I still can’t find any BenQ 1640 here in France but the PX740 is available!!!
It kind of bothers me to pay twice the price for the same drive. But if any of you can comfirm that a PX740 offers more features with the same burn quality compare to the BenQ 1640 than I might get one.
thanks guys
I know they can be crossflashed from one to the other, but if the PX740 can justify its high price …
So in fact my question is: is there any advantages in buying a PX740 instead of a BenQ 1640?
Its not so easy to compare as Plextor have released only one firmware update to the 740 but I should have a 740 hopefully tomorrow or by the start of next week if anyone else does not have one I will do a few burns with the Plex firmware and post some scans.
(The only thing different as far as I’m aware between the 740 & 1640 is the metal shell casing thats it, the internals are identical.)
The only reason I’m getting the Plex is its available right now and comes in black as I’ve only seen beige 1640’s available so far.
are you getting an OEM or a retail? Is the bundle really interresting, cause the difference between the OEM and the retail one is only 8€ here!!!
Getting the OEM, don’t know what software comes with it but I guess they only thing of noteworthiness is a copy of PlexTools which I’m not all that interested in anyway, though it would cost you €12 or more to buy seperately.
I finally found a BenQ 1640 but this store is selling it almost the same price as a PX740.
So I am going for the PX…
I will let you know as soon as I receive it.
Got my shipping dispatch yesterday so with luck it will be here today.
Just got mine, to my (pleasant) surprise it came in a Plextor package just branded drive only but inside was a copy of PlexTools Professional XL.
Drive was made in June 2005 and the metal casing is the same as the 1640 I remember seeing some screenshots of the 740’s metal casing and it didn’t have the indentations at the top like the 1640 had, so only the front bezel is different.
Now to install and get some burning done 
I am probably wrong but doesnt the Plextor come with a 8mb buffer.
Or does the Benq also have this feature?.
Both have 2MB. AFAIK Plextools doesn’t work with the 740, well the basic functions probably work…
Just since no one else has answered this part…
With Plextor firmware, the drive actually offers less features than a 1640 by disabling it’s PI/PO scanning abilities and (I think) booktype setting. You’ll probably end up crossflashing it to a BenQ to get these features.
After installing it seems on the CD is PlexTools Pro not the XL version which is a 30 day trial. I tried to update PlexTools to the latest version 2.24 but it wouldnt let me giving an error mesage unable to read ini file, anyway with the version installed theirs not much you can do with PlexTools anyway.
By the way only just read in the Plex forum that you can get the Plex firmware by just opening their exe in WinRAR and you will see the cvt inside it for anyone who feels the need to crossflash.
arf… I am glad I still haven’t order mine!!! I will look tomorrow for a true 1640. Thanks
First test
Brand: Verbatim 16x DVD+R burned at 12x
MID: MCC 004
C0deKings scan of the same media
My scan, close to C0deKings so no problems yet.
One thing I have noticed, during a scan and I can hear the drive constently spinning up/down while doing it and its kinda annoying because my 1620 never did that.
Anyway I’ll do a few more tests & see how it goes.
Why did you crossflash it straight? I wanted to see some scan with Plex fw.
Maybe he did it because the plex fw doesn’t support it? 
I was going to do burns with the Plex firmware but decided not to as the Plex 1.01 firmware I figure is older than BSJB so its not valid comparing to the scans from BenQ retail 1640’s with BSJB to see if their is a difference in [hardware] quality, after a good bit of burning I’m glad to say there isnt, I’ll upload some of the scans later into the 1640 SL media thread.