) and as a CD player (You have to use headphones or a set of plug-in speakers for this). I don't know how we managed without it.
I hope this review has been helpful to you.

Pros:
-certainly does it's job!(burns audio discs, data discs, everything!)

-fast(i have USB 1, and it only takes me around 10mins to burn a 700MB disc--it does depend on how fast your disc can handle burning tho...8x, 10x, 40x etc...some of my old discs were 10x, and these took around 14 mins. --if you can handle the slight wait, there's no need to get any pci cards to upgrade to USB2.0).

-simple enough to use.(i am no pro at computers, so thankfully this item led me thru pretty much step by step, so with a bit of logic thrown in, most people shouldn't have a problem with it. However if you are actually 'new' at computers, i will suggest having someone a bit more experienced help you set this up...especially if this is your first time burning.)

-relatively cheap for a good quality product.(i think most people have raved on about it's price in other reviews...)

Cons:
-yes, the cover is flimsy. it tends to snap shut at the slightest touch with the loudest 'CLAP!' and makes one think it's gonna fall off,...doesn't look durable, so take care...

-Noise(apart from the loud echoing 'clicks' --and i am not exaggerating-- that occur when the locking mechanism turns on, and yes, this is after the 'clap!' of the cover, this item also tends to whirr rather loudly, especially during the last minute of burning when it sounds like a washing machine in spin mode --again, not exaggerating-- but don't worry, despite the noise, it's actually working just fine..)

and most importantly..:

-Windows 2000 users might have a problem. (my laptop actually crashed after installing this product. i understand this happened to some people, and from what i figure, it actually corrupts some system files due to incompatibility in the software/hardware. Uninstalling after that does NOT help. I use Windows 2000, so users of this system might want to think twice before trying this product, or at least have some safeguards in place like backup discs,etc... XP users should have no problem tho, from what i hear it's actually Win2000 that is problematic...)...but this does take the shine of what could be a very good product...

Not either good or bad..:
-As for aesthetic qualities, it's compact and sleek to my eyes, but some people have said it's ugly, so...to each his/her own, i guess.

I have just bought one of these drives today and I am amazed at how easy it was to install and get up and running.

I have only used it in USB1 mode so far as bought it for use with an old laptop which I cannot get a writer drive for, and I wasn't disappointed at all.

To use this drive you literally just have to plug in and go, it picked up okay on my old Pentium II laptop and within 5 minutes I was happily burning away discs with the help of the excellent Nero which is bundled with it.

It even coped perfectly well burning discs on-the-fly from my internal cd-rom drive, I can't wait to pick up a USB2 card so I can use it on my desktop as well and test it to it's true capabilities.

Overall, I am very happy with my purchase.

Up to now I have had two external USB drives and each one has either been too bulky or has destroyed discs by failing to write the CD correctly.

This drive has been above and beyond my expectations. I have had the drive for a week now and written about 10 CDs perfectly. There's nothing like writing a 700MB CD perfectly in under 4 minutes considering it was 50/50 with the slowest drives taking over 20 minutes.

The design suprised me when I got it out of the box as it was actually quite sleek and cool looking. The blue LED ON light is a real eye-catcher.

To top it off the drive was delivered the very next day after being dispatched. Now that is what I call service considering it is free delivery. And the fantastic price tag of under £50 makes this a great buy.