Plextor PX-716A 16x DVD±RW

The PX-716A got off to a rough start when it was released this fall. Days after it hit stores, our forums were full of people complaining about writing quality issues. While this didn't look good for the self proclaimed "king of quality," Plextor was quick to respond with a new drive revision and a flood of firmware updates. These firmware updates not only addressed the writing quality issues, they improved the PX-716A, adding faster writing speeds and support for new formats like DVD-R DL.

The PX-716A is the first drive from Plextor with the ability to write to both DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x. At this speed, the drive was able to write 4GB of data in as little as 5 and a half minutes. While we've seen a few 16x DVD writers that can do it in less time, they are few and far between. The PX-716A also performed very well with other types of recordable media. It held its own relatively well with DVD-RW media and turned in one of the fastest DVD+RW writing times we've seen. Even more impressive was the PX-716A's DVD+R DL writing performance. Thanks to its 6x writing speed, the drive took less than 19 minutes to burn an entire 8.5GB DVD! Unfortunately, due to the lack of media, we weren't able to test the PX-716A's DVD-R DL writing speeds.

When it came to media compatibility, Plextor's new drive gave us some mixed results. The PX-716A tried to write to a good portion of our DVD+R media at 16x, including some rated at 8x. Unfortunately, finding DVD-R media that would work at this speed wasn't as easy. Only two types worked at 16x and in both cases PoweRec had a tendency to kick in, preventing it from reaching this speed. On the other hand, the PX-716A's writing quality was, for the most part, quite good. With most of our test media, the number of PI errors stayed well within acceptable limits, even when writing at 16x.

The PX-716A also did very well in our DVD read tests. The drive was able to read single layer data and video DVD-ROM's at 16x and had some pretty good seek times. The PX-716A also reached some pretty impressive transfer speeds with other types of DVD media. In our tests, it read dual layer DVD-Videos, DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW discs at 12x and DVD+R DL media at 8x.

Reading and writing CD's wasn't a problem for the PX-716A either. With SpeedRead enabled, the drive read pressed and CD-R media at speeds as high as 48x and CD-RW discs at 41x. Plextor's new drive wasn't as fast in our DAE tests. However, it still ripped audio CD's at a respectable 41x. As a writer, the PX-716A performed as expected. The drive turned in some impressive times thanks to its 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds. More importantly, its writing quality was quite good.

The PX-716A is also one of the most feature packed DVD writers currently available. Along with features like BURN-Proof, PoweRec and VariRec, it supports a number of more advanced technologies like SecuRec, Q-Check and GigaRec. Thanks to Taiyo Yuden's new AutoStrategy technology, the PX-716A can also develop writing strategies for unknown media on the fly. While we saw a slight improvement in writing quality with AutoStrategy enabled, those of you that stick to supported media will probably have little use for this feature. Plextor tops all of this off with a great software bundle containing Roxio's Easy Media Creator suite and PlexTools Professional.

Of course, performance and features like this don't come cheap. With prices on Pricegrabber ranging from $115 to $150, it's still one of the more expensive 16x DVD±RW drives currently available. At this price, you could pick up one of the new 16x drives from NEC and Pioneer and still have money left over for media. Of course, if you go that route, you won't have nearly as many features or a company like Plextor backing you up. As usual, I'll leave the decision up to you.

Highs:

• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 4x
• Writes to DVD+R DL media at 6x
• Writes to DVD-R DL media at 2x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
• Reads DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW mediaat 12x
• Features 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
• Excellent DAE speeds
• Good seek times
• Has an 8MB buffer and BURN-Proof to prevent coasters
• Supports GigaRec, SecuRec, PoweRec, VariRec, Silent Mode, AutoStrategy and Q-Check technologies
• Includes Easy Media Creator 7 and PlexTools Professional
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R and DVD+R DL media
• Can write to select 8x DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
• Supports 99 minute media
• Great documentation

Lows:

• Tendency to slow down when writing to some DVD±R media
• Reads GigaRec recorded discs at only 8x
• Cannot set the book type of DVD+RW media
• Doesn't support the Mt. Rainier format
• Expensive