Over the last few years, we've had a number of LG's Super Multi Blue drives in the 'Labs. Offering a good mix of performance and features, these drives have become the choice of enthusiasts as well as some of our favorites. The BH16NS40 continues this trend by offering some of the fastest BD reading and writing speeds available as well as support for Millenniata's M-DISC technology.
The BH16NS40 is the first drive from LG with the ability to write to BD-R media at 16x. While the drive failed to reach this speed in our tests, it was still able to burn an entire 25GB disc in a little more than 9 minutes. The BH16NS40 also performed very well when writing to BD-R DL media, burning a full 50GB BD-R DL disc in less than 22 minutes. As you'd expect, the BH16NS40 wasn't nearly as fast when writing to single and dual layer BD-RE media. However, its performance was on par with the other Blu-ray Disc writers I've tested.
Using the bundled software, the BH16NS40 played all of the Blu-ray movies I had on hand, including those protected by BD+ and with BD-Live enabled features. The drive also performed fairly well in our transfer rate tests, reading single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R discs at 12x and both BD-RE and BD-R DL media at a respectable 8x.
LG's new drive also has the ability to read and write to all standard DVD formats. The BH16NS40 performed very well when writing to DVD±R discs, taking less than 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. It also had no problems holding its own when writing to DVD±RW and DVD+R DL media. However, it lagged behind some of the other drives when writing to DVD-RAM discs. Nevertheless, the BH16NS40 was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and most other types of recordable media at 12x.
Reading and writing CD's wasn't a problem for the BH16NS40 either. In our tests, it read pressed and CD-R media at speeds as high as 48x and CD-RW discs at 40x. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at speeds as high as 40x. As a writer, the BH16NS40 performed as expected. The drive turned in some respectable times with CD-R media and its writing quality was quite good. Unfortunately, due to its Z-CLV writing method, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives in our rewriting tests.
LG's new Super Multi Blue drive also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the BH16NS40 is equipped with a generous 4MB buffer that is backed up by some sort of buffer underrun technology. The BH16NS40 also includes support for Millenniata's M-DISC technology. Offering greater longevity and durability than standard DVD's, the M-DISC's rock-like material provides up to 1000 years of permanent data storage. Last but not least, LG has included a great software bundle from CyberLink.
In the end, it usually comes down to price. For what it offers, LG's new Blu-ray Disc writer is surprisingly affordable. The retail packaged BH16NS40 can be purchased from retailers like Newegg for less than $120.
| LG BH16NS40 16x Blu-ray Disc ReWriter |
|
| Features: Installation: Performance: |
9 9 8 |
| Overall: | 9 |
Highs:
- Writes to BD-R media at 16x
- Writes to BD-R DL media at 12x
- Writes to BD-R LtH media at 6x
- Writes to BD-R TL and BD-R QL media at 6x
- Writes to BD-RE, BD-RE DL and BD-RE TL media at 2x
- Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
- Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
- Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
- Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 8x
- Reads single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R media at 12x
- Reads BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 8x
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R media at 16x
- Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 12x
- Features 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
- Good DVD and CD writing quality
- Includes buffer underrun prevention technology
- Supports 99 minute CD-R media
- 4MB buffer
- Low access times
- Includes CyberLink's Blu-ray Disc Suite
- Nice looking design with bright blue LED
- Affordably priced
Lows:
- Failed to write to BD-R media at 16x
- High media requirements when writing to BD-R media at 16x
- Reads and writes to DVD-RAM media at only 5x
- Does not support bitsetting
