If there's one thing that strikes you immediately about Sony's BDX-S500U external USB Blu-ray DVD drive, it's the fact that it's tiny. Measuring a mere 147x137x19mm (wdh). That's the same size as two CDs in their jewel cases, stacked one on top of another. We're talking about an impressively small piece of hardware.

So compact is the BDX-S500U that we had to double-check it wasn't merely a DVD writer - but no, it's a fully-fledged Blu-ray writer rated at 6x BD-R and 2x BD-RE read and write speeds.

First impressions
From a cosmetic point of view, the BDX-S500U looks very smart in its shiny black casing. Press the eject button on the front of the drive, and the tray pops out so you can load a disc, provided you've connected the external power adapter to the rear of the drive.

Some external optical drives use a double-headed Y cable to supply the necessary juice; however, the Sony only requires a regular USB cable as the power supply does all the hard work. On the downside, this does mean that you won't be able to use the BDX-S500U drive with your laptop when you're out in the field and away from mains power. Anyone with a single spare USB port on their laptop will be grateful for the choice that Sony has made.

more notebook review:
Medion W72044LA
Medion W34X48LB
Medion BTP-C1BM
Medion BTP-AKBM
Medion BTP-BVBM
Sony PCGA-BP3T
Sony VGP-BPS13