After having the DRX-S77U in the 'Labs for a few weeks, I'm left with mixed feelings. While Sony has delivered a compact and lightweight DVD writer with good looks, impressive specs and a number of useful features, the drive's power requirements limit where it can be used.
For a portable drive, the DRX-S77U performed relatively well when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media, taking a little more than 12 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. It also turned in some respectable times when writing to other types of media. However, the writing quality could have been better with some DVD+R DL discs. When it came to reading DVD's, the DRX-S77U was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and most recordable media at 8x but slowed to only 4x when reading DVD-Videos.
Reading CD's wasn't a problem for the DRX-S77U either. While its seek times were a little higher than I would have liked, the drive read pressed and recordable CD media at speeds as high as 25x. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at 25x. As a writer, the DRX-S77U performed as expected. The drive was relatively quick when writing to CD-R and CD-RW media and its writing quality was quite good.
Sony's new portable DVD writer also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the DRX-S77U has a 2048KB buffer that is backed up by some sort of buffer underrun technology. The drive also offers a good number of writing and rewriting speeds to choose from and supports bitsetting for DVD+R DL discs. As I mentioned earlier, the biggest issue I had with the DRX-S77U was that it could not be powered off a computer's USB bus. Sony claims that the AC adapter is better at providing stable power. However, I'd rather have the option of using one or the other, instead of being limited to locations where a power outlet is available.
The Sony DRX-S77U is available now and can be purchased from Amazon or the retailers listed on Pricegrabber for less than $70.
| Sony DRX-S77U 8x USB 2.0 DVD±RW/RAM |
|
| Features: Installation: Performance: |
7 9 8 |
| Overall: | 8 |
Highs:
- Writes to DVD±R media at 8x
- Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
- Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
- Writes to DVD±R DL media at 6x
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 8x
- Reads DVD±R, DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 8x
- Reads and writes to DVD-RAM media at 5x
- Features 24x CD-R and CD-RW writing speeds
- Good selection of writing and rewriting speeds
- Includes buffer underrun prevention technology
- Good DVD±R and CD-R writing quality
- Compact and lightweight design
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R DL media
- Includes software from Nero
Lows:
- Not USB powered
- Questionable writing quality with some DVD+R DL media
- Reads DVD-Videos at only 4x
- Cannot set the book type of DVD+R or DVD+RW media
- Overburns to only 92:57
