[Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 Accessories] drjoe1:
Long first impressions of LG GP95NW70

https://www.lg.com/us/burners-drives/lg-GP95NW70

https://www.newegg.com/lg-model-gp95nw70-slim-dvd-burner/p/N82E16827136309

I received my GP95 from Newegg yesterday.I played with it for a couple hours, and have some first impressions to report.

This model is Android compatible out of the box. There are two apps you need to download from the Playstore to make it work. Documentation is very poor. The only LG optical drives that are compatible with the software are KP65, KP95 and GP95. The only available in the USA is the GP95NW70 and I only found it on Ebay and at Newegg. The most commonly sold LG optical disc drive sold in the USA seem to be GP65 & GP60 (based on Google & Amazon searches). Neither of these models are listed as compatible with the Android apps you need to access the drives.

There are the two apps you need that are published by Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Inc.:

1) There are three versions of Disc Link: Disk Link, Disc Link Pro, and Disk Link Platinum

Disk Link is the oldest, from 2016, and is compatible only with KP65

Disk Link Pro is from 2017, and is compatible with KP95 and GP95. It is obviously out of date, was locked in portrait mode, which sucks with the USB C connector at the base of the picture frame. The documentation with my GP95 said to run this version.

Disk Link Platinum is the newest, from earlier this year, and is compatible with KP95 and GP95. This is what I am using and allows for rotation to landscape mode.​

2) There are two versions of TrueDVD: TrueDVD+ (free) and TrueDVD ($0.99).

TrueDVD+ only works with KP95, but this is what the documentation for my GP95 said to use. It did not work

TrueDVD is $0.99, and it works with GP95 and KP95​

Now the evaluation:

Out of the box, the drive has a female micro USB connector, they give you

1 ) A micro male to full size USB 2.0 male cable,

2) A micro USB adaptor that allows for external power + connecting to your phone (Full size USB from the player + micro USB power in / micro USB male to plug into your android device)

3) a micro USB female to male USB C adaptor plug to convert the micro USB adaptor to work with a USB C device.

4) There is a windows software disk

5) Poor documentation (what else is new?)

Links in the TrueDVD and Disc Link Platinum playstore entries take you to Korean web pages where you can download a firmware updater (that runs on Windows, of course). The manufacture date on the unit I got was from October 2018; its firmware "needed" to be updated out of the box. Of course, I have no idea what the update in the firmware has to do with anything.

TV Connectivity Mode (which the GP60 / GP65 models sold in the USA support), is very limited. By holding the eject button down with the door open, you can convert the CD player to a Fat32 read-only flash drive. I had problems getting Solid Explorer to recognize the drive. Microsoft exFAT/NTFS by Paragon works, but you have to pay extra for Fat32 (I optioned only for NTFS). It didn't seem to work with a hub.

When 4unning the aps, it seems to work fine plugging the full size USB into a powered USB C hub. It runs fine plugging directly into the tablet using the included adaptor, both with and without external power. I'm going to order a USB C to micro USB cable so I can connect directly without the hub / adaptors.

The apps:

Disk Link Platinum was a relief after running the Pro version. Screen rotation is a must. It reads CD's, opens PDF's / images from a data CD without obviously saving it locally to the device (the Paragon enabled file explorer had to copy it to local storage). Besides the data CD, I browsed images saved on a DVD ROM disc. No problems playing an audio cd, but it didn't automatically detect the track names. There is a grayed ot "gracenotes" option with a cryptic comment that suggests there is financial negotiation going on between Hitachi-LG and Gracenotes - presumably if this is ever enabled, it will be able to auto detect song names. Pressing the eject button on the unit brings up a "do you want to eject" pop-up on the screen. I'm not sure if you can minimize the window and keep playing.

TrueDVD is worth the $0.99. This allows you to play video DVD's. The menu's are touchscreen activated. There was a weird issue with eject -- pressing the eject button didn't do anything, and there was no menu item to "eject". I had to disconnect / reconnect & hit eject to get the video DVD out. "Help" on the app sends you to a Korean web page that says that non-white protected DVD's can be played from VLC Player, but that write-protected material can only be played with the TrueDVD app. The app would not play in split screen mode, and doesn't have a cast function (I don't know if it functions with screen mirroring). Besides a video DVD, I was able to play a DVD audio Disc (Dolby Tracks only, not DTS). DVD audio would not run minimized.

The video DVD player is region-locked. It came out of the box as Region 2 (Europe/Japan). When you put a Disc in, it says "The player region does not match the disc. Would you like to change the player region? You can do this 5 times and then it locks". I set it to region 1 and all ran fine. But it is a shame you can't make it regon free -- I have several DVD's I purchased years ago from Europe / Japan that weren't available in the USA. I don't know if the region selection is tracked in the TrueDVD app, or in the hardware; I suspect it is in the hardware. So you can't freely switch regions. Not a big deal unless you live in the US and are a big anime fan. I suppose you could buy two players and set one to Region 1 and the other to Region 2. But watching video DVD's is not the primary purpose I bought the drive for, it is just a perk.

I have no plans to try burning discs. That's what flash drives are for. I need it for reading existing CD/DVD ROM discs with out a PC. It seems to do this well. Audio CD and DVD video playability are happy (but probably seldom used) extras.

And I haven't tried using this with DeX yet. That will be for the weekend.

All and all, it seems like a good drive, and another step to freedom from PC's

Joe