Getting a DVD Burner

[Fozzy Fozborne]

When people on this forum say they are buying a new computer, people usually recommend the NEC 3550A. This drive seems to get good reviews, but many people complain about the drive being really loud, while others say it "died after 3 months". I was also looking at a similar Lite-On drive, which gets the same type of reviews, most really great, others not so good. If anyone has a drive that they bought around the $50 mark, that's available in the USA, it would be great if you could comment.

 

The two drives meantioned are NEC 3550A

 

and the Lite-on

 

Also, I am running XP Home SP2, and I don't care about any additional software that comes with it, I already have Nero 7 and Roxio Easy Media Creator 8. I don't need any additional hardware, either as I am replacing my CD-RW drive with this drive.

Edited April 18, 2006 by Fozzy Fozborne

[Wolf68k]

Get the NEC.

[Demarest]

Pioneer's as good as it gets and their OEM drives are dirt cheap.

[Sixdust]

Forget those, I suggest THIS one. On sale for $50 with a dvd ram burner and lightscribe burner. Almost everything you need for some good burns. It also comes with nero suite and powerdvd, a trial lightscribe disk, and an extra front panel, incase you need to swap to a beige case.

[GTA3Freak-2001]

There's nothing wrong with Lite-On they are the best cheapest burner but the NEC is good as well as anything from Pioneer really.

[Demarest]

I disagree. My first was a LiteOn. It wasn't long before even audio CD's it made didn't play all that well. I went the cheap route the first time and learned my lesson. When I went shopping again, the Pioneer flagship was the same price I shelled out for the LiteOn, but it was more solid, faster, etc.

[K^2]

My first DVD burner was a cheap Lite-On. It died rather soon. Considering the fact that other people seem to have problems with them, I wouldn't recomend one.

 

Right now, I'm using a cheap burner by HP that I ordered on-line a while ago. It has been running fine for over half a year now.

[Wolf68k]

I currently still own 2 Lite-On burners. The first is a 5+ year old CDRW 12x10x32x burner, admittedly I don't use it as much any more but it still works and does everything it did when I first go it.

The second is a SOWH 1632S, one of the first burners that offered DL burning, it is about 2 years old now and still going strong (infact I just burned about 8 DVD-Rs the other night).

 

And yet with all of that of the 2 drives you listed I still say get the NEC if you don't care about OEM or Retail goodies. NEC constantly gets "editor's choice" in most of the round-up reviews with Lite-On coming in second. I've got nothing against Pioneer but in the reviews I've read in the past the top spot usually goes to NEC is all.

 

If you can ever find DVD-RAM media cheap enough, let alone Lightsribe DVD media and want make monochrome lables, then the one that Sizduist pointed out would be just fine. Personally I don't see much call for DVD-RAM any more and not many drives can read it, let alone burn it. As for Lightscribe, I'd rather shell the cash for a CD/DVD printer (something like this) and printable media and get color on my lables. Lightscribe is a nice idea but until it can do color and it's media prices come down and more widely avalible I'll pass on it.