According to TOMS Hardware site http://www6.tomshardware.com/2005/12/30/the_latest_dvd_writers_true_speeds/ 1 AND 2 Toshiba SDR-5472 AND NEC ND-3540A #3 AND HIGHER SONY, PLEXTOR, PIONEER, Read the full article ,its not me ,there are objective test results Despite the stagnation of write speeds for DVD-R and DVD+R at 16x, new DVD writers are regularly being marketed, since performance for other types of writing (RW and dual-layer) is still improving. But as is customary, manufacturers of writers have a lead on media manufacturers. For this article, we visited all the stores to see what types of media are actually available for sale, and once again the result was most enlightening. You can find 16x-compatible -R and +R discs, but in the other formats they simply aren't out there. For the two rewritable standards, -RW and +RW, 4x-compatible media is all we could find, whereas writers now operate at 8x for +RW and 6x for -RW. As for dual-layer writers, which now reach speeds of 8x, only 2.4x media are available. And we weren't even able to find anybody to sell us dual-layer DVD-Rs! So while the quick arrival of dual-layer writers has helped keep both -R/RW and +R/RW stay in the race, the + standard still has a lead. The + standard's writing performance also proved to be better, as you'll see later in our test results. With this in mind, we tested the writers with media that are actually available for sale to make sure our tests reflect actual conditions on the street today. Not all the writers we tested for this article have LightScribe technology. (LightScribe, in case you didn't know, lets you engrave a monochrome "label" directly onto the front of your disc.) Manufacturers now have two lines of writers - one with and one without LightScribe, while the other characteristics of the writers remain the same. Models with LightScribe are about 10 to 15% more expensive. For the moment, since our preceding article, the technology hasn't changed. Only the media have changed, now offering different colors. In addition to gold, you can now find blue, red, and green, for example. As you can see from this review, problems continue in terms of media availability for DVD writers - perhaps more than ever. To burn write-once DVDs, you have no choice but to go with DVD+R if you want to take advantage of the highest writing speeds - it'll take a little more than five minutes to burn a disc with the SDR-5472 from Toshiba. For rewritable DVDs, speeds remain limited to 4x for both standards (- and +) but DVD+RW still manages shorter burn times. The NEC was the winner here, at a little over 14 minutes, but the Toshiba took only three seconds longer. As for dual-layer writing, there's no contest, since we weren't even able to find DVD-R DL media available for sale. You'll have to settle for DVD+R DL. The Sony writer came out on top with a burn time of a little over fifteen minutes.
You need to re-label your title. 'The fastest DVD-DL burner available, not the best!. Since when has speed determined the quality of a writer. When I burn a disk, I am looking for the quality of the burn and compatibility with the devices asked to play it. I am also looking for the disk to be playable after a substantial amount of time. When using 8 or 16 speed disks, I still only burn games and films at 4 speed, patience is a virtue, and it pays off in the end. I use TY media at 4 speed in my burner and the resulting tests with Plextools always shows the disks are burned at the excellent quality band, maybe compare that some of what you have looked at and see the differnce.
Of course if they had bothered testing a BenQ, the results would have been different The only people that don't think that BenQ DW1620/1625/1640/1655 is the best ... have never used one ... and I own a bunch of burners ... BenQ, Plextor, NEC, LiteOn, Pioneer, Ricoh, HP
If i remember correctly 2 of the 5 drives listed are benq. The Plextor PX-740A and Sony DRU-810A are both rebadged benq 1640's. Forgot which one of them is missing the overspeed feature thou.
I'll take both my benq 1620s and my 1640 any day. 16x burn speeds: No problemo using taiyo yuden and verbatim media. How did those burners fare with On the Fly rip and burning? My benqs do this at 100% success rate! Of course,speed is no biggie for me. I'll take my 8x and 12x speed backups. The stand alone compatability is the most critical aspect of burner quality.Also the booktyping for this compatability improvement. I don't know about the toshiba,but all those drives listed are ok in my book. Why burn your backups at 16x speed on a non booktyping burner if the chance of your stand alone players aren't going to be able to recognize them? My 2 cents worth!
yeah thats gotta be a bias report the Plextor drive they tested is a rebadged BenQ ,the best drive on the market at the moment is the Plextor PX-716A voted best two years running...read this http://www.plextor.com/english/news/news_awards.html and BTW guys Plextor just released an 18X burner ,check it out at there website
