Advantages of the 1650 over the 1640

[robertss]

Greetings.
After spending some time reading various forums I purchased a BenQ1640 on line.
They have sent me a 1650.
Have read a couple of not so complimentary reviews of this later model.
Am I better off with the model I have been supplied?
Thanks for any input.

[sweetleaf]

robertss: Welcome to the forum! I have been using a DW1650 for some time now and the results are excellent with not so good media. Though the DW1650 is similiar to the 1640 specification wise, the hardware, construction and chipset are improved in the 1650 according to the gurus here. The drive will get better and better (hopefully) as the firmware matures. The current firmware has some issues (DL burning, RW support and scanning read dips) but these are expected to get sorted out with future firmware releases.

Congrats on your new purchase. I'm sure you won't regret it

[GrrRon]

It is better with cd's too, but I have cd-rw which is recognized correctly in 1640 and 1620 but not in the 1650.

I think you won't regret it either.

[Dalen_Quaice]

Yes, I think the 1650 is an improvement over the 1640. The main points:

1) Faster ripping speed
2) Better 16x +R burns
3) Support for more media - MID codes missing form 1640 are back
4) Improved solidburn learning

The only negative I've found so far are scanning speed dips and issues with dual layer media (which can be fixed by swapping strategies).

In my opinion, the 1650 is a better drive.

[Crockett]

I had 1640, 1650 und 1655 for testing. Scanning is fine and so all of them showed really nice results (average about 1,x - 2,x without increases). Much better are "real" tests in dvd-roms like cdrinfo does, too (I used: 16P9S, 166S, 167T, all @16x, media: Verbatim MCC004@12x). Every 1650 burn had issues in the end, all dvd-roms had to decrease speed for reading. The 1655 were much better, all 1640 discs were flawles in all dvd-roms. I personally wouldn't recommend the 1650, indeed the 1655 is the better burner in my opinion. The 1640 was definitely the best drive of them.

[gregtherotterius]

can anyone else say that the 55 is a better burner than the 50? As far as I was aware the only difference between them was the lightscribe hardware, surely that wouldnt make the 50 a weaker burner in other respects?

[tehGrue]

Much better are "real" tests in dvd-roms like cdrinfo does, too (I used: 16P9S, 166S, 167T, all @16x, media: Verbatim MCC004@12x).

File under "reasons to not take claim seriously". DVD-ROM? Scan speed 16x? Who does that?

The 1650 and 1655 are based on the same chipset, and one can be crossflashed to the other. There should be little to no difference.

[Crockett]

Sorry, not scan speed 16x, but 16x transfer rate with CD/DVD Speed "benchmark".

[packetloss]

I had 1640, 1650 und 1655 for testing. Scanning is fine and so all of them showed really nice results (average about 1,x - 2,x without increases). Much better are "real" tests in dvd-roms like cdrinfo does, too (I used: 16P9S, 166S, 167T, all @16x, media: Verbatim MCC004@12x). Every 1650 burn had issues in the end, all dvd-roms had to decrease speed for reading. The 1655 were much better, all 1640 discs were flawles in all dvd-roms. I personally wouldn't recommend the 1650, indeed the 1655 is the better burner in my opinion. The 1640 was definitely the best drive of them.

Sorry, but that makes no sense. As tehGrue already said, both drives are almost identical, and the variation of burn quality you experienced could have well be seen between two DW1655s also, nothing unusual. You can't just generalise your personal experience, and make claims like that based on a single case.

I don't just get excellent scans with my DW1650, for example, but perfect reading curves in the Nero CD-DVD Speed transfer rate test as well, even with discs burned at 16x.

[robertss]

Thanks for all the info.Good to hear that I have come out better off with this deal.
What an amazing site this is.So much info.-so few grey cells left.

[Crockett]

Sorry, but that makes no sense. As tehGrue already said, both drives are almost identical, and the variation of burn quality you experienced could have well be seen between two DW1655s also, nothing unusual. You can't just generalise your personal experience, and make claims like that based on a single case.

Maybe you're right. But I don't think that every magazine or review site buys/gets two or more writer for testing/reviewing. So everybody has his own drives and can only tell about them.
If there are problems with the manufacturers quality control and a decent number of drives are worse than they should be it's really not my (our) fault.

[packetloss]

That's a whole different story though Crockett, nothing wrong with that. I actually agree with you, BenQ quality control doesn't seem to be the best, as I painfully had to experience myself (had to RMA the first (defective) BenQ DW1650 (retail version), after a lot of coasters made, including 4 rather expensive Verbatim DL discs... :().

I just wanted to point out that you can't generally say that the DW1655 is a 'better' burner than the DW1650, because hardware wise, both drives are identical, and the difference in firmware is rather minimal. Since you are from Germany, you may know that in the test of c't magazine, the DW1650 actually had slightly better results than the DW1655. Still, that doesn't mean that the DW1650 is 'better' than the DW1655 either.