BenQ DW1620A DL Recorder - Page 27

Conclusion

The DW1620A drive comes to fill the gap that the DW1600A had left, supporting -R and -RW formats. The 16X recording race has already heated up with shipments from ASUS and Pioneer 16X recorders, giving users a good platform for comparison.

We already knew that the DW1600A was a very good +R/+RW recorder, the greatest challenge for BenQ would be to make an equally good recorder for -R/RW format, using Philips chipsets. Judjing from our recording tests, we can say that the attempt needs improvement. While the drive will burn almost every ttype of inserted -R/RW media, the produced discs may not be readable in specific cases. Other discs which are readable, may have high PI error rates, while there were some specific cases where the burning quality was good..

We believe that BenQ will improve the compatibility and fix the problems with -R media with a new firmware upgrade.

With DL writing, the drive cannot compete against the ASUS and Pioneer 16X drives, due to its 2.4X writing speed. The DW1620A won't have any problems writing both Verbatim and TraxData (RITEK) DL media. The writing quality with CD-R media is good with low C1/C2 errors and 3T Jitter, but needs improvement with specific media.

The CD and DVD error correction capabilities of the drive are excellent, however the drive cannot read C2 pointers, which might disappoint experienced users. When backing up copy protected discs (games), you will face problems, since the used chipsets cannot reproduce accurately most SD2 weak patterns. On the other hand, audio protected discs were no problem, and perfect backups were created as if there was no protection at all.

The DW1620A can be used to measure (scan) DVD recordable/re-writeable media, however we don't recommend using it for such a purpose, since the reading speeds are very low 0.4X~1.2X and the produced results did not compare with the CATS.

Concluding our review, if you mainly burn +R/+RW media, the drive won't disappoint you, offering high recording speeds and burning quality. If on the other hand you mainly burn -R/-RW media, you have to limit your media options to the ones that work best with the drive, else you might face problems...

The price of the drive is around US$82 (wholesale) and US$117 (retail kit), while the Pioneer DVR-108 sells for around US$89~95.

- The Good

• Currently, fastest DVD recorder (16X) for both DVD±R formats due to CAV technology
• Supports DVD+R Double Layer media writing at 2.4X
• Supports BookType setting for DVD+R/RW media and Double Layer media
• Over-speed burning (media can be recorded at higher speed than the media's supported writing speed)
• Supports overburning with CD-R/RW media
• Very good DVD writing quality, with many +R media
• Excellent CD/DVD error correction
• Can be used to measure (scan) DVD±R/RW media
• Can read protected Audio discs (CDS200, Key2Audio)

- The Bad

• Doesn't support 1X/2X writing with DVD-R/RW media
• Competition offers 4X DL writing
• Does not support overburning with DVD±R/RW media
• Cannot backup copy protected games with most versions of SafeDisc protection
• Doesn't support reading of DVD-RAM media
• Doesn't support reading of C2 pointers

- Like To be fixed

• Burning quality and stability with many DVD-R media
• High C1 and C2 errors with certain media at 40X
• Low reading speed when measuring (scanning) DVD±R/RW media