Like many, I look back fondly on Plextor's "Premium" series of CD and DVD writers. With their impressive performance and innovative features, these drives repeatedly raised the bar for the rest of the industry. With the PX-LB950UE, Plextor has tried to continue this trend. While not of the same caliber as their "Premium" drives, this new external Blu-ray Disc writer offers a long list of features as well as some of the fastest BD reading and writing speeds available.
The PX-LB950UE is the first external drive from Plextor with the ability to write to BD-R media at 12x. At this speed, it took about 11 and a half minutes to burn an entire 25GB disc. While this wasn't enough to top Plextor's previous Blu-ray Disc writer, the PX-B940SA, their new drive gave it a serious run for its money. The PX-LB950UE also performed fairly well when writing to BD-R DL media, burning a full 50GB BD-R DL disc in less than 32 minutes. The drive wasn't nearly as fast when writing to BD-RE media. However, its performance was on par with the other Blu-ray Disc writers I've tested.
Using the bundled software, the PX-LB950UE 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 as well as BD-R, BD-RE and BD-R DL media at speeds near 8x.
Plextor's new drive also has the ability to read and write to all standard DVD formats. The PX-LB950UE performed very well when writing to DVD±R discs, taking less than 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. The drive had no problems holding its own when writing to other types of media. However, the writing quality could have been better with Verbatim's DVD-R DL discs. When it came to reading DVD's, the PX-LB950UE was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and other types of recordable media at 12x.
Reading CD's wasn't a problem for the PX-LB950UE either. In our tests, it read pressed and CD-R media at speeds as high as 48x and CD-RW discs at 39x. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at a respectable 47x. As a writer, the PX-LB950UE 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.
When it comes to features, the PX-LB950UE definitely delivers. The drive's external enclosure is well constructed, good looking and offers support for both USB 3.0 and eSATA. To prevent buffer underruns, the PX-LB950UE is equipped with an 8MB buffer that is backed up by Plextor's BURN-Proof technology. The drive also supports HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system and has the ability to set the book type of DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media. Last but not least, the PX-LB950UE comes with Plextor's PlexUtilities software. Using this tool, Plextor owners can view basic and advanced drive information, control specific drive functions, perform media quality tests and destroy data on CD/DVD/BD media.
The Plextor PX-LB950UE is available now and can be purchased from online retailers like Newegg for less than $190.
| Plextor PX-LB950UE 12x Blu-ray Disc Writer |
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| Features: Installation: Performance: |
10 9 8 |
| Overall: | 9 |
Highs:
- Writes to BD-R media at 12x
- Writes to BD-R DL media at 8x
- Writes to BD-R LtH media at 6x
- Writes to BD-RE and BD-RE DL 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 at 8x
- Reads BD-R, BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 8x
- Reads BD-RE DL media at 6x
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
- Reads DVD±R media at 16x
- Reads DVD±R DL and DVD±RW media at 12x
- Features 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
- Good DVD±R and CD-R writing quality
- Low access times
- Features Plextor's BURN-Proof technology
- Supports LightScribe technology
- 8MB buffer
- Includes CyberLink's Blu-ray Disc Suite and PlexUtilities
- Supports 99 minute CD-R media
- USB 3.0 and eSATA interfaces
- Nice looking design
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
- Reasonably priced (for a Plextor)
Lows:
- Questionable writing quality with some DVD-R DL media
- Slower than other drives when writing to CD-RW and DVD+RW media
