Sweet badgerhumping jeebus this thing is fast.
Written: Apr 03 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Downright sick write speed, comes bundled with Nero.
Cons: Feels a little flimsy.
The Bottom Line: Inexpensive, speedy, top knotch bundled software. Excellent product, highly recommended.
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| Action_Snark's Full Review: Lite On LTR 48125W CD-RW Burner |
Some things improve with age. Wine, scotch, Olsen twins, etc. Unfortunately, this adage does not extend to CD burners, as I've discovered. My poor old Plextor 12x10x32 Plexwriter was getting old and cranky, so I decided it was time for an upgrade. I'd heard good things about LiteOn, and decided to do a bit of shopping around.
I settled on the LTR-48125 for a few reasons. First, the price was right. Newegg had these puppies on sale for $48, plus shipping. (Normal prices run about $50-60, depending on the retailer.) Point for this product so far. Second, as I'd mentioned above, LiteOn products have gotten a pretty good reputation among my peers. Another point for this burner. What really sealed the deal for me however, was the inclusion of a very up to date version of Nero (5.5.9.13 with my particular burner.) Nero alone retails for around $50, and that was the cherry atop the sundae for me. Anyway, read on for a somewhat truncated Action Snark Rundown of the LiteOn LTR-48125.
General: As I've said before, this burner is a downright steal. I've only been running it for a few days, but I've been consistently impresed with it's performance. The drive itself is lighter than my Plextor was, and doesn't feel quite as substantial. However, so far it's been a rock-solid performer. Overall, I'll give the drive a 9 out of 10. So far it's been solid as a rock, and performed like a nascar. Will it withstand the test of time though?
Installation: Not a helluva lot to say here. An ATAPI optical drive is an ATAPI optical drive. Yank old cables, yank old drive, set jumpers, stuff new drive in, plug in, rinse, lather, repeat. The drive did have jumper settings and wiring schematics engraved onto the case itself, so life was fairly easy in that regard. Overall, I'll give the installation a 7 out of 10. Nothing super-great here, but the drive doesn't do anything in particular to make your life difficult while installing it.
Performance: Performance can best be summed up with the phrase 'sweet badgerhumping christ in a turbocharged go-kart that's fast!'. This drive boasts a 48x read speed, a 12x re-write speed, and a muscular 48x write speed. Using Verbatim 16x 700mb media and the bundled version of Nero, I was churning out overburned data CDs (That's 725-730 mb of data, writing right up to the limit of what the disk can take.) in about two minutes, 40 seconds, on average. In other words, fast to the point of being ludicrous. I don't use many audio CD's, and I haven't gotten around to patching the bundled Nero install to burn VCD/SVCD, so I can't comment on the drive's performance in those fields.
The drive is actually quieter than my old Plextor was, despite being loads faster. Overall, performance rates a perfect 10 out of 10. This drive is inexpensive, speedy, and quiet.
Overall: High marks all around for this drive. Speedy as hell, cheaper than dirt, and comes bundled with what's arguably the best Windows based CD burning solution (Nero) ever to see the light of day. I've still got some reservations about how much punishment this drive will take, but I'm comparing it to my old Plextor burner, which was the optical drive equivalent of a Panzer. I'll stamp a large Snark Seal of Approval on this drive. It promises good performance for a reasonable price, and delivers on that promise.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 48.00
Operating System: Windows
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Action_Snark
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