Lite-on 40/12/48x or Plextor?

[LehighBri]

I want to purchase a new 40x CD-RW burner and would like to know which one i should buy? The one thing that is bugging me between these 2 drives is that the Lite-on has a 2mb buffer while the Plextor has a 4mb one. Does this make a huge difference? I'm leaning towards the Lite-on but any comments would be great! Thanks!

 

[cricky]

Go for the Liteon... Save the extra money. It does all the same for less... Chances are you will replace it in a year with a DVD-R/RW anyways for around the same price...

Aside:

Anyone remember about a year ago... A lot of people were bashing Liteon's as "cheap crap." And everyone "needed" a Plextor 12x? How times have changed. Just looking at all the posts in the Hot Deals forum about people hoping/praying the Cendyne from Staples turns out to be a Liteon.

--Christopher

 

[LehighBri]

Now i'm going to rethink what to get. I have a Plextor 12x, but would definitley like a DVD-R/RW down the road. I think I'm gonna wait, but whicch of the 2 competing DVDr standards would you recommend?

Thanks

 

[Mavrick007]

If you are fine with the 12x Plextor, then keep that, it's not a bad speed. The newer drives will work better on the new protection on discs so it depends on what you do. The Lite On is a great drive though, and when considering a drive to buy when looking at the buffer size, it doesn't really need to be as much of a concern since most drives now have some sort of "safeburn" or "burnproof" which will help more than the size of the buffer. Before, the size of the buffer made more importance but I would rather get a Lite On now and save some money while getting the same or better cd out.

It's still too early to decide on what format to go with for DVD writeables. I just wouldn't go with DVD-Ram even though it's supported in WinXP now cause this will not be the standard.

 

[cricky]

Which DVD-R standard? That I'm not too skilled with, I haven't played with them. So I'll throw that question out to the audience...

Seriously, though, if you have a 12x and it works fine, then don't worry. I bought a 24x about 3 months ago and was terribly disappointed at the speed. Exponentially, you are not saving that much time. A 12x can do a disc in about 6.5-7 minutes. A 24x does the same in 5-6 minutes. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

I'm guessing with the way DVD-R prices have come down in the last year, and that it is an emerging standard, that we should see drastically lower prices by Christmas or into next year this time. Think about CD Burners when they came out. My friend had a 1x burner that cost him like $800. I bought a 2x a year later for $200, and 8x six months later for $150, a 12x a year later for $95 and a 24x six months later for $70. I just bought a 32x for $30 (after rebate) and only really bought it because it was so darn cheap...

--Christopher

 

[Trader05]

If the cash flow is low, get the lite-on. The only reason why i buy plextor is that i burn a lot of cds. I go through spindles like water. Plextor is the only cd-rw that i've had that lasted, so it's worth it for me to spend the extra cash. If you want to wait for dvdr to get popular and your satisfied with your 12x, all power to you, good plan, since 12x is probally around 7 mins, 16x is around 5, 24x is around 4, so going to a 40x is probally around a 4 min difference. If that's not that important wait....imo.

 

[XBoxLPU]

Review of the two

 

[psy44]

Go with the Lite-on. The Plextor has gotten many bad reviews. Here's one:http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1095-404-8751538.html?tag=st.sh.12425-311-8751538.dir.productinfo

 

[IgoByte]

I have the Plextor and don't see any benefit to it, except that it looks nicer. Actually, I'd probably skip the LiteOn too, because of its somewhat generic look, and get a 40x12x48 Teac. An OEM Teac costs just a few bucks more than a retail LiteOn and I believe might be a better drive.

 

[Yobbo]

IMHO I would go with the plextor...its a good drive and I've never had any problems w/Plextor.

The only reason people wanted the lite-on cendyne (I actually got one, too...I would have gone w/Plextor, but $30 for a drive is tooooooooooo good to resist) was because the alternatives were horrible.

 

[CubicZirconia]

I would go with the plextor...its a good drive and I've never had any problems w/Plextor.

So are they lite-ons. I've never had any problems with my lite-on drives either.

 

[mrchaotica]

I was making the same choice as you just a few days ago. After I did my research, I chose the Lite On. Not only did the reviews I read say that it was faster than the Plextor, it is also $50 cheaper. The only area in which the Plextor seemed to be better was in error checking (while reading the disc). If I have any problems with that, I will just put any scratched or dirty CDs that I need to read in my other drive. Enjoy your new burner!

-mrchaotica

 

[Super6]

Another vote for the Teac.

Super6