Looking for best DVD burner for the buck

L3thal · Post by **L3thal** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 4:39 pm

Ive been looking for a new DVD burner for a few weeks now. I'm not looking to spend a whole lot of money, but I want something that is reasonably fast, and has decent build quality. I have an older Plextor PX-708A? drive, and while the quality is there, the speed and reliablity aren't.
All opinions are welcome.

Here's a few I've been looking at:
1. Samsung SH-S182D 18X
2. NEC ND-3550A 16X
3. BenQ DW1650 BK 16X

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:23 pm

Other than Plextor, I have both Aopen and Asus drives here that seem to work well for the price. My neighbour has the Samsung and likes it.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 6:21 pm

It might depend on what you want to do with your DVD drive. For example, Newegg has a large number of user-reviews on the NEC 3550, which is a popular item on that site. It seems to be very good for data, not quite so good for "ripping audio". Since I use DVDs purely for backup (data), I have NECs and am very happy with them.

You might want to seek reviews based on your intended usage. The Newegg user reviews might be a good place to start.

BrianE · Post by **BrianE** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:43 pm

NyteOwl wrote:Other than Plextor, I have both Aopen and Asus drives here that seem to work well for the price. My neighbour has the Samsung and likes it.

Which Aopen drive do you have? I may need one with a white faceplate soon so I was looking at the retail 1616L model (which includes 3 different colours).

Comments on Newegg generally seem to say it is quiet, and Aopen touts more than one noise supressing technology with their drives, but I don't think they've been discussed a lot here.

(Sorry for the minor hijacking...

)

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:52 pm

I've been pleased with BenQ's DVD burners. Drive reliability and burn quality seem okay from my limited sample, though I don't burn a lot of discs. And while I definitely don't expect quiet from any optical drive, the BenQs do well with Nero Drivespeed for movie playback.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:56 pm

I have a BenQ DW1650 and I'm extremely happy with it. It's especially good with crappy media.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 2:09 am

I have had a BenQ 1640 for around a year now. I dont do anything special, play audi CD's, backup to DVD medias and reading data from DVD medias. Sometimes i burn CD's too. I mainly use Verbatim medias.

I havent had a single problem, and build quality is surprising good for the price. It's reasonably quiet. Far from silent (no optical drive is), but not annoying either. I'm using it in a P180, usually with the door closed.

All in all, I'm very satisfied and will buy BenQ again.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 7:14 pm

BrianE wrote:Which Aopen drive do you have? I may need one with a white faceplate soon so I was looking at the retail 1616L model (which includes 3 different colours).

That's the one I have and yes, it has beige, black and white faceplates. It's reliable and fairly quiet, though none are quiet at full speed.