In my home I have nothing but LiteOn drives in my desktops. I like them because they do an outstanding job and aren't too expensive. My DVDRW in my main desktop was bought about a year and a half ago. Originally it was a 4X burner, but through firmware upgrades, it's now a 8X burner as well as dual layer burner (thanks to the folks over at
www.cdfreaks.com 
). This drive also does "type setting," burning DVD+'s as DVD-ROM (not the "+" or "-" format, but the format that is the same as those bought in stores or rented at Blockbuster). I've never had one of these discs not play in a DVD player. With that said, I just found where LiteOn has been making slim CDRW/DVD Drives for laptops (Unfortunately they don't have Multi drives or DVDRW's out yet for the laptops) and they are economical. If anyone is looking for a good combo drive for their ThinkPad (pre-T40 series....these drives have to be 9.5mm, and not 12.7mm), then I would recommend this one:
http://www.nt-micro.com/ntik/details.as ... LT333202NB
I'm not trying to advertise for these people....just know that if the quality of this drive is anything like the ones they make for desktops, then it is well worth getting for a laptop. I understand that Sony has LiteOn making their drives for them now, as well as many other well known makers.
If anyone else has had experience with the above or other LiteOn drives, please chime in.