ASUS CRW-5224A: CDR's Reach The End of the Line

Conclusions

There were several things that set the CRW-5224A apart from the 4012A-U drive we reviewed last month.  However, there were also several things that seemed to not change at all.  The first thing that was immediately apparent was the change in the write process.  For whatever reason, ASUS has gone back to the CAV style of burning to squeeze that extra 12 seconds of burn time out of the drive.  Other noted changes include Mt Rainier support, which we noticed to be absent in the 4012A-U drive. 

However, most other things ASUS did not change with this drive.  The appearance is still the same, the drive is still noisy, and the front panel still is not very pressure sensitive.  These problems were all mostly overlookable though.  The largest problem we had with the drive was the 2MB buffer.  This is not overlookable. ASUS did a good job of hardly advertising the size of their buffer at all, so we had to dig pretty hard to find this information out.  As we mentioned in the 4012A-U review, FlextraLink might go a long way to stop buffer underruns, but a larger buffer would only help this burner.  Obviously, if the buffer underruns 3 times a burn, the final burn time is significantly longer.  During our tests, we saw FlextraLink kick in much too often.

It is our opinion that ASUS keeps the buffer size small on their drives to keep the price of the unit down.  At around 80USD, the drive is fairly aggressively priced.  Similar LiteOn drives are retailing for around 70USD.  Since there are few other 52X CDRW drives readily available, ASUS and LiteOn can pretty much call their price.  Within a month or two, we will start seeing other manufacturers with 52X solutions, and prices will start to go down.

Media is going to hamper the usefulness of a 52X drive for a few more months to come.  Until the price of good 52X media comes down a bit, most people will continue to use their 52X burner on 48X media. 

Since this is the end of the line for CDRW drives, you can be pretty confident that getting a 52X drive now will not mark result in an obsolete unit several months down the line.  From the manufacturers we talked to a COMDEX, most companies who usually offer CDRW solutions are slowly switching over product for 4X DVD-R/W and DVD+R/W drives instead.  ASUS, whom are working on a 4X DVD-R/W burner based on the Pioneer drive, are no exception.  Unless some manufacturer discovers a way to put multiple lasers on a CDRW drive, do not expect CDRW technology to change much in the future.