Sony Spressa CD-RW (4X/2X/24X)

Pros: Nominally useful.
Cons: Horrible software. Flaky hardware.

Fool me once, the old saying goes, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Sony fooled me twice.

Back at the beginning of my long and illustrious career as an ePinions writer, I wrote a piece about the Sony SPressa USB external CD...

Pros: FAST disk writing, perfectly stable, no coasters, packet writing, 80 minute support
Cons: No overburning

Over three years ago, I bought a Memorex CR-622 2x burner - the first commercially available IDE burner under $300. It worked fine for a while, but then inexplicably starting "coastering" nearly every other disk. I finally had my fill about a...

Pros: Decent Speed, Few Errors
Cons: Frequent Jamming, Many restarts!

I purchased my Sony CDRW Drive because it is an external drive, and because it uses the USB port. Both of these features made it portable, and ideal for use with my laptop. After owning it for about a year...its transportability has been a big plus for...

Pros: The free CD-Stomper
Cons: Flaky hardware, mediocre software, erratic tech support

Problematic from the beginning, I have sent it back to be fixed under warranty twice. The software is functional but not great, and the hardware is flaky. Oh, where do I begin?

The Sony saga

The saga began immediately. I...

Pros: Cheap, stylish, compatible
Cons: Compatible...if the software actually works, hard time getting a decent CD

Let's face it. In today's world, floppy discs are so 90's. I mean, who really has files under 2 megs nowadays? And if you do, why not use an online storage area? It's quick, easy, and more efficient than carrying that plastic square around town.
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Pros: Good price; well-built hardware
Cons: Inadequate software, no workarounds.

The drive itself is nice and rugged; but the software shipped with it is lousy. My Spressa 100/EX2 came with different (wrong?) drivers (Spressa 120), and poor archiving software (Sony's ExtremeCD) that does not allow a user to make a full backup or to...

Pros: Easy Installation, Good Hardware
Cons: Horrible bundled software

This Sony drive comes with the drive and cables, 1 cdr and 1 cdrw, a coupon for a CD Stomper and the manual.

Installation was fairly simple, even for people who don't know much about computers, the manual explains all that you need. The...

Pros: reliable, fairly good speed for its time
Cons: small buffer (1MB)

I didn't buy my Sony Spressa CRX100E/CH because of the CD Right! software that came with it. I've never used HotBurn which comes with many of the newer Sony CD-RW drives, but I know it can't be much better. The CD Right! software is unintuitive and...

Pros: Fast, Quiet, Good Price
Cons: Installation Software

I purchased my SONY Spressa CD-RW drive about 6 weeks ago, and I've been very happy with it. The installation itself was relatively easy, just plug in power, and the IDE cable. The installation software on the other hand was not very user friendly. It...

Pros: QUALITY and a name you can trust
Cons: IDE drives TAKE UP MORE CPU

I would love to make my own music CDs, movies, copies, and backups. That day has reached this era! The Sony Spressa CD-RW (4X/2X/24X) is user friendly. With programs such as “Easy CD Creator 4.0” (adaptec.com) recording your own CDs is a...

Pros: Good hardware, great speed, easy install
Cons: Can't use virus protection while using the HotBurn software, and if you're not using 16bit color or better, you'll be rebooting.

If you have been following my reviews (and I know some of you have... I check. Thanks!) You will have gathered by now that I do a lot of work with various facets of the computer/internet world.

One of my customers wanted an automatic...

Pros: Inexpensive, practical, simple operation and complete software suite included
Cons: Occasional buffer underrun when copying disk to disk

I purchased this drive by accident. I was bidding on a similar Creative IDE CD RW drive on Ebay and when I won the auction, the seller, a computer store in North Carolina was out of stock. They substituted this drive, new and in factory sealed box....

Pros: reliable hardware, good copies, and FAST!!
Cons: you pay for the SONY name

Thid CD-copier is fast and from my experiences it is reliable. Cd's copy fast it really does copy at 4x. Full CD's seem to be finished in about 15 minutes. This is really quick since most of my friends have a 2x cd recorder which take a little over...

Pros: Good price, reliable
Cons: Not the fastest burner in the land

I burn CDs rather regularly and I need reliability and quality for a good price. I got this because of the economic price and the brandname (you know Sony's good at everything electronic) and was not dissapointed. It works just fine, I have no...

Pros: Reliable copies; GREAT software!
Cons: None

I've used several recordable and re-writable drives over the past few years and Sony's offerings are first rate. I've bought several of these drives in recent months and they've quickly become our corporate standard.

The drive is fast, the...