detail information

Positive:

• Supports DVD±R/+R DL/-R DL writing at 16x/10x/6x
• Supports DVD+RW/DVD-RW writing at 8x/6x
• Supports Bitsetting on DVD+R/+R DL (BookType to DVD-ROM)
• Can burn some DVD+R/+R DL/-R DL media higher speed then certified
• Can read 99 min CD-Rs
• Reads CD-ROM/CD-R at 48x
• Reads DVD-Video SL/DVD-Video DL/DVD+RW at 16x/12x/12x
• 2 years warranty with on-site collect & return service (in EU, Norway and Switzerland )
• Supports many technologies such as:
  • PlexEraser
  • BURN-Proof
  • SecureRecording
  • PoweRec
  • VariRec
  • GigaRec
  • SecuRec
  • Q-Check
• Supports AutoStrategy technology (drive can learn to improve write quality)

Negative:

• Does not support Mt. Rainier
• Small buffer (compared to previous models like PX-712 and PX-716)
• Does not supports CD-RW writing at 32x
• Reads CD-RW/CD-Audio only at 40x
• Reads DVD±R/±R DL only at 12x/8x

Conclusion:

To sum it all up, this is what we would say:

'Interesting drive indeed, like the DVD+R DL 10x writing feature, however the disks we used in this article did not managed a 100% throughout 10x P-CAV writing curve. (There were 2 minor slowdowns in our fastest result).

As this drive was shipped with the first official firmware available, we are looking forward to see if there will be any improvements in future updates.

We should however wait for a full CDFreaks review of the retail version before making a final conclusion".

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we did not find any offers, and the same goes for getprice, but at a German local PC-store we found the drive listed at 99.90 €. (December 2005).

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

Thanks to: 

Daxon Technology Inc - Taiwan for providing the BenQ media used in this article.

Plextor SA/NV - Belgium for providing the media used is this article.

Ricoh Europe BV - Germany for providing the media used is this article.