Advantages: Brilliant and works with all disks i have used so far
Disadvantages: none really

...This LG GDR 8163B is the latest DVD-RW drive from LG and as per usual is Brillaint to use. This is dual layer drive....8.5GB potential Burns CDr's at 40x about 2 min 32 secs @600mb on an 80min/ 700meg cdr. Also does CDRW DVD-r are a breese and the drive is very fast and quite. DVD+r little slower but works fine with all mainstream disks. DVD-Ram too but the disks a bit expensive so farfor me to try. DVD-RW disks are a breese again using Nero newest version and back-up data is straight forward. Have used Datawrite Grey 8x DVD-R and INFINITI 16x Green DVD-R no probs. But would suggest spending a little moer on good disks. 8XDVD-r time is about 7 mins for 4gb data and 7min 50 secs for DVD files. Overall good machine and well worth the current cost of £35-£32.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: It's a Sony, so quality and style are excellent...
Disadvantages: It's a Sony, so it's a bit more expensive...

...burning... The DRX-700UL also comes with a CD containing the (award winning) Nero software suite that allows you to create a whole range of music/video& data CD/DVD projects - THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF NERO SOFTWARE - I've used it for video DVD's, mucic and data CD's and it's pretty intuitive and full featured. The DRX-700UL certainly seems to do most things, claiming (in the Sony documentation) to work with: DVD-R/-R DL/-RW, DVD+R/DVD+R DL/+RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, CD-DA, CD-ROM (XA), CD Extra, Video CD, Photo CD*, CD Text, multi-session (!) I've used the DRX-700UL on some CDR's and some DVD+R's (4.7GB) and have had no problems, no burning or buffer errors (the drive has a 2MB buffer). It can record up to 8.5GB capacity on one Double/ Dual Layer disc, but I just happened to find some DVD+R's on special offer !. Overall, the DRX-800UL has... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Features, Appearance, Audio, Display quality...Everything
Disadvantages: Battery

...-ROM 24x, DVD-ROM 8x Write speed: CD-R 24x, CD-RW 16x, DVD+R 8x, DVD-R 8x, DVD+RW 8x, DVD-RW 6x, DVD+R DL (8.5 GB) 4x, DVD-R DL (8.5 GB) 4x, DVD-RAM 5x Launch Keys ---------------------------------- 1 Launch Key located on top of the keyboard enabling the user to launch the following application: - Silent mode (reduce noise level / fan speed, by reducing the CPU & VGA performance) (Office applications, Internet and DVD playback are not affected) Hot Keys The following hotkeys or key combinations are available: Fn-F1 Suspend Fn-F3 Mute Fn-F4 Display toggle, switches display output between display screen and external monitor or to dual view Fn-F5 Volume up Fn-F6 Volume down Fn-F7 Increase display brightness Fn-F8 Decrease display brightness Status indicators ---------------------------------------- The notebook has 7 status icons... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: They hold coffee cups brilliantly
Disadvantages: Useless when used on a PC

...What a waste of cach. I bought a spindle of these disks, after seeing them fo £12.29 in my local Tesco shop. I worked this out at roughly 25p each. Not bad, so I put them in the trolley and headed home. Then the trouble started... I opened up the outer wrapping and all the disks spilled out. There did not appear to be a central spike to the spindle. Just 50 discs held in by the plastic outer sleeve. So after picking the disks up and carefully checking for damage. I put one into my drive and proceeded to burn a copy of OpeneSuse 10.3 OpenSuse 10.3 is a Linux distribution which weighs in at 3.85GB, so there is plenty of room left over after a burn for the drive to update the TOC and index, it has burnt many times before on different disks, however, not on these Tescos ones. So I gave up after 3 failed attempts, and tried to burn... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Great reputatioon, large storage capacity
Disadvantages: Half of them didn't work

...I have been buying this brand for ages, and was always a big fan. They are more expensive than some other brands, like memorex, but I thought they were worth the extra. They were reliable, burned well (no coasters as people say) and you could always tell by looking at them that they were good. This is the first time I've bought this particular type - with two recording layers they are supposed to offer you almost double the capacity on a single side, so you can get almost 4 hours of DVD -enough for even the most enthusiastic home movie maker! Well that's true, and the one's I got to work, worked fine, but lots didn't work. One you could see when I took it out of the box it was all bubbled on the surface, so I didn't even try to burn that one. And of the pack of 10 I bought, 3 so far have not worked out of 7 I've used, not including... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Fast, especially DVD-RAM, reads and writes everything
Disadvantages: No lightscribe

...-RAM is a far better choice - DVD-R and DVD+R and proving to suffer far too many problems with longevity becoming a worrying issue. As the drive supports dual-layer media, you have the option to burn 8.5GB disks as well as the more common 4.7GB flavour. These disks are still more expensive but prices have dropped dramatically so this is probably a feature that you'll use more in 6 months time. The drive is also quite short front to back so is good for cramped cases compared to some burners which can be quite deep making them difficult to fit. Noise levels are fine and vibrations seemed low given the speed. My unit has a black fascia to suit my PC so be aware that the grey version in the picture isn't the only option. Installation is straight forward, just slot it into a spare drive bay, connect the IDE and power cables and you're done. You don... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Hard Working and reliable. Can be moved from PC to PC
Disadvantages: Desk space needed because it's external.

...and watch any DVD movie of my choice. {Please note:it works a little slower on USB1} The Freecom can also burn dual layer DVDs which means that, you can get almost double the amount of movies (i.e. up to 8.5GB) on one Dual Layer disk, but they do tend to cost a little more than the standard DVD disks. Another thing that is useful regarding this drive, is that using Nero (that was packaged with the drive), I can back up any computer file I wish to DVD and this gives me 4.7GB (that is 4,812.8 megabytes) of storage on a DVD disk in comparison to 700 MB (megabytes) that can be stored on CD-R or RWs. So as you can imagine, I now have fewer worries of losing my files should my hard drive decide to die on me. I have been amazed at the way the price of the DVD burners have come down in price over the years. When I first became interested in burning... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Price, Reliabilty, Quality, FAST write speed, Everything else
Disadvantages: none - it's fantastic

...I got this dvd writer about 3 weeks when i bought it on import from america. it is being released here in the UK right about now, and i'm sure i will be the first of many to sing it's praises. Fistly here is what it is capable of: Disc Compatability - This machine can write to DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and also the new DVD-R/+R Dual Layer Discs. The standard single layer dics can hold 4.7gb and the new dual layer discs can hold 8.5gb. Write Speeds: Single layer DVD +/- R/Rw at an amazing 16x, this means a full dvd in 6-7 minutes! For the Dual layer dvd's (+/-) it writes at 6x, which is the fastest speed currently available. DVD-RW writes at 6x and DVD+RW writes at 8x. When the box first arrived, i joyfully and carefully opened it, it was very well packaged, with ample padding and foam. The drive came with runners... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Sleek, stylish, feature rich
Disadvantages: Expensive, slow to respond

...------------- - DVD-R/DVD+R/DVD-RW/DVD+RW Recording (dual RW). - Hard disk capacity: 80 GB. - High Picture Quality : HQ+ - Chasing Playback / Pause Live TV. Other features: -------------------- Sophisticated GUI and Quick Response GUI. Precision Cinema Progressive with 12bit/108MHz Video DAC. DVD Video/CD/Video CD Playback and DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD+R/DVD+RW Playback. MP3 Playback & JPEG Playback ( CD-R/RW ). Compatible with +R double layer disc ( 8.5 GB Disc ). D-Matrix Noise Reduction System. Intelligent Scene Chaptering & Visual Search ( HDD & DVD-RW VR Mode ). Fast Playback with Sound ( HDD ) : x1.5. High Speed Dubbing : Up to x64 ( x8 Drive ). S-Video In/Out / Analog AV In/Out / Component Video Output. 2x Scart ( 1 including RGB input ) and Digital Audio Output. VIDEO + and VPS/PDC A/V Synchro and STB Synchro REC. Automatic Program Naming... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Multi-Format, Dual-Layer, Quiet, Cheap, Storage Capacity
Disadvantages: Reliability, Support

...would need to involve the dual-layer writing ability, so I fired up EasyCD Creator (v5 platinum) with the intent of backing up an 8.5Gb chunk of my music files. To my dismay, EasyCD didn't recognise the fact that my new drive had a Dual-Layer disc inserted and would only let me copy up to the usual 4.7Gb of data. To be fair this isn't a problem with the drive and in actual fact it prompted me to go and buy a copy of Nero which DID recognise the extra capacity. The backup went as hoped and took a lot fewer discs than it used to do when I used CDs! For the techies out there it supports the following media types and speeds: DVD-R 8x DVD-RW 4x DVD+R 16x DVD+RW 4x CD-ROM 48x CD-R 48x CD-RW 24x DVD-ROM 16x It also includes the latest buffer underrun prevention technology, making sure you don't waste dozens of blank discs just because... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful