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Provides: Portable CD / DVD burning
Developer: Plextor
Minimum Requirements: 1 USB 2.0 port, Mac G4 500 MHz +, Mac OS 10.4+
Price (ESRP): $130
Availability: Now

Need a mobile external disk drive for your MacBook? Probably not, considering every MacBook, save the Air, comes standard with a DVD burner. But if you have an Air, you’re likely missing physical media at least a little bit. Plextor may or may not have the answer to all of your diskless woes.

The PX-610U features 8X DVD+/-R (6X for DL DVDs), a single port USB cord and a battery.

Wait, what?

Yeah, a battery. The drive is not only made for Mac, it’s made for MacBook. It’s a mobile DVD/CD burner that’s made with the MacBook Air in mind. Since it has a built in battery, it can supplement the power it draws from a single USB port enough to burn a few disks on the go. And when you’re within the reach of a power supply for your MacBook, leave it plugged in to fill the tank. So, no need for two USB ports, nor an external power source. It’s a decent way of solving the MacBook Air’s diskless problem without a specialized USB port.

Besides the second USB plug that normally comes with a mobile disk burner, there are a few other things you don’t get with this drive. Number one, there’s no auto opening or closing of the drive. But that’s to be expected. You push the button, it opens, but you have to pull it out to get anything into the tray, and then slam it shut like every metaphorical door to every one of your failed relationships. It’s not a problem, though. Actually, it might be better than a slot loading drive that could easily get dirty. And with slot loading drives, there’s no way to get a disk out without power. This drive can at least be opened with a paper clip.

Visually, there isn’t much to write home about. It’s a plain white drive in the same form factor you’ve come to know and love in external mobile disk drives, save one USB port.  The only difference is it has a piece of aluminum on the top (that honestly isn’t very attractive or fitting to Mac styling in recent years) and a blue LED to indicate charging of the internal battery. Even if it doesn’t match your MacBook at all—and chances are, it doesn’t—you still don’t see many white drives like such.

The package comes complete with Roxio Toast 9, which might justify the approximate 30 dollars more you’ll spend on this drive over Apple’s most similar offering. But do you really need an old version of Toast on a Mac? You can do most all of your burning tasks from inside of the Finder, iTunes or iDVD, so there is little need, especially on the go.

The only real reason you’d need this drive is if you have a MacBook Air and, for some crazy reason, you don’t want to buy Apple’s external drive (which can be had much cheaper, while at the same time looking much better). But the Apple drive doesn’t have a battery. Then again, the Plextor drive doesn’t have an Apple logo. To me, it’s an easy call; Apple nearly always wins by default, especially when it’s better looking and cheaper.