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In our review of the ASUS WL-330 Wireless Access Point, we gave applause to its compact size and excellent functionality. Road-warriors, rejoice, for today we have another product cast in that mold: the SCB-2408-D, in which ASUS starts with raw laptop CD-RW/DVD hardware and ends with a portable USB/Firewire drive that can be easily attached to any PC or Macintosh computer.

The Very Model of a Modern Individual

The concept is simple, and the implementation is simply elegant: take a notebook-form CD-RW/DVD drive, and give it wings to fly by deleting the notebook. The result is the ASUS SBC-2408-D, a drive with the profile of a standard CD case, and a depth of less than 2cm.

             

Left to Right: ‘Deluxe Package’ contents: drive, soft case, blank media, adaptable power supply, cables, drivers disc, application discs, and manuals (some items not pictured). A copy of Nero Express 5.0 is bundled with the unit --- Close-up view. --- The tiny drive is physically outclassed by the dimensions of two standard CD cases.

                           

As if that talent wasn’t enough to make people turn and smile at this petite lass, the drive is also somewhat exclusive in supporting both USB 2.0 and Firewire (IEEE 1394). A 0.5m cable is supplied for either connection, and a power switch on the front permits the SCB-2408-D to be shut off without disconnecting the power cord. The device is otherwise a standard CD-RW/DVD drive. A dual-color status LED, one button each for stop/eject and play/pause, and a headphone jack with volume control constitute the whole of user interaction, unless for some reason a disc becomes stuck in the drive. In that case a recessed manual-release tab can be found on the bottom side.

Also included in the kit were a soft case, 700MB CD-R and RW discs (one each), a drivers disc, Nero 5 (express version), ASUSDVD (a re-skin of Cyberlink PowerDVD), a multilingual quick-setup guide, and the English/Chinese SCB-2408-D manual.

She looks good, sir, and that’s a fine wardrobe she carries, but how well can she sing?

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