Samsung SH-B022 is the name of one of the first Blu-ray burners on the market. Samsung is epxected to launch its 5.25″ unit sometime in March and most of the work has been completed. Already a preview of the Blu-ray burner has appeared at a German hardware site called PC Welt. They had the opportunity to test the unit for one day and among others they tried out burning a 25GB BD-R disc, which took about 45 minutes at 2x. SH-B022 will also be able to burn DVD and CD, but this one only had access to the red laser to read these media. The Blu-ray support is the most interesting part here though and there doesn’t seem to be much to complain about, except perhaps the price.
The price of Blu-ray media is expected to be about 18 dollar for a 25GB BD-R and about 40 dollar for a 50GB dual layer BD-R disc. If you want rewritable discs they cost about 25$ and 60$. Blu-ray media will in other words cost you a minor fortune to begin with, but before that you have to be able to afford a burner. Samsung didn’t specify a price for SH-B022 but rumours state about 500 dollar.
Blu-ray has great potential but if the prices don’t go down drastically things will be moving forward very slow.
