BenQ 1640 Or 1655 ON Sale @ Fry's Again For $29.99

[TCAS]

Fry's Electronics has on Sale today the HI-VAL 16X16 DVD writer for $29.99 after $10 MIR this drive in the past prove to be repackage of BenQ 1640 or 1655.

[Ian]

Thanks TCAS!

If you don't live by a Fry's you can also order it online:

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4865880

[dodecahedron]

is it definitely or possibly a BenQ ?

[2Dogs]

I just bought one of these speculatively, and was fairly pleased to see that it was a BenQ DW1650. I had been hoping for a 1640....

[TCAS]

I just bought one of these speculatively, and was fairly pleased to see that it was a BenQ DW1650. I had been hoping for a 1640....

you better be happy for what you got BenQ dirves regardless of model are vanishing so fast in US market that people they go out of their way to get hand over any of these drive which finding one has become scares these days.

[dolphinius_rex]

The really sad thing is that BenQ could probably get away with charging $40 or $50 for their drives, and make some actual MONEY on them, if they would just keep MAKING them.

I wouldn't mind paying $40-$50 USD for good BenQ designed ODD's... but instead they decided to fight it out with LiteON and Samsung, and now no one is making money and even Plextor has been forced out of the game.

This price war on ODD's has finally reached the point where we all lose, consumers included. Thank you capitalism for ruining another product line.

[Justin42]

It's like when I was at Best Buy and this woman was looking for the CHEAPEST DVD+Rs she could find. The salesdroid asked if she needed +R only, and she said "Well, they're the best, aren't they?" The droid actually said both formats were actually about the same.

He pointed her to a spindle of 25 Verbatim DVD+Rs on clearance (? that's scary) to replace the 50 pack of Memorex media she had. She didn't want to take them at first but they were cheaper. She said "Oh well, I didn't need 50, and I guess they're all the same anyway, huh?" (meaning quality of discs)

I looked at the 25 packs left and they were CMC made Verbatim DVD+R. Here she begrudgingly bought some of the best discs on the market only cause they were cheaper than Memorex.

sigh. It really is sad how uninformed consumers, and the companies who prey/rely on them with substandard products, can ruin it for all of us.

[2Dogs]

I've had no great success with a pack of Verbatim 16x DVD+R's (bought from Office Depot with the Intelliflix offer)

I can only conclude that Verbatim disc quality is very variable.

By contrast, the Office Depot branded 16x DVD+R discs I bought turn out to burn very well indeed with my Samsung burner, but indifferently in all the others.

So my conclusion is that unless you go for the real top quality MIJ stuff, it's a real lottery.

Just when I thought I could kick the DVD burner buying habit, I could not resist ordering a Pioneer 111 from Newegg - groan, more tests!!