Lite-On 5239S and buffer size

by **megavolt** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:54 am

I ordered a Lite-On 52327S cd burner from a shop, who instead, delivered to me a model 5239S, telling me that it has the same specs as the 52327S. Unfortunately, the one thing I noticed right away is that the buffer size of the 5239S is only 1.5mb.

Can someone please tell me if this will make a big difference in performance or quality?

Is anyone acquainted with the 5239S, who can tell me if there are any other substantial differences? I must decide quickly whether to go to all the trouble to return the burner, or keep it.

by **Darth** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:13 am

any decent burning app should cache the data in ram anyway, so the reduced buffer shouldn't matter much in this case. The lowest speed for burning CDR has been reduced to 12x, if it matters to you.

the general consensus is the 52327S is better than 5238/5239S, but I haven't seen much of tests comparing those drives.

I'd just keep the new drive if given a choice though.

by **dodecahedron** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:24 am

well, it's not like you have a choice.
your chances of buying a 52327S are slim to nonexistent. the drive has been discontinued for quite a while now.

there are a few threads about the various Lite-On models, check them out.
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=20618
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=20007

i think there's a review of the 5239S at cdfreaks.

by **Ian** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:11 am

If a 16x DVD writer will work with a 2MB buffer, there shouldn't be any problems writing a CD at 52x with a 1.5MB buffer.

by **megavolt** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:27 am

I thank you all. I suppose that I will keep the burner. Funny how I haven't been able to find any reviews on this one. Just a lot of questions in the forums.

by **dodecahedron** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:42 am

i was mistaken. the review @ cdfreaks was of the 5238S model, not the 5239S.
here it is if you're interested:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/218

for what it's worth, from what i've read on a few topics at cdfreaks, the 5239S is better than the 5238S.
but the 52327S is the best still.

by **megavolt** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:02 pm

Thanks, I saw that review already. I still don't understand the reason the 5239 came into being. Not that big of a difference to warrant a whole new model (except smaller buffer size), unless I'm missing something.

by **dodecahedron** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:35 pm

read the discussion in the topics i linked to.
the 5239S has a new chassis design (apparently introducted to all Lite-On drives) possibly the biggest difference ? who knows.
the 5239V apparently uses a different laser.

by **dodecahedron** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:47 pm

megavolt wrote:Funny how I haven't been able to find any reviews on this one. Just a lot of questions in the forums.

yeah, i just googled and found no reviews for this drive.
apparently no one is interested in CDRW drives these days, just DVDRW drives.

by **megavolt** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:20 pm

Yea, but in the meantime the CD/DVD burners still don't burn cd-r with as high a quality as a good CD-RW burner does. I'm waiting for the BenQ 1655 to come out already, to fill my DVD needs :-)

.

by **dodecahedron** on Mon Jan 23, 2006 3:00 pm

sad but true.

by **Darth** on Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:55 pm

the 5239S does not have the headphone jack and volume control that the 52327S/5238S has.

The new tray mechanism of the 5239S aside, I think the whole purpose of releasing new versions of 52x CDR drives is just to reduce costs.

If i'm not wrong, LG has released a few versions of 52x CDR drives as well, just that no one really bothers to notice.

by **dodecahedron** on Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:03 am

Darth wrote:the 5239S does not have the headphone jack and volume control that the 52327S/5238S has.

right, but who uses them anyway ?

Darth wrote:The new tray mechanism of the 5239S aside, I think the whole purpose of releasing new versions of 52x CDR drives is just to reduce costs.

probably true.
one could hope that they also do that to improve the drives, but that's not very likely.
and, very sadly, the newer Lite-On CDRW drives aren't as good as the last LTR models (52246S, 52327S).

Darth wrote:If i'm not wrong, LG has released a few versions of 52x CDR drives as well, just that no one really bothers to notice.

yeah, i thinkn they had at least 5 52x drives

GCE-8520B/8523B/8525B/8526B/8527B

by **megavolt** on Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:20 am

From what I understand, the 5239S is the newer, updated version of the 5238S.
I don't think that we have seen yet the updated version of the 52327S. It would probably be the same thing with the addition of "lightscribe".

by **dodecahedron** on Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:25 am

very unlikely.
the 5238S/5239S/5239V are the newer drive design.
the older LTR-52327S was the older design, discontinued, won't be updated.
heck, the latest firmware update for it was more than a year ago! (december 2004).

by **vinnie97** on Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:16 am

it will be a sad day when my 52327S dies. :cry:

Lite-On 5239S and buffer size

Lite-On 5239S and buffer size

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