CDRLabs DVD Writer Poll - January 2009

[Ian]

Vote for what you think is the best, all around DVD writer. By doing so, you'll hopefully help those looking to buy a new drive. Once again, I tried to chose original drive designs that are currently available or will be soon.

Feel free to leave comments and an explanation as to why you voted the way you did. Also, if there's a drive you'd like to see added to the poll, let me know.

For reference, here's the top drives from December's poll:

1. (tied) Pioneer DVR-216/DVR-216D and Samsung SH-S203B/SH-S203D/SH-S203N/SH-S203P
2. (tied) Samsung SH-S223F/SH-S223Q and Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200A/AD-7203A
3. (tied) Too many to list..

[Ian]

The ASUS DRW-2014L1/DRW-2014L1T and ASUS DRW-2014S1/DRW-2014S1T have been dropped from the poll. I also changed the way the ASUS drives were grouped to match what I'm doing with the Lite-On drives. This is probably the last month for Lite-On's "A1" and "A3" series. These are getting harder to find and have been replaced by the iHAS120/iHAS220.

[SkaarjMaster]

Any chance the Pioneer 216s will be reviewed? I saw a Samsung 203s review here.

[Ian]

Any chance the Pioneer 216s will be reviewed? I saw a Samsung 203s review here.

Probably not as I reviewed the 116 and I'm working on a review of the 216R (216 with Qflix) and its looking to be very similar to the 116.

[Ian]

Only a few more days to vote!

[DrageMester]

Welcome to 2009 BTW.

[Ian]

Welcome to 2009 BTW.

Ooops..

[SkaarjMaster]

I checked again and it looks like the Samsung doesn't like my Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs and it's CD-R performance isn't that great, but it's great for DVD burning. I'd like something that performs better with CD-Rs, so I'm leaning toward Pioneer. I just thought I'd get something new for my new system build in 2-3 weeks, but I may just move over my BenQ 1655 and just use it for now. What do you guys think? Thank you.

[Dartman]

I've been using my 203b a lot lately for burning my HDTV caps to dvd for playback on my Toshiba A2 D-DVD player and it seems to mostly work very well for that lately. I found that my last batch of Ricoh R03 disks burn at 18x with it at great quality.
I also use my 1655 and my LG h22n depending on what I'm burning. The LG seems to always do nicely with DL disks.
I'd say for what you want why not use the 1655, you have it and they still burn great to most disks. I seem to remember it did fine with cdr's but I mostly use all of mine for dvd's

[SkaarjMaster]

But of course, this Pioneer is SATA (hmmmmmmmmmm..........this might work better with the new system especially with the scarcity of PATA slots on the new motherboards):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827129032

decisions, decisions.

[Ian]

I wanted to let you guys know that we're working on a new section where you can rate individual drives. The monthly polls will probably continue for a few months, but I'm hoping that the new section will make them obsolete.