Over the last year or so, we've had a number of Lite-On's DVD writers in the 'Labs. Offering a good mix of value, performance and features, these drives are very popular among both consumers and enthusiasts. Needless to say, I had high expectations for the DX-20A4PU. While an improvement in many ways over Lite-On's previous EZ-DUB drives, its performance came up short in a number of key areas.
According to Lite-On, the DX-20A4PU can write to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 20x. While this looks impressive on paper, the drive reached a maximum writing speed of only 18x in our tests. As a result, it took nearly five and a half minutes to write an entire 4.7GB DVD. The DX-20A4PU didn't have any problems writing to DVD±RW, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media. However, its Z-CLV writing method did put it at a slight disadvantage when writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs.
When it came to media compatibility, the DX-20A4PU gave us some mixed results. While the drive wrote toall of our test media at its rated speeds or better, only two types were recognized as being capable of 20x writing speeds. On the other hand, the DX-20A4PU's writing quality was fairly good, at least with most single layer DVD±R discs. With DVD±R DL media though, there were a number of cases where the PI/PIF rates were higher than we'd like to see. Hopefully, Lite-On can address this in a future firmware update.
Lite-On's new external drive did very well in our DVD read tests. It was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD-Videos at 16x and had some very good seek times. The DX-20A4PU also reached some pretty impressive transfer speeds with other types of DVD media. In our tests, it read DVD±R discs at 16x and DVD±RW, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media at an impressive 12x.
Reading CD's wasn't a problem for the DX-20A4PU either. In our tests, the drive read pressed and CD-R media at speeds as high as 48x and CD-RW discs at 33x. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at an impressive 48x. When it came to writing CD's, the DX-20A4PU performed as expected. The drive had no problems holding its own when writing to CD-R media. However, itsZ-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests.
When it comes to features, the DX-20A4PU definitely delivers. Along with old favorites like SMART-BURN and SMART-X, it supports two of Lite-On's more advanced technologies, SmartWrite and OverSpeed. The drive also has a good number of writing and rewriting speeds to choose from and has the ability to set the book type of DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media. Most notable though, is the DX-20A4PU's EZ-DUB technology. By following a few simple steps, users can quickly and easily duplicate a disc or backup their data.
While the DX-20A4PU has its rough spots, it has a lot of potential. If Lite-On can improve the media support and get the drive to write at 20x, it could be one of the better external DVD writers out there. The DX-20A4PU is available now and can be purchased through the vendors listed on Pricegrabber for less than $60.
| Lite-On DX-20A4PU 20x DVD±RW/RAM |
|
| Features: Installation: Performance: |
10 9 5 |
| Overall: | 7 |
Highs:
- Supports Lite-On's EZ-DUB technology
- Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 20x
- 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 and writes DVD-RAM media at 12x
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
- Reads DVD±R media at 16x
- Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 12x
- Features 48x CD-R and 32x CD-RW writing speeds
- Good selection of writing and rewriting speeds
- Excellent DAE speeds
- Low seek times
- Supports SMART-BURN, SMART-X, ABS, SmartWrite and OverSpeed technologies
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
- Includes software from Nero
- Supports 99 minute CD-R media
- Nice looking design
Lows:
- Failed to write to any DVD±R media at 20x
- Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R DL media
- Slower than other drives when writing to DVD±RW media
- Reads CD-RW media at only 32x
