Looking for a slim Dual DVD Burner

Newbie Forum
#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.

pL

#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.

#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.

#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 ?