detail information

The specifications of the BenQ DW822A state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 24x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 700Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with 'finalize disc" enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (24x):

The drive used 4 minutes to write the disc at 24x. Let us see how this compares to other drives; the NU DDW-082 used 3 minutes and 2 seconds for the same writing operation at 40x speed, and the Plextor PX-708A used 2 minutes and 58 seconds at 40x. This 24x writing speed of course makes the drive slower than most competitors, but let us take a look at the writing quality, which is even more important.

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from a total of 11 different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the 'create data CD" function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used K-Probe 2 which is a tool developed by a Lite-On Employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On LTR-52246S drive with firmware 6S0F and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive's error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive's error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 average for good quality discs. After C2 errors there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Why wait any longer? Below are the obtained results:

CMC Magnetics is not known for making the best CD-R discs but the BenQ Dw822A is still able to spit out a perfect disc. Highly recommended.

This result is also among the better results we have seen. Highly resommended

The error level is a bit high in the beginning but decreases quickly as the walking OPC adjusts the writing strategy to fit the media better. Not the best result we have seen with this media, but still ok.

A very good result and this is highly recommended discs.

Perfect, just like it should be with Taiyo Yuden CD-R media.

While some other writers have problems with these CD-R discs, the BenQ DW822A did not have any problems and wrote another perfect disc. Highly recommended.

We have found these Samsung CD-R discs, manufactured by Plasmon, to be of very low quality. And as we could see their C1 error count is a bit higher than for most other discs, but far from worryingly high, and there were no C2 errors. So all in all there should not be any problems in practical use.

Again a perfect result, highly recommended. Not very surprising as Daxon was a part of Acer '? just like BenQ was.

Princo is not known for making the best quality discs, but the BenQ DW822A wrote them without any problems.

Perfect '? just like it should be with these high quality Fujifilm CD-R discs manufactured in .

While TDK is a well-known brand in larger parts of the world, their own manufactured CD-R discs may not be so well known, as they are mostly only available in Europe. But the BenQ DW822A did still write the disc without problems.

Summary:
Besides the fact that the write speed is pretty low, compared to most other drives,  there is nothing to complain about when it comes to writing quality. It again gets a plus in our book for good CD-R writing quality, but also a minus for only having 24x CD-R writing speed.

But after all, it's a DVD-Writer, so head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance and DVD media compatibility…

Reading performance

DVD-Writing performance