Drives > 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD-R DL) / 8x (DVD+R DL) Drives

Advantages: Reads everything, good writing speed
Disadvantages: unstable sometimes

I went for LG as the optical drive for my computer as it was tried and tested before.. For its price, this model is good.. Reads and writes at a good speed.. and doesnt even mind reading a bit scratched discs.. But the only problem with this is its stability.. I had to get another one because the one i bought first was always making sounds and spoiling my cds.. The newer one of the same model is also a bit unstable.. But its okay, About the installation, ... Read review

Advantages: Quick burning and access time
Disadvantages: Poor build quality

I purchased this drive early last year to replace a failing sony cd writer I had in my pc at the time. I had heard good things about this drive as it was supposed to be the fastest on the market at the time for burning both cds and dvds. After installing the drive in my pc the drive was picked up fine by the bios and windows detected it as the correct drive. The first thing I did was test the burn speed of both cd and dvd. I was not disappointed ...
...and dvds were not much slower. Unfortunately as this was my only dvd writer I cannot compare it to other drives in the dvd writing department. In terms of cd burning, it was around 20 seconds quicker than my sony drive which was rated at the same burn speed (this may be due to newer firmware etc as the drive is about 2 years newer than the sony). However, all was not well as a few weeks ago the drive began failing to read cds and would just click ... Read review

Advantages: fast at cd/dvd writing, prints cd's/dvd's, dual layer so up to 8.5 gb
Disadvantages: Difficult to find lightscribe disks at high street stores.

...PC World and found the Philips SPD3200. This is a stylish looking black machine which is currently sitting comfortably on top of my desktop PC. I don't think there is a format (other than Blueray) that this machine won't read or write. It does + or - DVD's and is a dual layer writer so it can potentially write up to 8.5 gig on a dual layer dvd disk. Its speeds are pretty good too. It will read and write CD's at 48x and DVD's at 16x. It will write ...
...but I always use the Philips external which up to now, faultless. You can buy this unit now for less than £50 at PC World or Amazon which is a great deal. Getting the disks is a more difficult proposition on the High Street but is no problem on the web. The unit comes with USB cable, power unit, leads, and with Nero 6 suite which is probably the best cd/dvd media authoring software available. I'd recommend this unit very highly and its potential ... Read review

Advantages: Burnt everything flawlessly (so far)
Disadvantages: None as yet

...both the specifications and the Philips branding. Philips always at least to me means quality products (although others may not necessarily agree with my view). Fitting was very easy indeeed, take out the old one slip in the new one - as simple as that. When i rebooted the drive was automatically recognised so no problems there. Nero Burning is also supplied with the writer - it's my preferred choice and probably the choice of the majority. Drive ...
...old burner. To test the Philips I burnt a music CD at 48x and a DVD at 8x. Both played perfectly, gone were the problems of my previous writer !!! So far having burned approximately 20 discs, both CD and DVD and all at max speeds I have absolutely no coasters. I thoroughly recommend this writer to anyone, well worth the extra money. Specifications (from Philips) Writing Speed DVD+R : 16X (21600KB/sec) by CAV DVD-R : 16X (21600KB/sec) by CAV DVD+R ... Read review

Advantages: reliable, fast, good quality, not-too-picky, handles all formats
Disadvantages: limited to 8x reading from some formats, missing some 'expert' features eg cannot do disc quality scans or report C2 errors

I bought my LG 4166B drive because it was reccomended as being reliable and I was anxious to avoid having some of the problems that I'd been having with a Sony dvd-writer. I was also interested in its capacity to deal with all different kinds of media, including DVD-RAM. Many people might think that all DVD-writers are pretty much the same, but unfortunately that is not the case. I've found that drives vary considerably in their ability to burn without ...
...am very satisfied with the LG 4166B. It burns quickly, it's not nearly as picky as the Sony writer about the discs I use in it, it produces less errors, and generally, the burns are very good quality - without read errors and quick to read from. It burns quickly and mostly at the maximum speed for the disc, burning a 16x DVD+ or - R in just under 6 minutes. I find that it writes DVD+Rs slightly better than it does DVD-R, although this could also ... Read review