NEC or Pioneer

[tonkins]

In a few weeks Im going to have to buy a new DVD-writer(Finally saved up enough cash. Being a poor student is fun )
So, I was wondering what you guys think, is it worth the extra £5 to get the Pioneer 109(when it finally comes out) over the NEC ND 3520A. The technical differences dont seem to be much(40x cd-r for the pioneer, 48x for the NEC) Having read reviews all over the Pioneer DVR-108 appears to be slightly higher quality than the ND-3520, but is the 109 going to be as good do you think?(I believe it's based on the same chipset) Or, as another option, is it gonna be worth waiting for the 3530?(And is it likely to be possible to upgrade to the 3530's speeds with a firmware update of the 3520?) And, just to complete my barrage of questions begging advice, does anyone know release dates for any of these drives yet?
Edit:Sorry if this has been asked hundred of times before, Im just looking for some advice to ensure I dont pick a bad drive

 

[Bozo Galora]

you cant go wrong with either one

 

[flamingspinach]

Go with NEC. 3520 will be able to be firmware-flashed to the next version, IIRC. But 3500 cannot be flashed to 3520, different chipset.

-fs

 

[Cawchy87]

nec from personal experiance.

 

[caboob]

<---- so excited...my NEC drive arriving tomorrow.

 

[laurenlex]

I have owned the NEC 3500a for 3 months. No problems whatsoever. Highly recommended.

 

[raildogg]

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
you cant go wrong with either one

 

[AristoV300]

Originally posted by: Cawchy87
nec from personal experiance.

:thumbsup:

 

[Bozo Galora]

just noticed the 109 is now at newegg, but 20 bucks more than nec

 

[LED]

The Pioneer will drop in price very soon. It's so high because it just arrived ...it's prolly using the same chipset so the main difference other then the burning speed I'm guessing would be the that it'll read DVDRAM and have Pioneers Quiet Drive Technology...

 

[Bozo Galora]

first look at new pioneer not good (1.01 FW)

http://club.cdfreaks.com/lite/t-115181.html

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
first look at new pioneer not good (1.01 FW)

http://club.cdfreaks.com/lite/t-115181.html

your link with its buttload of popups wouldn't bother me if it would have gone to the A09

 

[Bozo Galora]

a.) Use firefox and you wont get popups
b.) Had wrong link in clipboard - my bad
c.) the actual thread I wanted to reference was this

 

[tonkins]

Further reasearch, both on the links you've provided and some others makes it look like both the 3520 and the 109 have taken a step back in terms of burn quality from the last two drives. Is this likely to fixed in future firmware releases or not? Im mainly interested in burn quality rather than speed, so is there going to be a significant difference in burn quality between the two drives? Thanks