LG GSA 4120B > Reviews > My first DVD Writer from LG(I now have 3)

Author's product rating:   

Reliability	Excellent
Ease of Installation	Excellent - very quick and easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Writes to all 3 formats,
Disadvantages:	outdated now

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought this DVD writer in June 2004, while writers were still about £70, unlike today where they cost less than £30.

I bought it mainly because it could write to all three formats, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW and DVD-RAM. Almost everybody else does not support the DVD-Ram format, which is surprising since it is actually technologically much more advanced.

Unlike normal CD's and DVD's DVD-Ram does not have to write all it's information outwards from the centre of the disc in one steady stream. Instead, it's more like a Hard drive, in that it can write to anywhere on the disc and read from anywhere on the disc at any time, which makes it much more versatile. This is why many DVD-Recording set top boxes use this format, as it allows things like Timeslip, allowing you to record and play at the same time, essentially pausing live TV. It also makes a better sense choice for backing up data from a computer, which needs to be re-written often as it can be re-written over 100,000 times, unlike the 1,000 times of DVD-RW and DVD+RW.

But thats not the only reason to choose this drive. It is as fast and reliable as any other DVD-Writer on the market, and doesn't cost any more, so it seems silly to spend money on another dvd-writer that can't do everything this one can do.

It also comes with a decent software bundle (that is continually updated so i won't list it) which allows you to straight away burn discs, capture and edit movies, backup your computer and much more.

The drive comes in black, silver or beige (i like black personally).

I have never once been let down by this drive, in fact i liked it so much, that i bought two of the newer LG GSA 4163BB Drive.

This will write to DVD+RW dual layer as well, but is not as fast as some modern drives, having a maximum write speed of 12x, the maximum you can get is 16x and all new LG Writers support this and both DVD-R and DVD+R dual layer formats.

There really is no reason to choose any other writer. This does more than all the rest, with excellent build quality, and doesn't cost a penny more. I recommend using it with Verbatim brand DVD media.