Slow and Error-prone
Written: Apr 05 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: reliable
Cons: error-prone, shoddy customer service
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| martet01's Full Review: Memorex CD-RW drives |
I bought the CRW-1622 about a year ago from Staples for $210 minus a $60 rebate from Memorex. This drive is your basic 6x read 2x write and requires at least a 486/33 with 8MB of RAM to function properly according to the package. However, a friend of mine with a 486/66 and 32MB RAM could not get the drive to work. The drive comes packaged with manuals, software, one blank CD-RW disk, an audio cable, and mounting screws.
The software is a program called NTI CD-maker and frankly, it sucks. It is slow, poorly laid out, and caused several conflicts during installation. When it did work, the software inserted many clicks or misaligned tracks constantly when trying to record continuous mixes. Ultimately I ended up removing it and installing Adaptec software instead. For anyone using this drive I would recommend switching to Adaptec software as it has more features, is easier to use, and handles continuous mixes better.
I have burned around 200 CDs (mostly audio) with this thing so far and it still works as well as when I bought it. Unfortunately, this is not particularly well. Error rates for recording audio are in the 15-20% range, much higher than I expected. While blank disks are not expensive the drive is not terribly fast so failures quickly become annoying.
One thing that really irks me about this drive is the following scenario. When burning you can simply burn your cd or you can run a test and then burn it. The test takes about as long as the actual burning but is supposed to catch errors before they get burned to save you from spitting out lemons. Well I used to run the test and then burn but many many times the burner would pass through the test only to have write errors during the actual recording. If any one has suggestions I'm open to them but for now I would suggest skipping the test and just burning every disk straight.
So if you're looking for a reliable albeit error-prone CD writer then this burner is adequate. Since 2x is pretty much obsolete now you should be able to find one at an attractive price.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
martet01
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Member: Timothy Martens
Location: Philadelphia
Reviews written: 55
Trusted by: 27 members
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