detail information

The Media:

Since writers are getting faster and faster the media (CD-R) manufacturers also have to keep up. Certified 32x media is still rather hard to come by. The presumed 32x CD-R disc which we received with the drive reached a disappointing write time as you can see in the screenshot below. We soon learned that although Nero reported to write the disc at 32x it was actually written at 24x:

As you can see the Mitsumi CR-480ATE needs 4 minutes and 7 seconds to write the entire disc. This is the exact same time the Plextor PX-W2410A reaches with a 700MB disc (of course writing at 24x). The Mitsumi CR-480ATE lowered the writing speed internally. We tested several CD-R brands and it seems the Mitsumi is rather picky when it comes to used media. Luckily we received some new certified 32x CD-R's. Here's the same screenshot again but now with the new discs:

As you can see the Mitsumi CR-480ATE now needs only 3 minutes and 50 seconds to write the same disc. Compared to our previous reviews of the Plextor PX-W2410A, the Lite-On 24102B and the Waitec MEGALUS this is about 17 - 23 seconds faster.

Comparing:

Next we did some more tests comparing the Mitsumi CR-480ATE to our previous reviews:

• Plextor PX-W2410A Review
• Lite-On 24102B Review
• Waitec MEGALUS Review

For our tests we used two .avi (DivX) files. One file of 700MB and one of 650MB. We wrote them at 16x, 20x. 24x and 32x. In the table below you can see the achieved results:

The table above shows that the Mitsumi CR-480ATE can keep up with the fastest drives out there. It reaches about the same speeds the Plextor PX-W2410A does and beats both the Lite-On 24102B and the Waitec MEGALUS. We couldn't perform the 20x tests since both Nero and CloneCD refused to write at this speed.

Now that we've taken a look at how the Mitsumi CR-480ATE writes data it's time to find out how well the drive can read data...