Need a good DVD burner
 

I need a new external DVD burner. The Pioneer one that I have drives me nuts, because when I try to close it, it will just immediately re-open, many times. It's been doing this for months, and I just can't deal with it anymore.

So..any suggestions on a good, hopefully cheap(er) replacement?

Thanks in advance

I'm not sure anymore. The full-sized external drives have all but disappeared now. All that's left are the sub-standard 8x-max "slim" drives. Just get a Samsung, and cross your fingers.

The better option would be to build your own. Get a good Samsung internal, and an Oxford chipset enclosure. This costs 2x-3x more, however. You're looking at ~$100 instead instead of ~$35 for the slim. But it's a quality drive, 16x+ speeds, and you can even get eSATA or Firewire 800 encolsures, for use with the SATA burners.

Geeks.com used to have a lot old great refurbished external drives. But they're out of business now.

The future of external optical burners does not look good. Blu-ray is the same.

Oh, I didn't know all of that...well, do you think I should just use the burner that's built into my laptop? I've been using it since yesterday because of the problems with my other one, and it seems to be working alright...

I can't afford to do the $100 suggestion. The Philips one, which you suggested a few years ago has worked great, but it just doesn't stay shut. I close it, and it automatically reopens, so I don't know..