Recommended drives for non-UHD use

[rippernotowens]

Howdy folks,

My 15 year old Lite-On seems to be on its last legs and I'm looking for a new drive primarily for FHD/1080p Blu-rays. I'm open to desktop/slim/external drives. I'm going to be only reading discs, not burning any. I'm in the US.

Considerations (in order of priority) -
1. Great at reading scratched/difficult discs
2. Speed
3. Price
4. I might start buying UHD discs in the future, so UHD support would be a bonus (I'm open to fw flashing)

I will be using it with a PC, and bundled software is irrelevant.

Thanks in advance.

[MrPenguin]

Considerations (in order of priority) -
1. Great at reading scratched/difficult discs
2. Speed
3. Price
4. I might start buying UHD discs in the future, so UHD support would be a bonus (I'm open to fw flashing)

Buy a Pioneer drive, while you still can. Mike has already told us that all Pioneer drives will support UHD eventually, and so since you are not planning to buy UHD disks yet, you can afford to wait.

AFAIK MakeMKV does not need LibreDrive in order to support non-UHD disks.

[Coopervid]

Good advice! Hurry up! Pioneer drives will be sold out soon.

[rippernotowens]

Thanks, @MrPenguin.

I see BDR-212V (internal) and BDR-XD08 (portable) are still being sold. Apart from the read speed (BDR-212V is faster) and convenience (BDR-XD08 being portable), are there any other factors I should consider when choosing one over the other?