detail information

Positive:

• Supports 4x DVD+R9 Double Layer writing
• Supports 16x CAV DVD+/-R writing speed
• Good DVD+/-RW writing quality
• Supports DAO-RAW writing.
• Fast and perfect audio extraction.
• Good reading speed with many media types.
• Supports bitsetting.
• Good user community support with several programs and modifications to get the most out of the drive.
•  'Two sheep" writer - positive when backing up copy protected games.
• Supports backing up all protected audio discs.
• Most media is supported at certified speed.
• Supports reading/writing 99 minutes CD-R media.

Negative:

• Only 8x DVD+/-RW reading speed.
• Only 32x CD-RW reading speed
• Very poor CD-R/RW Writing quality
• DVD-Writing quality is still not as good as with drives from Benq, Pioneer, NEC and LG.
• Does not support Mt. Rainier.
• Documentation could be better and the retail package could include some empty media.
• Supports Mitsubishi 6x DVD-RW at 4x only.

Conclusion:

What changed compared to the Lite-On SOHW-1653S? Well, the DVD-Writing quality is improved, so that is a step in the right direction. But why did they mess up the CD-Writing quality? It's been a long time since we have had a Lite-On drive that performed poorly for CD-Writing! Which is two steps backwards for CD-Writing quality. But let us concentrate on the most important negative and positive points.

The main positive points: Lite-On drives have a very large user community, for example our own Lite-On forum, where you will find tools, modified firmwares and help to get the most out of your Lite-On drive. The drive also supports many features like disc quality checking, bitsetting etc. And it's a good reader for original DVD discs as it does not have a riplock. The drive is also among the better drives for backing up games and protected audio discs.

The main negative points: The major negative point is the poor CD-Writing quality, which is uncommon for Lite-On drives. And we are still not satisfied with the writing quality for DVD+/-R media. Especially at 16x speed, but there were a few 8x discs that needs fine tuning as well. And don't you think it's time to increase the reading speed for DVD+/-R media at least? Yes, we think so.

To sum it all up, this is the best we could say: 'Acceptable DVD-Writer at 8x Writing speed, but 16x writing still needs improving. And very poor CD-Writing quality doesn't make this drive your first choice." Lite-On: Next time - try to head in the right direction only, instead of improving some things and breaking others.

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread. This forum thread may also be used to ask questions around this drive or request additional tests.

Thanks to:

Conrexx for providing the  media used in this review. Conrexx technology is the supplier of Traxdata media as well as other Ritek media brands for whole Europe.

 For providing the That's Write media used in this review. That's Write focus on providing quality media at reduced prices in Europe.

 For providing some of 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 us with Mirror and Miflop Extreme media. Miflop media aims at providing both cheap (INFOSMART) and expensive (Taiyo Yuden) quality media.

For providing the RiData media used in this review. RiData is a Ritek brand and thus you are sure to get Ritek manufactured discs when buying RiData media.

 For providing the Daxon and BenQ media used in this review. Daxon manufacture high quality media for many large OEM customers lke BenQ and Sony.

 For providing the Verbatim DVD+R9 Double Layer media used in this review. Verbatim provides high quality media almost over the whole world.

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