Drives > LG Electronics Drives > CD-RW > 49x and faster

Advantages: Cheap and works like a dream.
Disadvantages: None.

LG GCE 8523B Continuing my quest to get back into the world of tech, I needed a reliable CD burner. I pondered getting a CD/DVD burner, but as I have never dabbled in the DVD ROM world in the past, and as I was building my system from scratch, I decided to go with what I knew best. My last CD burner was an LG, and I was more than happy with what it produced. That one cost me £49.99 a couple of years ago, so I was expecting to pay around £30 this ...
...the bargain bin. The LG GCE 8523B was in there and caught my eye immediately. The price also shocked me-£14.99!!! I grabbed it, and ran home. The box contained the drive, am installation cd, cables, and a copy of Nero Smartsuite, that was not advertised on the box. Result!!! This is one of the best bits of software for CD Burners ever made!!! It is a standard size for this kind of drive, measuring in at 14.6 cm wide, 18.5 cm deep and 4.1 cm tall. ... Read review

Advantages: value for money, works well, good for backups
Disadvantages: Not the fastest on the block

...expensive these days. The LG GCE-8160B is a couple of years old now and used to sell at PC World for £69 but can be picked up cheaply on eBay these days. The box contains the bare drive which sports 16x CD-R writing, 10x CD-RW writing and 40x reading as well as all the usual IDE cables, screws and sound card leads. The supplied software is Roxio CD Creator version 5 which is the latest version although not the full 'Platinum' style. You can still ...
...more esoteric features such as vinyl restoration, and Video-CD creation are missing. You can of course use 3rd party software or upgrade to the full version of CD Creator 5 Platinum. A bonus is a good pair of manuals covering the drive itself and the supplied software. The latter contains a lot of useful information for both beginners and experts alike. The package is rounded off with a CD-RW blank rated at 10x. Installation was excellent. Both ... Read review

Advantages: Writing speed (52X), Reading speed (52X), Read quality, Cost (£30), Reads scratched CD's hassle free
Disadvantages: looks pretty bland, Not many direct features

.......TARA RARA.........I came across the LG GCE 8520B CD/RW. Till date i haven't had any problem at all with the job this baby has done for me. ***READ QUALITY & SPEED. [5/5]*** My creative earlier used to take about 12 Mins to read a 700MB CD on an average. Where as the LG GCE 8520B takes around 4 Mins to read a 700MB CD with full data. And what more this can read most of the scratched CD's i have used till date [ Almost 90% ]. That solves my problem. ...
...my audio CD's using the LG GCE 8520B & the tracks have much much better sound quality than what i have experienced with other Drives with my friends. That is reason enough to award full marks to its Reading ability. ***WRITE, RE-WRITE QUALITY & SPEED. [5/5]*** I have written around 43 or 45 CD's so far with this machine & on an average the writing speed for a fully loaded 700MB CD at 52X speed has been around 2.5 to 3 mins sometimes extending upto ... Read review

Advantages: "works" with Mac and Windows
Disadvantages: Too many to list.

...work... (using Taiyo Yuden media bought from Microboards authorised retailers) >Manuals... inexistent! After days of bugging their support, a PDF was emailed over... > Support - rude and unhelpful most of the time. Takes days to get anything out of them In short? Stay well clear from this product! ... Read review

Advantages: Fast Write speeds, wide compatibilty, 20 speed dvd writing and CHEAP
Disadvantages: Not any that i've experienced!!

I found this to be an excellent drive as i picked up one for around £30 and that was when it came out(last year, june). I think that this is an excellent drive for the fact it has a wide range of DVD and CD writing features; 20 speed writing, my favourite feature is the light scribe feature which allows you to design your own cd labels on a special 'lightscribe disc'. The Drive was also quiet, but not too quiet. I found the OEM Box that the drive ... Read review