Product Reviews

You're spoilt for choice when choosing an internal DVD writer. The newest models claim to be even faster than their predecessors, but it's often difficult to tell whether these claims of faster writing speeds will actually save you time when burning DVDs. We've put two of the latest drives through their paces to see if they are worth your hard-earned cash.

Plextor claims that its PX-760A can write to single-layer DVDs at 18X. We were disappointed to discover that, even when using Plextor's own media, the PX-760A is far off the pace for both DVD+R and DVD-R, taking just under six-and-a-half minutes to fill each disc. Two-layer DVD writing was also disappointing, taking around 22 minutes and 30 seconds to write a disc. Instead of the claimed 10X, we could burn DVD+R DL discs at only half this speed. We were also unable to write to DVD-R DL discs at the quoted 6X, although the drive was closer to this speed.

At first glance, the bundled software seems very generous,

ADVERTISEMENT

including useful titles such as Nero Recode for squeezing an 8.5GB DVD movie on to a 4.7GB disc. Sadly, many of these products, including Recode, are actually demo versions that expire after 30 days. If you are concerned about protecting your privacy, though, the included PlexEraser utility for making burned discs unreadable is useful.

Unlike the PX-760A, Sony's DW-G120A is an OEM drive, so it doesn't come with any bundled software or a PATA cable for connecting to your PC. The DW-G120A also supports DVD-RAM, which the PX-760A doesn't, although we were more interested in how quickly it could write to the more common DVD formats.

The DW-G120A wrote a full single-layer DVD in just over six minutes. This is quicker than the PX-760A, but still short of the claimed 16X writing speed. When writing two-layer DVDs, the DW-G120A took nearly half an hour to fill a disc, which is closer to its stated 4X for DVD-R DL discs than its claimed 8X for DVD+R DL discs.

Plextor's PX-760A is a disappointing DVD writer. While it's quicker at writing two-layer DVDs than Sony's DW-G120A, its single-layer writing speeds were slower the Sony's and way off Plextor's promised 18X speed. It also costs more than twice as much as the DW-G120A.

Despite the absence of any software, the DW-G120A is a better buy than the PX-760A. For just a few pounds more, though, our 'Also consider...' choice, the Asus DRW-1608PS2, is better value. It is fast at recording single-layer DVDs, quicker when writing two-layer DVDs and comes with a generous software bundle.