Plextor 708A: First exclusive look at 8X DVD+R
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 12, 2003 11:11 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Final Thoughts
Plextor deserved every ounce of hype and praise for this drive. Not only did Plextor dethrone long time DVD burning champions Pioneer and NEC, they also outpaced them. Pioneer and NEC are both expected to produce 8X capable DVD+R and DVD-R capable drives in November (DVR-A07 and ND-2300A, respectively), but Plextor has the upper hand with market saturation and aggressive pricing. Consider that the Plextor 708A costs around $280 for its fall debut, we can only assume it will cost less when the yet to be announced A07 and ND-2300A actually hit store shelves. NEC should also release their 8X DVD+R ND-1500A (which is not capable of DVD-R) early November as well.As far as performance is concerned, the drive out-performs the ASUS DRW-0402P/D and the Pioneer A06 in virtually every way. Media recognition, compatibility and just raw burn times were all better on the 708A. The new Gigabyte W0404A (40X CD-R, 4X DVD+R, 4X DVD-R) is a close competitor, but unfortunately, it cannot compete with 8X DVD+R. Next week, we have some interesting optical storage solutions from Gigabyte and ASUS, but the Plextor 708A certainly raises the bar.
One other topic we might want to touch on is DVD+R in general. The DVD+R forum was slow to announce 4X DVD+R a year ago, but pulled ahead with DVD+R 8X products hitting the shelf at least 2 months before DVD-R 8X. Considering drives like the 708A don’t even need 8X verified media to obtain 8-minute DVD burn times, DVD+R will surely gain even more favor in the eyes of consumers. While the DVD format wars are far from over, Philips, HP and the other members of the DVD+R forum clearly won the battle today.
Special thanks to CompuHQ for letting us know about their Plextor 708A special. By using the coupon code "ANANDTECH10" you can save an additional $10 on the 708A.
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blackjack - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
well in response to your response, I also have a plextor 24/10/40a cd writer. Also the cd tray is really slow to eject, don't know if that is a common thing with plextor although the new dvd writer is quite fast (well in comparison). I could never get it to work with easy cd creator and it always used to create problems using cds with computers at work. The fact that plextor bundles nero and not easy cd creator says something to me. Also it seems that for re-writing, you have to have INCD which I'm positive isn't compatible with roxio because I got a message saying I had to uninstall it. Please direct me to an appropriate webpage and put me out of my ignorance.Anonymous User - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
"For years, Plextor took an approach to optical storage that was only duplicated by a few manufacturers. 8MB buffers, extra features and rock solid performance put Plextor on the high end of CDR and CDRW drives."those 8MB buffers were in yamaha's drives when plextor still used 4MB.
Also burnproof technology doesn't mean a small buffer is as good as a bigger one. Why ?, because when the drive actualy uses its burnproof to recover the disc this process costs extra time so the average burning speed goes down. Therefore to achieve a high burn speed there should be very little (none at best) recovering by the burnproof circuit and the bigger the buffer the smaller the chance the burnproof technology needs to recover.
Falco. - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
KristopherKubickibah.. i'd rather u test the tdk branded one then the oem, even if they are the same.....
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
#13: The TDK drive is nice, but TDK doesnt make it ;) We have the OEM drive in a future review coming up.Cheers,
Kristopher
Anonymous User - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
futureshop canada has a sale on LG 4x dvd-r drive (does all the formats) for 200$ cdn after rebate...8x can wait for that price..Falco. - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
blackjack..plextor hardware doesn't like ezcd ??? since when ?? ezcd is all i have ever used for my plextor 12/10/32 scsi cd writer, and i have had no problems with it..
and WHY wasn't the tdk dual format mentioned at all in this review??? and will it be included in the round up ????????????????????
AgaBooga - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Well, its good to see DVD drive coverage also being added to reviews along with occasional LCD screen reviews. I think this will help AT reach out to more people than just those interested in computer components like the CPU, motherboard, video card, etc.blackjack - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
I already own this drive and am very happy with it. I was tempted by the pioneer a06 but the cd-r was only 16x which they could have easily made 32x surely? Apart from a few coasters using imation 2.4x write once dvd+r media, it is quite happy with dvd-r and of course dvd+rw. Yet to get hold of some decent tdk dvd+r but they should be fine at 6-8x.All in all, given its good price (£158 + VAT), I have no complaints although plextor hardware does not like roxio easy cd creator (although I'm getting quite used to nero now)
Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Will the buying code of "Anandtech280" works :)KristopherKubicki - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Oops. Thanks #8: Fixed.As far as the question about booktypes: Nero, ImgTools, and pretty much everything else we tried did not allow us to change the booktype. We have a pretty strong suspicion that a future firmware upgrade will fix this though.
Cheers,
Kristopher