Comment Re:profits are leaving the CD-RW market (Score 2, Interesting) 348
I can attest to those Lite-On burners. I got my 52x24x52x for less than $65 including tax and fedex, and it is simply the best CD burner I've ever owned. If you're in the market for an IDE drive, you can't beat the Lite-On 48x or 52x for price/performance. 24x re-write capability sounds great; I just haven't picked up any fast RW disks yet.
Some items of interest regarding these Lite-Ons (I don't work for them....really):
- Copy protected software CDs are handled well. Copy-protected audio CDs are not (as expected).
- Many (if not most or all) Sony, Memorex, and Cendyne IDE CD-RW drives are Lite-Ons that can be flashed to use the Lite-On firmware (to gain Mt. Rainier RW support, for example). They all share the same face plate if they are Lite-Ons - manual eject hole directly above the right side of the volume control. If you can get a good deal on any of them, you will be very happy with it. But Lite-Ons are typically even cheaper than these other brands, including after rebate deals.
- In Windows, CloneCD loves this drive, and if you buy Lite-On brand, it comes with Nero.
- Disk eject sounds noisy, but that's because the mechanism is gear-driven, not belt-driven. Disk writing is mostly quiet.
- It only has a 2MB buffer, whereas other drives have 4MB and 8MB buffers now. Not too bad, especially if your burning software can take advantage of Smart-Burn, like Nero.
Lite-On seems to be pushing Plextor around these days, especially when IDE Plextors are about $40 more expensive and are not as accurate as the Lite-Ons. I'm not surprised that Yamaha is backing away from this market, when good drives are getting so cheap as to be unprofitable for upscale manufacturers. They will be missed for their super-fast and accurate SCSI RW "tattoo" drives, though.
Some items of interest regarding these Lite-Ons (I don't work for them....really):
- Copy protected software CDs are handled well. Copy-protected audio CDs are not (as expected).
- Many (if not most or all) Sony, Memorex, and Cendyne IDE CD-RW drives are Lite-Ons that can be flashed to use the Lite-On firmware (to gain Mt. Rainier RW support, for example). They all share the same face plate if they are Lite-Ons - manual eject hole directly above the right side of the volume control. If you can get a good deal on any of them, you will be very happy with it. But Lite-Ons are typically even cheaper than these other brands, including after rebate deals.
- In Windows, CloneCD loves this drive, and if you buy Lite-On brand, it comes with Nero.
- Disk eject sounds noisy, but that's because the mechanism is gear-driven, not belt-driven. Disk writing is mostly quiet.
- It only has a 2MB buffer, whereas other drives have 4MB and 8MB buffers now. Not too bad, especially if your burning software can take advantage of Smart-Burn, like Nero.
Lite-On seems to be pushing Plextor around these days, especially when IDE Plextors are about $40 more expensive and are not as accurate as the Lite-Ons. I'm not surprised that Yamaha is backing away from this market, when good drives are getting so cheap as to be unprofitable for upscale manufacturers. They will be missed for their super-fast and accurate SCSI RW "tattoo" drives, though.
