Perhaps the reason I chose this drive was the fact that it was an LG, but it does not mean to say I am going to be biased.
This drive is a very good drive for the price margin I found it in, £70 - £90. Other drives however boast the 8x speed but come at a higher price; generally about £80 - £90. 6x is fine for me. I intend to purchase a writer when more features are brought to them and use this only for watching stuff whilst burning etc. So the writer will put this out the window eventually anyway.
The drive is great, perhaps one of the little problems I experienced was the installation. It took 15 minutes, which is a great deal more time than any other drive I have installed in my computer. The main problem was that the screws would not sit into the screw holes and then the SATA power lead kept falling out. Other than that, the drive is a charm! Works superbly, and the software that comes with it seems decent as well.
