Waitec Frisby II

1. Introduction

Review Pages

1. Introduction
2. Data CD Tests
3. Audio Error Correction Tests
4. CloneCD Reading Tests
5. DAE Tests
6. CD-R Recording Tests
7. Writing Quality Tests
8. RW Writing Tests
9. Conclusion

Waitec Frisby II external CD-RW - Page 1

- Introduction

Waitec releases another handy external recorder for laptop and desktop use. At a glance, the small dimensions of the new "Frisby II" could hide its promising performance. In fact he drive is a 40/12/40 USB 2.0 recorder that comes to compete all traditional IDE drives with the same specifications.

- Features

The Frisby II supports 40X maximum reading speed (CAV) for CD-R, 12X re-writing speed (CLV) and 40X writing speed (P-CAV). The current firmware version installed is v.7SX2 and of course is equipped with flash memory allowing easy firmware upgrade. The drive also includes a 2MB cache buffer, and the supported disk formats are CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM / XA, mixed mode, Video-CD, Photo CD, Enhanced CD, CD Plus, CD-G, CD-Text among with the CD-UDF compatibility.

Buffer Underun errors are avoided with the "SafeLink" adopted feature. The optimum writing speed is also decided by this feature, according to the media used. The drive's specifications also state that it supports 48X DAE speed. Lastly, the Waitec Frisby II supports the Mt Rainier technology.

- Recording speeds

Waitec Frisby II uses the P-CAV writing technology . Nero CDSpeed reports that the average writing speed for the 40X category is 31.59X. The 32X P-CAV also leads to a 28.90X average writing speed.

- Unpacking

The European retail package includes the drive, a user's manual CD-ROM, USB 2.0 cable, a power adaptor. The recording software supplied is Nero Burning Rom and InCD for packetwriting use.

The price for Europe is Euro 229 V.A.T included.

The dimensions of the drive are 152 x 44.3 x 198 mm (W x H x D) and its weight is 550g. As you can see in the pictures the design is elegant and handy. The "Waitec Frisby II" logo is placed on the top-opened tray. On the front panel of the drive you can find an operation LED and the skip/fast forward and eject buttons. Something that could make the drive more solid is a better design of the tray, which seems to be very elegant when it is open.