Samsung Announces SE-406A Slim External Blu-Ray Combo Drive

Samsung has announced the launch of a new external slim Blu-ray drive that is for the computer market. The new slim drive is called the SE-406A and it supports 3D playback. The drive might be just the thing to add 3D Blu-ray capability to a notebook or netbook that lacks an optical drive.

The drive ships with CyberLink TrueTheater software for playback of movies and the software will also test the ability of the PC to support 3D content. The player will play normal DVDs and Blu-ray flicks too. It can also read and write to CDs and DVDs. However, it only reads Blu-ray discs.

The SE-406A is designed to work with both Mac and Windows computers and it has Buffer Under Run technology to prevent any errors that may result from writing speeds that are faster than data transfer speed. The drive supports most DVD and CD formats and can read from multiple Blu-ray formats too. The drive will ship in April for $150. Samsung offered no images of the optical drive with the official announcement.