Price Guides June 2004: Optical and Magnetic Storage

DVD Burners (continued)

For those who value speed over capacity, not to mention lower costs for adoption, 12x burners may be the ticket. Plextor is, so far, the first to market with a 12x burner. Our review of this drive shows us yet again how the same, or at least very similar, chipsets and underlying guts of DVD drives carry on the tradition of being capable of much more than originally shown. The real treat with this drive comes in the form of a great software and support bundle, which includes a hugely detailed manual, Roxio Easy CD and DVD Creator, DVD Max, PhotoSuite 5 SE and Plextor's own PlexTools Pro. Throw in an 8MB cache, 48x CD burning speeds and a future version to include SATA connectivity, and you have a drive that can stay on top of technology longer than most.

In the end, the average Joe who just wants to get their feet wet with DVD authoring shouldn't be spending in excess of $80 for a burner. For this reason, the NuTech DDW-082, which earned our Editor's Choice award, deserves mention again as a great device at a very affordable price. NEC's 2500, which can be flashed easily to 2510 also sits well with us for its burn speed and ability to operate without creating excessive amounts of overpriced frisbees or coasters.