Which 16x DVD Writer Should I Buy? (MAY 2005)

gha. maybe I should make something clear. I can't wait more than a couple of days, basically by monday I need to have the drive comming to me so that at the very latest I receive it by thursday.

Reason is, (I know a lot of ppl will ask), is that I need to burn some stuff off my drives by then at the ABSOLUTE latest.

not that I wouldn't want to wait otherwise. 1640 would be nice but... I need to get it now. For my second drive I would be willing to wait.

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Last edited by HPMmfs; 11-06-2005 at 07:21. Reason: adding to post

welp...

I found out that the BenQ DOES come with Nero software. So that bit is now not a real "problem".

=)

STILL if anybody has any ideas on the software bit as alternative software I would be happy to listen.

What better features? They appear to be similar.

And when will the 1640 be out?

I've got some besbuy gift cards burning a whole in my pocket and so far the only drive they have is the hp 640i (dw1625).

From what I understand it comes out in the US at the middle of this month, so expect to see it in some stores on the 15th or so. (june 15th)

Um.. Theres stock here in Singapore at a discounted price of S$100 though..
Any takers?

Thanks for the info, I think I can wait till then





Man, my spelling is horrible!

1640 in South Korea costs nearly as much as 1620. Similiar in Japan.

1640 has 8x DVD+R DL, 8x DVD+RW, 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R... 1625 has LS, but lower max speeds on some types.

unfortunatly for me I had to buy before it was available in the US. So I got me a 1620 instead. I don't think I will regret the choice no matter how much faster 1640 really proves to be. After this drive I will wait till the HDDVD and blue ray wars are settled or a good candidate comes around that can handle both.

I find that DL just isn't that compelling a feature for me at this time, a little more compelling than DVD RAM, enough so that I want to have the feature available but not enough that it becomes a "necessary" performance option.

Having said all that, had I had a choice, I woulda waited for the 1640 launch in the States.

DW1640 is a minor upgrade model from DW1620 while DW1620 is a BIG upgrade model from BenQ's 8x drives.

Hello, I am brand new here. I was on the verge of buying a Plextor PX-716 because of some reviews I had read, plus I had a positive experience with a Plextor CD burner a few years ago. I currently have an 8x TDK DVD burner, and want to get a 16x dual layer.

Then I did some more research which brought me here. It seems that the newest Plextor is not as good of a drive as some of the less expensive ones. It seems that the BenQ 1620 is a front runner here, as well as the LG 4163B. Then it looks like the BenQ 1640 is on the verge of being released. I am not in a huge hurry, and would like some advice on which drive to buy. Have they fixed some of the issues from the review on the Plextor? The drive I buy should be a two sheep drive too.

Thanks!

Steve

Looking at the poll, as time goes by the gap between Nec and Benq seems to become smaller and smaller (although still a difference of 13%, the gap was much larger several weeks ago).

Maybe the pro's can give some nice comments on this.

Benq 1640 or Nec 3540?

yes, id also like to know since i plan to "in the future at least" burn many DL discs and 4x and 8x is a huge difference, and the benq is about as good as the nec except the NEC seems to pull ahead with its 8x DL support...
so i would like to know if the NEC rips faster, or the Benq, because that is the biggest thing im looking for right now

The BenQ 1620 rips a full cd in about 6 minutes (that is with the increase read speed choice)

i was looking more for DL read speeds which seems to be plextors best catagory.. i dunno, ill have to read more reviews

I have been using Liteon drives for the last 5 years and haven't looked back. Huge undergroung community support and it is the fastest ripper. It copies CD protections effectively too. For me x16 DVD writing speeds are not needed, I burn DVDs at x8 (and sometimes at x6) which I found is best for compatibility with desktop DVD players. Try to play a x16 burned DVD-R oon one of the older Sony DVD players and you'll know what I mean. Go for the 1693, you'll never look back.

BenQ 1640 is currently the fastest. Check this thread: Dare! Fastest DVD DL rip speed, post#22 by ala42. Plextor 716A reads pressed DL @12x max.

Still can't figure the apparent popularity in the poll results of the BENQ. I have never seen more people in the BENQ forum than NEC, and ususally its about 2:1 in favor of the NEC,

You mean by the number of people viewing the BenQ and NEC forum? It might be the case that more people (guess and members) viewing the NEC forum because they seek answers to their problems? Or another guess because the majority of BenQ votes go to BenQ 1620 and NEC is 3500/3520? If we compare those two burners 2-3 months ago, BenQ definitely in favor because it offers more, ie Quality Scans (complete with Jitter), faster rip speed, etc. Just some wild guess.

I did mentioned earlier in another thread that maybe we can renew this thread once 1640 in the US market, but this time maybe the poll consist of the actual brand and model (BenQ 1620, BenQ 1640, NEC 3500, NEC 3520 etc.... not only BenQ or NEC).

I would 2nd that request. Would luv to see how it breaks down.

And I notice that a lot of people in the NEC forum also have BenQs, but not the other way around...

As for the breakdown, I'm not sure that'd work too well. Seeing as how the price difference between old and new models is very slim, I doubt that anyone would be voting for the older models. I'd rather wait until the 1640 comes into wider availability first (*cough* USA) and maybe by then the SOHW-1635S will have finally showed up as well.

NEC Forum at CDFreaks has a lot more visitors than any of the rest brand-specific subforums because of Harrie, Liggy, Dee-27, Wosociety, and many others who modify firmwares and write articles for NEC drives. It was Harrie at first that attracted a lot of web surfers interested in PC DVD recording to NEC firmware hack/mod for NEC ND-1100A/1300A. ND-1300A was practically NEC's first entry into DVD recordable products in consumer PC market but it was also one of the first "dual-format" DVD burners and NEC offered them at lower cost than Sony and others. That was long before BenQ released DW1600/1620 working with Philips. If you look at rpc1.org, you will find a lot of posts have been dedicated to Pioneer drives and there have been many great firmware hackers for Pioneer drives. A few years ago, it was "overclocking" for Lite-On CD writers that truly made CDFreaks Lite-On Forum to prosper and that was also what attracted me to CDFreaks in the first place.

Because they need BenQ (or LiteOn) to do the quality scanning, up until a couple months ago when NEC drives can do QS by itself?

AFAIK, the poll can hold 20 items, so maybe if 1640 and 1635S are out (lets wait a couple months after they are out in the US) we can always create a new poll based on this poll, for 16x drives only. What I mean is this poll shows that BenQ, NEC, LG, Plextor and LiteOn are favorable and we can focus on models they offered. Other brand with little votes in this thread, such BTC, Samsung etc, and older model (8x, 12x writer) can be named as their brand without the model number. This will help visitors to decide and hopefully less newbies asking "which is the best dvd burners", "which dvd burners to buy."

How many 16x models are we talking anyway?
BenQ 2 models (1620 and 1640), NEC 3 models (3500, 3520, 3540), LG 2 models (4163, 4167), Plextor 2 models (716, 740), LiteOn and Pioneer each 3 models?, so I count only 10-12 models? Plus, say put each brand (BenQ older models, NEC older models, Plextor om, LiteOn om, Pioneer om, BTC, Samsung, etc) so that will fit 20 items in the poll.

Also, it would be nice if members can vote more than 1 model based on ranking (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd etc). But that would be hard heh?

So after fast reading through this thread, The benq 1620 CANNOT burn DVD-RWs??
I will be using -Rs & -RWs(if it will take these). Inot as worried about super fast burns etc. I just want a good DVD burner that will burn my DVD -Rs @ 4,or 8x
Also someone mentioned about the Plextor 716, the CPU is not as important???
I know the Benq, Nec will both work with my Pent III,733 mhzt,383memory, What about the plextor 716

Yes it can.You will be fine, if you said 8x only. You may want to up the memory at least 512mb.

[offtopic]
Just as a historical note... Ironically, while Herrie gave the CDF NEC forum its start as the forum's original moderator, it wasn't until when he "retired" that CDF's NEC forum really blossomed. NEC discussion, like Pioneer discussion, have traditionally been the realm of the rpc1.org forums--The Dangerous Brothers, etna, and Herrie (he has thousands of posts there, compared to only a few hundred here) were all of rpc1.org, and the majority of the NEC discussion was there (Herrie's firmware release threads there got more posts and more views than his threads here). I think it's really the LD team and the 3x00 series that changed things. As I'm affiliated with both CDF and rpc1.org, I'm very happy to see CDF gain visitors, but also a bit disappointed that it was at the expense of rpc1.org.

[/offtopic]