CD Freaks presents Plextor PX-716A review

It's finally online. Sorry for the delay people but I wanted to add as many tests as possible. If you require more tests than found in the review you can ask for them in this forum thread. Of course, other comments and questions are also welcome!

Great work, guys.

Here are OC-Freak's "score numbers" according to the points in my signature - and why.

1: 7/10 - due to some failed writes and not perfect quality at 16x.
2: 5/10 - due to only 1 of 4 16x discs working at 16x and almost no media overspeeding (only TY and Ricoh found so far for overspeeding).
3: 7/10 - Due to never reaching 16x with PowerREC on as well as Z-CAV writing with PowerREC off. BenQ and LG being faster as well.
4: 9/10 - Very good reader. Just minor drawbacks.
5: 10/10 - has everything, bitsetting lots of testing possibilities etc.
6: 8/10 - nothing special in the sheep test, but overall good.
7: 8/10 - nothing special, missing empty media and fat printed manual.
8: 7/10 - Due to my drive being defective due to shipping, had to open it (warranty woid ) and put a small plastic tab back in place - construction seems very weak - even worse than Lite-On drives.

OC's overall score: 7/10.

Let's hope new firmware improves this.

I'd be interested in seeing more complete results with 1.05 firmware (than the brief tests done with the best 1.04 firmware) when it's released.

Thanks, G@M3FR3@K!

mmm i might buy 1!

Very nice review, but

Isn't it great when the spell check replaces words for you.

I think I am being a bit picky though.
Roll on 1.04 Firmware.

great review

OC-FReak
You gave a poor rating for packaging sighting no manual and no media. I just picked up a Px716 at Fry's in California and it had a 119 page manual, a Verbatim 16x DVD+r disc, 80 pin cable, a offer for 15 free DVD's as well as 20% coupon on Plextor Video devices. As they say "everything great in America"

I once received a NEC 3500 that was damaged. It was not user fixable. I returned it for an undamaged replacement and retained the warranty.

If you had received the Plextor with unrepairable shipping damage, would you have given it a "score number" of 0/10? Of course a Plextor review should penalize the drive due to actions by the shipper.

not to mention a full copy of the manual in French too.

Yup, my TLA#0203 came with a 129 page manual, free 16x verbatim DVD, and all the rest of the goodies Geekeldr and drpino stated (lol, including the French manual).

-ImBAD

Well after I've read the review I'll proparely buy this one instead of the nec 3520, thanks for the very deep review

So what happen to the quality made drives?

what's your deal man? did you get fired from Plextor or something?

.

No!!! Plextor just suck and I'm sick of hearing post of how people find out after they buy it. So I just like to let the newbies know you don't have to buy any plextors product to get quality drive. Infact its totaly opposite and in this forum everyone is proven that for me, even some of you guys who like plextor.
Thanks guys.

Small mistake under the picture of DVD-RW reading test, because it tells "DVD-R DL".

I don't really understand why you prefer the 500 scale with the PlexTools PI/PO scan graph. When you try to compare good quality burners, results just can't be seen well (for example difference between 20 or 40 errors). For the acceptable maximum is 280 when an 8 ECC blocks PI/PO scan performed, a scale of 300 would be optimal IMO. Maybe further differentiation would be useful as well, for example 100 scale for good results and 500 for bad results.

And finally a couple of questions on PoweRec:
If I enable it and try to burn a TY 8X +R at 12X speed with DVDDecrypter (AS OFF), it warns me that the selected speed is 12X but the actual is 16X. In fact it will burn at 8X with a Z-CLV(!!!) strategy. How can it be?

I tried to rip a pressed DL DVD-Video disc with DVDDecrypter but it always started at 2X speed and stayed there. SpeedReed was enabled both in PlexTools and Decrypter but it didn't help. I tried the eject button trick but no success. Any ideas?
THX in advance!

Gamefreak (and OC), thanks for the deep review. I just got a chance to read them, it's hard to see the images . So.. although its one of the latest 16x drives, it looks like the 716a is good. GF, do you still score it 7 out of 10? You didn't put that in the conclusion.

i noticed this but realized that when i do PI/PO scan, the read speed is set to 2X under Drive Settings>Basic tab. try this, even when you're ripping, and it's stuck at 2X, go to Plextools>Drive Settings>Basic and select 5-12 (or 6-16) from the "DVD Read Speed Setting" drop down menu....the ripping speed for me automatically jumps up. maybe you checked this already, but i enabled Speed Read (under Advanced tab) and did the eject button trick to no avail til i realized what i described above.

wow, you're on a mission. seems like a whole lot of effort on behalf of "newbies" you have no connection to. oh well...i just think you're trolling in the Plextor forum. why don't you spend your time and effort in one of the RH forums for a drive that you like instead of constantly coming here and bashing plextor? i think THAT would be more helpful to newbies.

back on topic....i agree with erdoke about the scale of the PI/PO scans. i know you probably like to keep things consistent throughout any one review, but without even the log data from a scan (PIE max, avg, total), they're difficult to read for a discerning burner. otherwise, nice job on a great review. thanks OCF and GF!!!

Yep, this was the first I did, because I realized this problem earlier when doing a transfer rate test. I will give it a try again, setting everything possible.

Ok.. I stop bashing Plextor in the Plextor forum as long as I'm not called in to it. But only in the Plextor forum.
As some else says peace.

Very thorough, professional review. Thank you for your time and effort. Your review is the one to read, G@M3FR3@K.

Mark

8: 7/10 - Due to my drive being defective due to shipping, had to open it (warranty woid ) and put a small plastic tab back in place - construction seems very weak - even worse than Lite-On drives.

When I first bought my drive, when I flipped it over to change the bezel, it sounded like something was loose in there. I just figured it was an actuator or something that wasn't spring loaded. Did this piece of plastic stop your drive from working? P.S. How do you quote post?

No - it did work but it made an awful annoying high vibrating sound when spinning at LOW speeds (like when using Q-Check).

The quote button is found in the lower right corner of every post. Or use the (quote)Post quoted text here (/quote) tags. ( ) = [] but had to post like this to get it shown