Looking for a slim Dual DVD Burner

plfuego 2005-06-12 04:09:22 UTC #1

Hello,

When I bought my laptop last September, (Asus w1n, 1.6 clelron, 60gb HDD, 512 MB ram, Windows XP Home) it, unfortunately, came with a Toshiba ODD DVD SD-R6372 DVD Burner. Now that I have found it is a coaster machine (and the whole time I thought I was doing something wrong - the truth came out when it kept trying to burn a movie on the same disk more than once) I would like to replace it. If I am going to replace it (hopefully with some help from ASUS, the computer is still under warranty), why not get a Dual layer burner?

I have looked at 3 different models on the internet:

Panasonic UJ-845-B
NEC ND-6500a (or perhaps the ND-6550)
Toshiba SD-R6472

I am leaning towards the Panasonic, mainly because of the slot loading, but have found very little in the way of reviews. IT seems the folks here live NEC, and I am a bit wary of Toshiba. Really, I want a solid drive that will do a good job burning video files.

Any opinions / hints?

Thanks.

zazonz 2005-06-12 12:36:19 UTC #2

I have had the UJ-845 and right now I have the 6500A for my T42 both in external cases. I liked DVD-RAM on the Panasonic. It would be nice for backups, but since I have an external slim hard drive, I never used it much. The NEC is faster using TY media. It took about 10.5 minutes for a full DVD+R burn versus about 13.5 for the Panasonic. The burn quality on the NEC is better as well. The error rate got a little high on the Panasonic right at the end of the disc, but I never had any problems with the discs. The slot loading feature is kinda cool. Good Luck.

plfuego 2005-06-13 10:16:20 UTC #3

Is slot loading cool enough to outweigh the slower, higher error rate, and bigger price? Don't think so. Looks like NEC, unless anyone else has something to say about it.

AndreAPL 2006-02-28 07:24:27 UTC #4

maybe i swap my combo drive too...
but don't know what to choose. NEC ND-6500a (or perhaps the ND-6550) ? Toshiba SD-R6472 ?