From what we have seen from the previous pages, the NEC ND 4571A is not exactly what one could call a very good burning device. In a nutshell...

The ND 4571A is a very good reading decive, which would satisfy even the most demanding user who likes to combine good ripping speeds with good error correction, in both CDs and DVDs. Its reading speed in DVD media is quite good, with a 16X while using SL media and 12X with DL media. Even the defective media at the error correction tests were read at full speed, indicating a very good mechanism which will retain its speed, making the reading fast and reliable.

Protected media tests revealed that the drive had not problem ripping the protected audio inserted media, while with the games, the 4571A did nice work of all three inserted media, eventhough the Safedisc media could not be backed up properly. This is a feat that most drives fail to achieve, thus the 4571A is not to be considered if the target user wants a raw fast ripping device for the newest and most advanced protection scemes.

As already mentioned, the drive has a great error correction mechanism, reading over all inserted artfificially defective media, at max speed. CD error correction could've been better, as the 4571 reported average results in comparison to other market drives. Especially the 726 test media reported totaly difference results from what one would expect of a latest release drive.

Burning quality was a major issue for the review drive as while it did quite well with write once media and reported average results with the Re-Writable media, it did not achieve good results with the DL media. Overall the drive's writing performance is much dependent from the media inserted, indicating a somewhat limited media list. A firmware upgrade regarding the DL media issues would be most welcomed.

What of the "features" that most drives offer, one would wonder... In this field, the 4571A is not strong enough. The 90/99mins Audio discs cannot be read by the drive and cannot perform overburn with either CD or DVD media. Bitsetting feature is present though for all three +R media formats. An extra feature for the users who enjoy media customization is the LabelFlash feature which enables the user to label his burned media using the drive itself than some printable labels.

- The Good

• Good DVD error correction
• Bitsetting for all media (+R, +RW, +R9)
• Good reading speed for write once media
• LightScribe enabled drive

- The Bad

• Doesn't accurately backup SafeDisc2 v2.9x+ protected discs
• Cannot successfully rip the Key2Audio protected discs
• Doesn't support DVD overburning
• Poor CD/DVD-RW burning quality

- Like to be fixed

• Improved CD, DL, DVD-RW writing quality with more media

Retail Package
Reading
Error Correction
Protected Discs
Writing
Features