detail information

Positive:

• Supports DVD+R9 DL writing
• Supports 16x DVD+R speed
• 16x CAV burns leads to faster burns when compared with 16x Z-CLV
• Excellent quality on DVD burns
• Reads CDs at 40x and DVDs at 16x
• Supports read/write - 8cm CD-R discs and credit card CD-R discs
• Fast and perfect audio extraction
• Can rip protected audio discs
• Supports read/write 99 minutes CD-R discs
• Supports bitsetting for all types of DVD+R/R9 DL/RW (sets auto. booktype to DVD-ROM)
• Fancy and useful LED setup on the front.

Negative:

• Does notsupport Mt. Rainier
• Only 40x burn speed on CD-R
• Questionable CD-RW writing quality
• 8x reading speed on DVD+R/RW/DL & DVD-R/RW media

Conclusion:

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points: The first point we would like to mention is the DVD+R9 DL support, the technology is quite young and it is an interesting format to experiment with. The next point is the very fast 16x DVD+R CAV writing and it also includes a very good writing quality on this media, thanks to the WOPC 2. The drive can write some types of 4x DVD+R media at 8x/12x and 8x media at 12x/16x. The bitsetting support on DVD+R/RW/R9 media makes the media up to 100% compatible with i.e. DVD-ROM and DVD stand alone devices. And the last point we would like to mention is the fancy and useful LED setup on the front of the drive, many other manufacturers have a simple led feature due to save costs.

The main negative points: There is hardly anything negative to say about this drive, but if we should point something out it would be: The 40x CD-R writing speed compared with other drives, that offers this feature at 48x. Also the 8x reading speed on DVD+R/RW/DL & DVD-R/RW media, since according to the official specifications, it should have been 10x. Last of all, the questionable CD-RW writing quality.

The official list price from Philips (September 2004):

• 119.9 $ : Trial version (video plug-in 30 days)
• 139.9 $ : Premium version included video plug-in Nero

Because of the features and quality this drive offers, we decided to give the drive our "SAFE BUY award".

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

EMTEC (MPOTEC GmbH) - Germany for providing the DVD+R 8x, DVD+RW 4x, CD-R 52x and CD-RW 10x media.

MMORE International B.V - The Netherlands for providing the DVD+R 8x, DVD+RW 4x and DVD-R 8x media used in this review.

Philips - The Netherlands for providing the DVD+R 16x and DVD+R9 DL media used in this review.

                                                   Verbatim GmbH- Germany for providing us with the DVD+R 8x, DVD+RW 4x, DVD+R9 DL, DVD-R 8x, DVD-RW 4x, CD-R 52x, CD-RW 24x media.