detail information

Positive:

• Comprehensive retail bundle and includes extra black bezel

• Feature-rich software package suite from Nero

• Very good specifications

• Excellent DVD+R/-R writing and rewriting quality

• Excellent DVD+/-R DL writing quality

• Very good CD-R writing quality

• One of the fastest drive for writing DVD+R DL media.

• Drive has no riplock, reading speeds are not limited.

• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW/R9 DL

• Very good and fast reader

• Reads DVD+/-R media at 16x and DVD+/-RW media at 12x

• Reads both pressed and recorded DL media at 12x

• Drive runs quietly

• Small form factor for small footprint desktop cases

• 'Two Sheep" writer

• Supports writing/reading 99 minutes CD-R media

• Supports overburning 4600MB DVD+R media.

Negative:

Conclusion:

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points: Following our extensive tests we found that this drive is a very solid DVD burner with nearly no noticeable issues. It is bundled with a complete and fully functional software suite from Nero which is worth the extra price. The documentation is also satisfactory and you will also get an extra black bezel to match your desktop case color.

Sony seems to be very cautious with media compatibility, that is to say, the drive supports the majority media at its rated speed, although consequently the writing quality for all formats is very good to excellent with most media types we've tested. The reading capability is also worth noting; since the drive has no riplock therefore it offers very fast reading speeds. It is able to read DVD+R/-R and single layer DVD-Video format at a maximum speed of 16x and all other DVD types (DVD+/-RW/DL) at an efficient speed of 12x, while other competitors are still struggling with 8x or even 4x.

In our DAE quality test it shows that the extracting quality is excellent and it supports reading the lead-in and lead-out. The Advanced Tests specify that the Sony drive can be categorized as a 'Two Sheep" writer, which implies that it should be sufficient for backing up copy protected discs. The drive also supports overburning 99 minutes CD-R and 4600MB DVD+R which can be valuable for power users. Overall, given that the drive is based on highly rated BenQ DW1640, the Sony DRU-810A belongs in the best drives category.

The main negative points: There are few minor issues that we would like to mention in this section. The drive writes all 8x DVD+R and DVD-R media at its rated speed only. We have seen its outstanding performance on 8x writing and consequently we have no hesitation that overspeeding media will also perform nicely. After all, we notice that the drive does overspeed Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL at 8x with great result. We would like to see some overspeeding in future firmware updates, especially for high quality media.

The drive creates high PIF error spikes when writing 16x DVD+R media at its certified speed, although fortunately this anomaly doesn't seem to create read-back problems. In the area of media compatibility we also would like to suggest some improvements. There are a few *average quality* media that will not write at its rated speed either because they are not supported by the current firmware or OPC is too sensitive: CMCMAGM01 16x DVD+R, OPTODISC R016 16x DVD-R, RITEKF1 16x DVD-R, and RITEKP01 DVD-R DL 4x to name a few.

During our CD-R and CD-RW test we acquire a few minor issues. The drive will only write its own Sony 48x CD-R media at 32x speed although it might be due to the oversensitive OPC feature. Regrettably as in many other DVD drives, CD-RW writing quality is really poor showing the presence of C2 errors, which are not wanted. Finally, a slight issue that we feel needed to mention is the Turbo Boost function, which is deactivated by default. This means that without pushing the eject button for five seconds every time we need to read or write a CD, the drive will not reach 48x as stated in the specification.

Final Thoughts: The Sony DRU-810A is only a fraction behind its associate BenQ DW1640. Suffice it to say, it is 'A superior drive that can achieve high performance results in nearly all areas of DVD and CD burning today and undoubtedly will not let you down." We would like to present this drive our 'Safe Buy" award.

By using our CD Freaks price grabber feature we found the Sony DRU-810A is listed at $69.99 after rebate (October 2005).

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

For providing the Verbatim media used in this review. Verbatim provides high quality media all over the world and strives to be the standard for DVD hardware reviewing.

Advanced Media/Ritek-USA for providing some of the RiDATA media used in this review. RiDATA is an official Ritek brand and thus you are guaranteed to get quality Ritek manufactured discs when buying RiData media.

 For providing the Memorex media used in this review. Memorex is one of the largest providers of all types of media for larger parts of the world.

 For providing the Optodisc media used in this review. Optodisc Technology Corporation excels at the manufacturing and selling of High-Density Optical Storage Media DVDs.

Introduction