detail information

Introduction:

It's been quite a while since we at CD Freaks reviewed a CD-RW drive. With a plethora of DVD burners to choose from and prices forever falling, most people can afford a DVD burner. But perhaps not everyone needs a DVD burner, so there is still a place in the market for CD-RW drives.

Lite-On BV, was kind enough to send us one of their range of CD-R/W drives, the SOHR-5238S. This drive supports 52x CD-R writing and CD-RW writing at a maximum of 32X.  The drive also supports 99 minute CD-R burning, Mt, Rainier and SMART BURN technologies.

Company Information:

Let us take a look at some of the company information found at the Liteon Website:

Lite-On Technology Corporation's vision is to become a world-class excellent company. The company will accomplish this not only through leading global R&D and manufacturing technologies, but also through the quality and distinctiveness of its products.

To reach these levels of excellence and become the leading navigator in 3C convergence, Lite-On plans to generate between five and six billion US dollars in annual revenue while establishing itself as a global market-leader by mastering all of its product-line industries. The company's ability to generate profits will guide the industrial circles in which it competes. While accomplishing these goals, corporate management will continue its policies of absolute financial transparency, independence, and impartiality.

The company's pursuit of excellence does not end there. To create better lives for people, Lite-On will also continue to develop advanced and integrated digital products while furnishing customers with innovative values that lead to true, beneficial relationships. Lite-On wants to be the best strategic partner for each of its customers.

Led by a professional team with promise and lofty ethics, Lite-On will also strive to be an excellent corporation with peak efficiency. The company will provide shareholders and investors with an appealing return-on-investment. Additionally, Lite-On will supply employees with an optimum work environment that helps them learn new skills and grow professionally for the future. Lite-On seeks to become one of the best corporations that people in greater China can choose for a career.

Facts & Figures:

• Lite-On Technology reported its global consolidated June revenue of NT$13.7B, increasing 4% on a YoY basis.
• Accumulated revenue in 2005 totaled NT$75.6B, growing 2% on a YoY basis.

If you are interested in reading more company information, please visit: Liteon

Drive Specifications:

The official listed specification of this drive was found on the Lite-on website:

What's Inside The Box?

Now we will take a look at what the drive came shipped with and take a look at the drive and its technology.

Front

Rear

   
Left/Right side

Top

Below you will see the full contents of the retail box.

The box included the following:

• The internal SOHR-5238S drive
• Nero OEM Suite
• Documentation for LITE-ON CD Writer
• NeroExpress 6.0 for Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP and 2003 Server (this can be updated to the latest version from Nero's website)
• InCD 4
• DOS drivers and utilities
• MPC Audio cable
• Screw set

Now it's time to take a look at the drive itself.

The drive bezel is quite nicely styled, and as we can see from the screenshot below, the bezel also sports a headphone jack and volume wheel, emergency eject hole and a single coloured Read/Write LED. (Green) And on the far right the eject button.

TOP

On the top-side of the drive we found the manufacturers label, and we can see the drive was made in Taiwan - September 2004.

Underside

On the back of the drive starting from the left, we can see a digital audio connector; analogue audio connector; pins and jumpers to set the drive to cable select, slave or master; IDE connector and finally the power connector.

Nero InfoTool Screenshot:

From the screenshot of Nero InfoTool above, we can see this drive supports:

• Mt.Rainier
• Buffer of 2 Megabytes
• CD Text
• CD+G
• Writing to both CD-R and CD-RW media

Our drive came shipped with firmware 4S06, the first task was to update the firmware to the latest available from the Lite-On website, which was version 4S08.

The drive was flashed with the new firmware without issue and the PC was re-started.

Let us continue this review and see how the drive really performs.

On the next page we will take a look at the test machine, and the included software package…………

Conclusion

Installation