Plextor PX-S2410TU portable CD-RW drive - Page 1

- Introduction

A couple of months ago Plextor shipped a new portable CD-RW recorder. The PlexWriter S2410TU is a stylish portable slim supporting 24X CD-R writing, 10X HS-RW writing and 24X reading. With a light weight and easy to use USB interface, the drive is a very attractive solution for Notebook and desktop PC use.

- Drive features

The supported writing speeds are the 4X and 10X (CLV), 16X and the maximum 24X (Z-CLV). The 24X speed the supported reading speed for the CD-R and the HS-RW media can be written at 10X. Note that the performance is lower when the drive is connected through the USB1.1 interface. In this case, the drive behaves as a 4x/4x/6x device.

The drive offers Buffer Underrun Proof Technology among with a 2MB cache buffer and supports the well known PoweRec Technology for reliable recordings in various media. The supported writing formats are the CD-ROM Modes 1 and 2, CD-XA Form 1 and 2, CD-DA, CD-I, Video CD & Photo CD, and CD+G. The supported writing modes are the Disk-At-Once, Track-At-Once, Multisession, Packet Writing. Last, the PX-S4210T is Mount Rainier compatible.

The following pictures show the available reading/writing speeds:

PlexTools software also provides detailed information about the supported reading and writing speeds:

- The package

The Retail package contains: PlexWriter S2410TU ,1 blank CD-R disc, 1 blank CD-R/W disc, CD-Recording software Nero + InCD (OEM version), Plextor Utility software (PlexTools), manual in 16 languages, 1 USB cable and 1 AC power adapter.

Plextor offers a two year full-warranty (parts, labor, and replacement) valid in Europe, Middle-East and Africa and the On-Site Collect & Return Service, for the EU-Countries, Norway and Switzerland. The PX-S2410TU is priced at $170-190.

Plextor PX-S4210TU has a very stylish silver and black casing and its dimensions are 141 x 22 x 171 mm (W x H x D), while its weight is less than 410g.

The "Plextor" among with the "24x/10x/24x" logos are stamped on the top of the drive. The auto eject tray is black and covers the front panel of the drive.

On the tray you can see the eject button, the emergency eject hole and the busy LED indicator.

On the rear panel there are the power supply input (DC 5.25V) and the USB connector. As we have mentioned the drive can be connected either in USB1.1/2.0 interface..

On the side panel of the drive there are the power button, the headphone mini-jack (0.8V at 32 Ohms) and the volume control knob.

- Installation

The Plextor PX-S2410TU was connected to our test PC through the USB2.0 interface, and was identified as "PLEXTOR PX-S2410T" under WinXP. The November 2002 TLA#0000 model came with firmware version v1.00 installed, that was used for all the reading/writing tests.

We compare the new drive with an already tested slim drive, the INcoder TS24C-C1.