cd-rom drives

This is the DVD/R/RW drive I have been holding out for. It reads & writs all DVD recordable formats except DVD-RAM. And at the fastest speeds possible today. It will even write to DVD+R 4x media at 6-8x! But it will not write to DVD+RW 2.4x at 4x. You have to use DVD+RW 4x media to get 4x RW speeds-and right now those are hard to find! But 2.4x is not half bad for RW.

As for burning CDR/RW, it does the trick and is even faster than my old 24x burner. But be careful! I found out the hard way that burning to SOME media at higher speeds is not ideal for playback in most CD-Audio players. You might begin to hear artifacts such as skipping and clicking on SOME players. But if you play it back on the computer it sounds just fine. Best to keep audio recordings at or below 24x. Note, however, that this drive is limited to 4, 8, 16, 32, or 40x CDR recordings.

The 4-8x recording speeds allow you use VariREC to experiment with the intensity of the write laser to make your recordings more compatible with older, more fussy CD palyers & drives, though I found that using CDR manufactured by Taiyo-Yuden solves this problem most of the time (Taiyo-Yuden CDR are known to often read back with less errors than today's pressed CD's).

PoweREC monitors the recording quality throughout the burning process and will adjust the recording speed to maintain a consistent write quality throughout the disc. But keep in mind, the drive is very good at reading poor discs (more so than most audio players and other CD/DVD rom drives), so that doesn't guarantee that other drives won't experience some problems. You can disable this feature if you wish (but why would you want to do that?)

Missing from the features list is Plextor's GigaREC and Q-Check - available only in the Plextor Premium line of CDR drives. But it can play back discs recorded using the GigaREC feature. I would have liked to have seen those features here, but certainly the drive packs quite a punch anyway.

The only other drawback is the included software. Roxio Easy CD Creator 6.0 Standard. I found this software to be very quirky, especially the Classic interface. It has a habit of locking up the computer, and mine is not the only one, after having read the message boards on the Roxio website. The disc-to-disc copy software worked well, is feature-packed, and had a very nice graphic display during copy. At the time I chucked this software in favor of Nero, there were no updates available to fix the lock up problems. I never tried the DVD authoring portion of the software.

Additionally, Plextor did not include PlexTools - an awesome piece of software that is included with their PlexWriter Premium drives. That is probably because the PlexTools hadn't been updated with DVD capabilities yet, and due to the fact that the drive doesn't support Q-Check--the ability to run a qualitative analysis of the recordings it makes and display the error rates to the user, which is particularly useful in determining whather the brand of CDR you are using is good or bad.

All-in-all, I would be doing a disservice to give this drive anything less than 5 stars-it is clearly the best DVD and CD buring drive on the market. And with the introduction of the 708UF external models (in more than a rainbow of colors to match your computer's case!), there's no reason to consider another drive for all of your DVD or CD burning needs.

Note: Plextor recommends using Verbatim DVD media. For CDRs, they highly recommend Verbatim Datalife+ (not standard Datalife) or Taiyo-Yuden. These will give the best results, with error rates close to that of quality pressed media, especially when burned at 4-8x. Of course, most media will work just fine. I have burned Memorex and TDK 4x DVD+R at 8x speeds.

I purchashed this drive when it first came out after reading so many good reviews on it. I have an older Plextor 16/10/40A cd burner in my other computer. It's over 2 years old and has burned 100's of cd's without a hitch. So far with the new 708A I have made movies and backed-up copies of movies. It works flawlessly. I'm running XP Pro with 1 Gb memory 2 120 Gb Western Digital HHD's P4 2.6 GHz. Installation went without a hitch. Use DVD-cloner 2 to back-up movies. You pay more for the Plextor but it's worth it. Have used both TDK and Sony DVD-R's with equal success. I am waiting for more reviews on Roxio Media 7 before I decide to upgrade to that or stick with Roxio 6. Have been using Roxio since ver 5 for my cd's and love it. Not as buggy as 6 was to start with. XP seems to be very fussy about others software. Never had that problem with windows ME.

So then, this writing is primarily about Plextor Customer Assistance, and that "one in ? (some number)" of drives that won't read a disk, and dutifully "blink" their little amber beacon of distress.

The e-mail exchanges were prompt & polite, but the suggested work-arounds were really more than Plextor should have expected of an average customer. And, their insistence that the problem might be my use of non-approved media was just plain silly.

Ultimately, the RMA (return/exchange) process was quick & painless. It's never pleasant rummaging around inside the case, but all's well that ends well...presently playin' & burnin' to my heart's content.