Sony DRU-810A 16x DVD±RW

Over the past year or so, we've taken a look at a number of Sony's DVD writers. While these drives offered a good mix of performance and features, things like writing quality prevented them from getting top marks in our reviews. Needless to say, this wasn't the case with their new 16x DVD±RW. Based on the award winning BenQ DW1640, the DRU-810A is one of Sony's best drives to date.

Like its BenQ counterpart, the DRU-810A can write to both DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x. At this speed, it took the drive about 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. Sony's new DVD writer also did pretty well in our rewriting tests, turning in some very good times with both DVD-RW and DVD+RW media. Even more impressive was the DRU-810A's DVD+R DL writing performance. Thanks to its 8x writing speed, the drive took a little more than 15 minutes to burn an entire 8.5GB DVD. Unfortunately, its 4x DVD-R DL writing speed also put it at a slight disadvantage in some of our tests.

When it came to media compatibility, the DRU-810A gave us some mixed results. The drive wrote to most of our test media at its rated speeds, but like Sony's previous 16x DVD writers, it was not able to write to any 8x DVD±R discs at 16x. While this is becoming less of an issue as more 16x media becomes available, it's still a nice feature to have. Nevertheless, the DRU-810A's writing quality was, for the most part, pretty good. However, there's still room for improvement, especially with Optodisc 16x DVD+R and Ritek DVD+R DL media. Hopefully Sony can tweak this in a future firmware update.

The DRU-810A also did very well in our DVD read tests. The drive was able to read both single layer data and video DVD-ROM's at speeds as high as 16x and had some pretty good seek times. Reading recordable media wasn't a problem for the DRU-810A either. In our tests, it read DVD±R discs at 16x and both DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at an impressive 12x.

When it came time to read and write CD's, the DRU-810A didn't disappoint. With its Turbo Boost enabled, it had no problems reading pressed and CD-R media at 48x and CD-RW discs at 40x. The drive also did well in our DAE tests, reaching speeds as high as 48x. This level of performance carried over to our writing and rewriting tests. The DRU-810A turned in some impressive times thanks to its 48x CD-R and 32x CD-RW writing speeds and its writing quality was pretty good.

Like Sony's other DVD writers, the DRU-810A also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the drive has a 2MB buffer that is backed up by Sony's Power Burn technology. While the buffer might seem a little small to some, this system worked flawlessly in our tests. The DRU-810A 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-810A can be picked up for as little as $100.

Highs:

• Writes to DVD±R media at 16x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-R DL media at 4x
• 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
• Very good transfer speeds with all types of CD media
• Excellent DAE speeds
• Good CD writing quality
• Features Sony's Power-Burn technology
• Supports 99 minute media
• Good selection of writing and rewriting speeds
• Includes software from Nero
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
• Includes extra bezel
• Nice looking design

Lows:

• Cannot write to 8x DVD±R media at 16x
• Lacks the advanced features found on the BenQ DW1640
• Doesn't support the Mt. Rainier format
• Has a 2048KB buffer