Excellent deal on a good recorder. Not the latest and greatest (which would be the 300i with 4x DVD+R/RW burning), but the truth is that there is not much 4x +R/RW media out there anyway, and what is there is MUCHO expensive. 2.4x burning is acceptably fast. It burns CDRs at 12x, which is OK (some DVD writer decks do 16x).
There's a printable in-store $30 off $150 Staples coupon available on other sites. Either add stuff to your order to get it up to $150 (in essence consider it $30 off $45 on top of your HP writer) or if you get lucky, like I did, you can slap it on top of a purchase of two of these DVD writers to bring the cost down to $90/per writer.
The HP DVD200i is a rebadged Ricoh DVD writer, incidentally. There is a recent firmware upgrade for the drive available on the HP website. (version 1.53, I think).
As for the debate over +R/RW vs. -R/RW, the only real advantage to -R/RW at this point is that at the low end, cheaper -R/RW media is available. Compatibility of either format with recent standalone DVD players is excellent. It appears that +R/RW will ultimately be the surviving format, and the majority of recorders now being sold are +R/RW. That means it's only a matter of time before the +R/RW media get as cheap as (and then cheaper than) -R/RW.
Kwad