Tech on the Go meets the ASUS SBC-04D1S-U USB 2.0 Blu-ray drive

Value
The Asus SBC-04D1D-U is a bit pricey at $189.99, especially considering that you can get a home Blu-ray player for about this from most local electronic stores. However, none of these are portable or have connection options to your laptop/netbook. Also the fact that it ships with a deluxe version of Cyberlink’s PowerDVD does help to offset the cost a little. As the Asus SBC-04-D1S-U has a mean time between failure of roughly 60,000 hours [which equals out to about 6.8 Years] you can count on this drive working for you. Of course if you do have a problem it is likely to be right out of the box. If this is the case you can setup an RMA through the Asus support site.

Conclusion
I have to say that I was more than a little skeptical of the Asus External Blu-ray drive. In past experiences with external USB optical drives I have seen poor playback performance when trying to display any type of high resolution content. The problem is that they cannot maintain a high enough sustained transfer rate to keep up with High-Definition content. But the dual USB 2.0 connectivity of the SBC-04D1S-U allows for better performance than your average drive. The SBC-04D1S-U works well as a mobile Blu-Ray player as well as one for use with a home HTPC. The down side to the SBC-04D1S-U is its cost. While $189.99 is high for many people, in reality it is in line with many home players that are not as portable [or functional] as the SBC-04D1S-U is. If you need [or want] a good external drive that can cover you for Blu-ray content at home and on the go then the Asus SBC-04D1S-U is a great option for you.