Hey guys, I'm going to purchase a new DVD burner, but I don't really know much on the subject...I did a tiny bit of looking around and found the LG Electronics GSA-4166B and I'm pretty sure it does everything plus LightScribe. I know these questions are hard to answer, but is this a decent burner? I've heard stories of people purchasing really crappy branded burners and I'm not sure if this is one of them :S http://www.ascent.co.nz/ProductSpecification.aspx?ItemID=346371 Regards, Ben
LG makes a good drive but, in my opinion, BenQ is better .. http://www.ascent.co.nz/ProductSpecification.aspx?ItemID=346045
I'm one of those peeps who has some of those crappy drives: HP640c lightscribe I/O Magic 16x EMPA drive from Middle east FIZO. Khypermedia +8x All inferior burners compared to any of the 4 benqs I use. Inferior: I consider inferior as: 1) Stand alone compatability 2) Coaster percentage 3) Playback issues 4) Crc errors/PIF errors All 3 of those non benq drives will play their own backups,and they look nearly perfect. But stand alone players I use give me no disc errors on certain formats of those drives.That HP drive totall sucks because of too many crc errors on the backups that don't coaster out. Because of my Trial and Error,burner quality is critical. The most critical part is stand alone player compatability.Some of those stand alone players can tell a difference between backups from different burners. Issue Solved: Using any 4 of my benqs: 2-1620s/1640/and 1650: 1)No more worrying about which format to use.These babies booktype the plus format to dvd-rom. 2)95% stand alone compatability rate of their booktyped backups.Very hard to find a drive that won't recognize my booktyped benq backups. 3) Coasters: Very few. I avg 1 per 500 backups. This is regular rip to harddrive and burn and also on the fly rip and burns. If I get a burn coaster,usually it's a playback coaster or a blemish on that blank. 4)Longevity: I can't even wear out my original 1620. Well over 3200 + burns/300+ on the fly and still not even broke in yet. 5) Media: They burned everything I slap in them. Including: Tys/verbs/hitachi/ritek/ricoh/sony/Cmags/AML/and UME. 6) Burn speed: Using taiyo yuden and verbatim,these babies perform better at the faster 8x-12x burn speed. They say slower is better,hog wash.Got a benq=Faster is better for the quality media! 7) Value: Newegg has the beige oem benq 1650 for $39 including shipping. $36 for the black,including shipping. This is the best burner for the buck. 8) Warranty: Probably have a 1 year warranty? If you don't get a bad drive right out of the box,then you should even worry about the media. 9) On the Fly: Oh yea! 10) Lightscribe: Nope. Check out the Benq 1655 if you desire that capability. 11) Firmware updates very regularly.That helps out for the newer 16x media that is coming out. 12) Dual layer burning: Yep,very nice dl burner,using the proper program/s. Here it is: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827101010
.. In my opinion, firmware upgrades that are media related aren't even necessary because SolidBurn does such a good job of 'learning' various types of media The only people who don't think that BenQ is the best burner for the buck (or even the pound), have never owned a BenQ
I've never had a BenQ but I have the exact drive your talking about and once i downloaded the latest firmware for it and bought some good 16x Verbatim Media burning at 8x it's worked like a charm.
