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On Mon, 9 Jun 1997, Kenneth Rosenblatt wrote: > I'm contemplating buying a 4x PCMCIA CD-ROM drive to use with my > Thinkpad 560. I'm considering buying a unit made by EXP that sells for > $160, compared with $299 for units from Sony (a 6x) and Panasonic (4x). > [...] > Has anyone had experience with this unit? EXP claims that it is > compatible--is anybody using it with a 560? Am I better off spending > the extra $140 to buy the Sony or Panasonic? Dunno about the EXP. The Panasonic uses a QLogic PCMCIA SCSI card and a standard mini SCSI-2 plug, so you can use it with other SCSI devices w/o much problem. The Sony is also a SCSI, but uses a proprietary connector with (AFIK) no adapter for use with standard SCSI devices. I got the Panasonic for my TP701, and aside from it being a little noisy, I'm very happy with it. It's got an AC adapter half the size of a pack of gum, and doubles as an audio CD player (w/o computer). The Sony I think comes with a battery option. If you don't need to move the thing, you may be better off getting an Adaptec SCSI2 PCMCIA card (around $170) and picking up a used external SCSI CD-ROM from someone who's upgraded to an 8x or 16x. Both the Adaptec and QLogic work with Linux and all the other major OSes (DOS, Win??, OS/2). That'll give you the flexibility of adding other SCSI devices (Zip drives, Jaz drives, external hard drives, scanners, etc.), as well as upgrading to a faster CD-ROM or CD-Recordable drive in the future w/o having to limit yourself to PCMCIA versions. -- John H. Kim kim@mak.com