Model:  GSA-H42L

Manufacturer:  LG

Reviewed By:  Miguel

Review Date:  04/12/07

When it comes down to features, few manufacturers still fail to release DVD writers capable of supporting all types of media at their highest read/write speeds.  DVD Writers have somewhat hit a brick wall in terms of what they can offer in order to compete with the rest.  Other than those drives from Samsung, there really aren't many other options out there that will entice many or make them worthy of an upgrade.  The drive I have the pleasure of showing you today though has all ends covered and on paper, it happens to be the most feature-rich drive on the market in terms of media support and speed ratings.  Based on a number of reviews here, their optical drives also happen to be one of the few that do impress in terms of overall performance.  Their very latest, the GSA-H42L, is their LightScribe capable drive in their new H42 series and one that happens to write to all supported media at the highest speeds currently possible, including DVD-RAM.  It will be another long article, but there is plenty to cover, some of which many will find quite interesting. 

Packaging & Contents

Oddly, The LightScribe version of the new LG GSA-H42 is more readily available in retail packaging than OEM.  In fact, I found it quite difficult to find as an OEM drive.  With that said, the drive tested was in retail packaging and includes both black and white bezels.  Also included are some mounting screws and a software discs that includes Nero Express and a couple of Cyberlink applications including PowerDVD and PowerProducer.  It was quite upsetting to find they did not include a blank disc along with the retail bundle.  At least a LightScribe disc would have been appropriate.  In short, with the retail packaging, you're not getting much at all and if you can manage to find it for less as OEM, you'd be better off with that option.

The Drive

As with all optical drives, there's not much to brag about its design.  It comes shipped with the black bezel installed, but a white bezel is included with the retail package.  Unlike the last drive we looked at, the GSA-H42L is an IDE drive and the rear of the drive is fairly standard.  It sports a large green activity LED.

**click to enlarge**

The ROM Version was SL00 and the drive had a manufactured date of Feb 2007 on the label.

Specifications

At the time of review, I could not find specs or the drive listed on both their Global or North America portal site.  I did put together the following though...

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