TEAC has always been considered to be one of the best in the optical storage business, and it shows in the DV-W50D. If you're looking for a speedy DVD writer that burns DVDs fast and reliably, this TEAC with its 4x DVD±R/RW won't disappoint. Given that this drive did manage to give the excellent TDK 440N Indi DVD±R/RW a run for its money does speak a lot about what it's capable of, doesn't it?

On its CD reading capabilities, the TEAC drive performed up to expectations by being able to read all of the different CD media that we threw at it. Be it copyable media or commercially pressed CDs, the drive handled them all with ease. CD ripping isn't an issue with this drive too, where it managed to rip tracks as fast as 32x on our test CD. The only gripe that we have here is that at 32x, it kind of lags behind some of the faster drives out there, such as the TDK 440N Indi drive that sports a 40x-read speed. As a DVD-ROM however, the drive proved to be one of the fastest for a DVD writer with its 12x read speed. Although you'll have to keep in mind that like many other DVD drives that we've tested, the TEAC will slow down to 6x when reading DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW media.