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Rippedsoul · ‎11-14-2011

So I found the most aesthetically pleasing blu-ray writer which I've ever seen. I was determined to get this for my newly built (and still building) system. It had great ratings - and well. . . it's just plain beautiful looking.

Hour 4 and over a hundred sites later and almost a dozen phone calls to resellers I finally give up and contact Asus directly to find out it's discontinued and there's no plans on ever manufacturing more or any of simular design. I sat here an hour just recovering - Trying to make sense out of this.

Why did what is obviously the most popular Asus optical drive on the market just cease to exist? Why even advertise this drive on the main Asus site other than to keep people searching for it. Do they want more enthusiests to have nervous break-downs looking for it?

Please. . . PLEASE. Get this taken off your main site. It may end up saving a life or two. Now I'm going to go to bed and seriously think about which company I'm going to buy my blu-ray drive from.

And please (Again) remove this from the main Asus site if it's no longer going to be sold:
http://www.asus.com/Optical_Storage/Internal_Bluray_Drive/BW12B1LT/

Kipper · ‎11-14-2011

Hi Rippedsoul

I do know a little about optical drives, I have reviewed most of the best Blu-ray burners for all of the major manufacturers and you are correct about the BW12B1LT being a very nice burner.

Here is the full review of this drive I did back in February: BW-12B1LT Review

What I have found with my testing which is a considerable amount of burning most all medias available is that the current offering from ASUS is every bit as good with all the media that I also used while testing your dream drive when I reviewed it.

I strongly suggest you consider the BW-12B1ST and at the moment it is priced very nicely at 80.00 after rebate, you can find this deal here.

Rippedsoul · ‎11-15-2011

BW-12B1ST is an extremely average drive in both looks and functionality. It lacks lightscribe technology and it looks like ever other drive. I may as well just keep my current 2 year old dvd-writer. Atleast that can write labels. And it actually looks better than the BW-12B1ST. I wanted the B1LT model because it actually looks GOOD and was an actual upgrade. I have near 200 lightscribe DVD-Rs. Downgrading would be pointless. Plus the B1ST looks like a steaming pile of cow dung. It's not touching my case. To me, $25 is too much for the B1ST. And the very fact that Asus still advertises the B1LT blatently on their site so that people go on a wild goose chase for it just chaps my hide. Six hours of searching makes me never want to buy Asus products again at the moment. I'm even contemplating doing a "Return to Sender" of the 550Ti DirectCU card I ordered up for PhysX just out of disgust.

Kipper · ‎11-15-2011

Sounds like you have made your decision.

Aesthetics is a consideration but definitively not the most important factor of the decision process; I have seen some great looking components that worked just fine but were far from the best performing.

DanteGP27 · ‎11-24-2012

I know this is old but I totally agree, I've seen some Sony and LG drives that also had decent looking faceplates from a few years ago when the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war was still on. I bet they went back to normal looking drives because they figure it's just going in a case with a cover over the optical drives anyway (unfortunate but usually true).

Was wondering why I couldn't find it on the website anymore....wanted to show it to a friend. I guess they listened to you.

Sucks because this drive would look great on the case he's about to get, if only it were still around.

BW-12B1LT Blu-Ray writer and my 6 hours of futile searching.