Over the years, we've had a number of Sony's DVD writers in the 'Labs. Traditionally, these drives have gotten top marks for their features, performance and consumer friendliness and the DRU-840A is no exception. Based on the Samsung SH-S202H, Sony's new "Super-Multi" drive offers a healthy dose of features and some of the fastest DVD reading and writing speeds available.
The DRU-840A is the first drive from Sony with the ability to write to both DVD-R and DVD+R media at 20x. One of the faster drives we've tested, it took less than 5 minutes to write an entire 4.7GB DVD. The DRU-840A also turned in some respectabletimes with DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media. However, without compatible media, we weren't able to test its full potential when writing to DVD±R DL discs. Nevertheless, the DRU-840A performed very well in our tests, burning 8GB of data in a little more than 13 minutes.
When it came to media compatibility, the DRU-840A gave us some mixed results. While the drive wrote toall of our test media at its rated speed or better, only three types worked at 20x. The DRU-840A's writing quality was fairly good for the most part. However, there is still room for improvement, especially with Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD±R and select DVD±R DL media. Hopefully, Sony can address this in a future firmware update.
Sony's new drive also performed relatively well in our DVD read tests. The drive was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD-Videos at 16x and had some very good seek times. Reading recordable media wasn't a problem for the DRU-840A either. In our tests, it read DVD±R discs at 16x, and DVD±RW, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media at an impressive 12x.
The DRU-840A was also fairly quick when reading CD's. With SpeedRead enabled, the drive 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 40x. Unfortunately, the DRU-840A lagged behind some of the other drives when writing CD's. It took longer than expected when writing to CD-R media and its Z-CLV writing method also put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests. Nevertheless, the DRU-840A's writing quality was quite good.
Like Sony's previous DVD writers, the DRU-840A isn't short on features. Along with support for all major CD and DVD formats, it has a 2MB buffer that is backed up by Sony's Power-Burn technology. While this buffer is a little smaller than what we'd like to see on a 20x DVD writer, this system worked flawlessly in our tests. The DRU-840A also has a good number of writing and rewriting speeds to choose from as well as the ability to set the book type of DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media. To top it off, Sony has included some pretty good documentation, a software bundle from Nero and a black replacement bezel.
Sony's new DVD writer is shipping now and can be purchased through some of the vendors listed on Pricegrabber.Prices vary depending on the seller, but the retail version of the DRU-840A can be picked up for less than $60.
| Sony DRU-840A 20x DVD±RW/RAM |
|
| Features: Installation: Performance: |
8 8 7 |
| Overall: | 8 |
Highs:
- 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 12x
- 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
- Low seek times
- Features Sony's Power-Burn technology
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
- Includes software from Nero
- Supports 99 minute media
- Includes extra bezel
- Nice looking design
Lows:
- Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R and DVD±R DL media
- Had a hard time reaching its rated speeds when reading pressed CD's
- Slower than other drives when writing to CD-R and CD-RW media
