Are you fed up waiting for that dodgy copy of you mates cd to burn? Tired of watching how slow your pathetic, unbadged, 2 speed cdwriter spits out those copies? Or maybe you're lukcy, and have a 4 speed cdwriter. Maybe even an 8 speed one. Now that's not bad now, is it - what is that, around 10 mins a cd? That's not bad.

The drive I am writing this opinion about is the Memorex TwelveMaxx 1032. It is a 12 speed CD writer drive, which is also able to re-write at 10 speed and read at up to 32 speed (12x10x32). It has Burn-Proof technology, which I will not bore you with too many details about, as I've already explained it in reasonable detail in my Plextor opinion (titled 'Burn baby, burn'). Basically though, it means that with the use of a new CD Writer standard, cd's can be burned whilst doing other things in the background on your PC, without running the risk of getting those dreaded 'buffer underruns', which are caused when the PC cannot retain a sustained rate to the cdwriter during the burning stage.

The Memorex drive is easy to install, although the instructions and manual are a little sparce - in fact, they only explain the basics about installing the drive. Then again, I wouldn't advise anyone who hasn't fiddled a bit inside their PC before to install this, just incase you run into problems. I say this, because I tried to get the same model of drive to run properly at the place I work, but couldn't (although I didn't spend too long looking into why). The 'Quick Start' guide is a generic guide that Memorex supply to explain roughly how to fit a DVD or CDROM drive, and is not entirely accurate. It tells you to run the setup on the CD, when there isn't one. Instead there is an Adobe PDF file which acts at the menu for the CD. This doesn't autorun when you put the setup CD in the drive (obviously), and if you haven't got Adobe Acrobat Reader already installed, you have to go through a bunch of nested folders to get to the setup for it before you can load the Menu PDF file. A bit of a pain really.

Easy CD Creator - a windows explorer-style disk authoring piece of software. With this you can create CDs containing files you've selected from your hardisk, or even select audio tracks from an audio CD which to cut onto another CD.

You also get a free copy of eJay, which I'm afraid I haven't used, but I believe it's some sort of MP3 burning application, but has restrictions. You also get a CD jewel case creator with Easy CD Creator, which is handy. The CD copier that is supplied is also very handy, for... erm... copying CDs. But of course I didn't tell you that ;-)

There isn't really much that can be said about a CD writer, although I've seemed to give it a go for the second time now! This drive performs well. Infact, the software seems to be pretty stable and comparable with WinOnCD which comes with the Plextor. Although time can only tell I suppose. I've only had this drive for a few days, so I haven't discovered any longterm problems. However, if there are any problems, I'll be sure to make use of the so-called 'stress free' guarantee! The drive seems to perform at it's 12 speed well, and I cannot visually see any performance difference between this drive and the Plextor. The CDs supplied with the drive were rated up to 16 speed, and so far I've made my way through over half of the 50 CDs without any errors.

Apart from these acceptable issues, the amount saved when buying this drive rather than the Plextor, is too tempting to ignore. Ith drive can be bought for nearly £130 retail, which should be saving you around £30 on the Plextor - and you get 50 'free' CDRs in the bundle. Not bad really, and worth a look as a 'budget' alternative to the Plextor.