detail information

Positive:

• Supports LightScribe
• 3 empty LightScribe media included in the retail box
• Supports DVD+R at 16x
• 8x/16x P-CAV/CAV burns leads to faster burns when compared with 8x/16x Z-CLV
• Extracts CD-DA at full speed with EAC
• Excellent writing quality on CD-R's
• Ok media supports and compatibility
• Very good writing quality on DVD+R/RW/R9 DL media
• Supports bitsetting for all types of DVD+R/R9 DL/RW (sets auto. booktype to DVD-ROM)
• Supports disc quality scanning
• Can Rip Protected audio discs
• 'Two sheep" writer
• Supports DAO-RAW writing
• Can read/write 99/100 minutes CD-R's
• Excellent written software documentation & How To Manual
• Very nice optic (fancy and useful LED setup on the front)
• Very good Software package

Negative:

• Does not support Mt. Rainier
• Other drives offer 48/32x/4x/16x writing on CD-R/RW/DVD+R9 DL/DVD-R media
• Other drives offer faster read back speed on CD-R/RW/DVD+R/-R 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 LightScribe feature/technique. The feature just arrived on the market for normal consumer, and it made fun to play with it. We are looking forward to; writing speedups as well to see how the technique develops in the future. Next point - the Philips DVDR16LS also extracts CD-DA disc at full speed - and can also copy protected audio CD's, which is an advantage when ripping/extracting music. Further the drive offer, very good writing quality on CD-R/DVD+R/DVD+R9 DL media. The drive also sets the Booktype automatic to DVD-ROM on DVD+R/RW/R+9 DL media, which leads to better compatibility on Standalone devices. Due to 'two sheep" burner and the DAO-RAW writing mode - the drive can be used to backup copy protected CD's. It also supports reading/writing CD-R's up to 99/100 minutes. Another point is the fancy and very useful LED setup on the front of the drive. As a last point we would like to point out the excellent written documentation/How To Manual and the very good software package that comes with the retail drive.

The main negative points: We do not have much negative to say about this drive, but if we should point something out - it would be: other drives offer 48x/32x/4x/16x writing on CD-R/RW/DVD+R9 DL/DVD-R media, together with other drives offer faster reading speed on DVD±R/DVD±RW/CD-R/RW media.

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: 'Overall a very good drive which also supports the new LightScribe feature/technique and therefore we would like to give the Philips DVDR16LS our SAFE BUY award".

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we didn't find any offers, but at getprice the drive is listed at 91.95 €. (14. March 2005).

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

Thanks to:

EMTEC (MPOTEC GmbH) - Germany for providing the CD-R 52x media used in this review.

E-Net Distribution - United Kingdom for providing the Datawrite DVD+R 8x and RiDisc DVD-R 8x media used in this review.

MMORE International B.V. - The Netherlands for providing the CD-R DA, CD-R 52x, DVD+R 16x and DVD-R 8x media used in this review.

NewStar Digital - South Korea for providing the CD-R 52x and DVD-R 8x media used in this review.

Sky Media Manufacturing sa - Switzerland for providing the DVD+R 8x, DVD-R 8x and CD-R 52x media used in this review.

Conrexx Technology B.V./RITEK Europe - The Netherlands for providing the Traxdata DVD-R 8x, DVD-RW 4x, CD-R 52x and CD-RW 24x used in this review.

Verbatim GmbH - Germany for providing the DVD+R 16x, DVD+R9 DL 2.4x, DVD+RW 4x, DVD-R 8x, CD-R LightScribe, CD-R 52x and CD-RW 24x media used in this review.