Equal Footing with the Asus CRW-5224A
Written: Aug 04 '03 (Updated Aug 06 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low cost, high speed, reliable
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: Lite-On does it again, but AsusTeK is giving Lite-On a run for it's money.
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| nad_masters's Full Review: Lite On Peripherals 52X24X52 INT ATAPI CD-RW (LTR-... |
As stated in my CenDyne Lightining V 52x24x52x review here ( http://www.epinions.com/content_108017782404 ), I recieved a second Lightning V and found a completely different drive and packaging. The first CenDyne was a pleasent surprise, as I found a highly raved AsusTeK CRW-5224A 52x24x52x drive, also reviewed here: ( http://www.epinions.com/content_108116283012 ). It performed admirably and exceeded my expectation for a drive that costs $9.99 after rebates.
Because this is a CenDyne rebate, I also recieved the same treatment on the second Lightning V. However, I was just as surprised to find another quality drive in the attractive box. CenDyne only markets drives, and do not produce them. This is also evident on the box, as their motto is proudly stated there: "Marketing Technology to the World" ... and it is even trademarked with a (tm) symbol! So finding a different drive in the box did not surprise me. It was the quality of brands of Lite-On and AsusTeK that surprised me, as other no-name brands are usually included (such as Artec or Ben-Q/Acer - or even worse).
Even stated, the software and other minor details such as packaging materials were different in the second offering. One of which was the software. It is not fair that the Asus only comes with Nero Express, while the Lite-On came with a full version of Nero Burning ROM 5 (even though it is an OEM version that only works with the drive it was bundled with). The OEM version is just like having the full version - it is not crippled in any way when used with the Lite-On drive. However, it will not work with other CD-RW drives, which is a bummer if you also have another CD-RW drive installed along side with the bundled drive. But then again, you probably have a full version of your favorite CD mastering software already installed if you previously have a CD-RW drive.
Installation, Build Quality, and Features
Installation is just like any other ATAPI optical drive. You set the jumpers to set for master, slave, or cable select, connect the IDE cable, the audio cable, and the power cable, and you are done. This time, the drive came pre-selected as a cable select drive.
The drive uses standard mounting screws used by other optical drives, as well as floppy drives. Do not, however, use hard drive screws (or similar) to mount the drive, as it will strip the threads and render the mounting holes useless.
Like the AsusTeK, the Lite-On also comes with a digital SPDIF audio outs, along with the traditional analog L/R outs. It seems that digial outputs are now crossing over budget drives!
The front benzel is nothing special, and looks exactly like Lite-On previous drives that were based on the 32x, 40x, and 48x drive mechanics. In fact, there is a 52x32x52x model out as we speak. The white color will match most modern cases (except for black and gray, of course). Unlike the AsusTeK, there is no dedicated button for play/skip. However, a headphone jack and volume knob exists for your convience.
Reads
Almost all drives are now being rated at 52x, or around 7.8 MB/sec transfer rate, but rarely does this happen. Reasons include anything from design and vibration. CLV and CAV can effect the overall speed as well. Nonetheless, most drives in this range will read on average of a little over 32x (or 5 MB sec) due to the interface and the fact that you will only hit the fastest read speeds on the outter edge of the CD.
This particular drive reads beyond the average, which is one of the reasons why it was ranted and raved about. Nero CD Speed rated reads 52.18x on the outer edge, while inner tracks began at a modest 23.89x. The average CD read speeds was 39.98x. Woo Hoo!
Digital Audio Extraction
This is even more surprising. It extracted audio faster than any drive I've ever seen, besting AsusTeK's efforts, and matching Plextor's. It read the audio CD as if it was a data CD - starting at 24x and ending nearly the same as the data CD at 52x! Of course, you will need a 80 minute audio CD to see those speeds. Average read was, again, at around 40x, and as expected, a 10 out of 10 for accuracy, with Accurate Streaming supported.
ReWrte
With a prommised 24x rewrite, it is slow by CD-R standards, but very quick for a CD-RW. Although 24x CD-RWs are already reasonably wide spread now, I do not have any to test with at this moment. However, with the fastest RW disc I have at 12x, I was able to test the rewrite up to 80 mintes (700 MB) without any problems at the maximum media rated speed of 12x. This should be expected, of course, as RW speeds are not as demanding as CD-Rs and pressed CDs.
With no troubles with high speed CD-R writes (as reported below), I do not anticipate any problems with 24x speeds with RW discs.
Write
CD-Rs became the cheapest media ever. Even floppies, with a pathetic 1.44 MB capacity, cost more than a 650 MB CD-R disc. And so, this is the most used feature of the drive, along with reading CDs.
The promissed 52x does not dissapoint. It sure does write at a consistant 7.8 MB/sec according to Nero, while rarely dipping into the included 2MB buffer memory. While at this speed, the 2 MB is not at all useful anymore. It has less than a second to recover, if your PC becomes busy! Thankfully, buffer memory is now less and less important to most users since all recordable drives now come with some kind of buffer-underrun-proof technology such as Burn-Proof, or ExactaLink.
However, the Nero CD Speed tells a different story. The writes start at 23.10x (nearly 24x) and ends at a whopping 52.12x! At last, marketing jives with engineers! The AsusTeK actually scored slightly faster for both minimum and maximum speeds. However, the differences are minimal, proof that CD-RW drives are now becoming a perfected and mature technology.
The average speed, however, is calculated at 40.12x. This is excellent, as the AsusTeK only mustered an average of a close-but-no-dice 39.90x. This almost makes no sense, since the min and max speeds on the Asus was quicker. But numbers are numbers, and they tell a very twisting story. Like the AsusTeK drive, the Lite-On counterpart is a CAV recorder, which does not stop in the middle of the burn to upshift to a faster burn speed. Instead, it gradually increases the speed depending where the laser is at. This is arguablly better than ZCLV since there are no gaps. ZCLV uses the buffer-underrun technology to do this, but this creates the small minor gaps that may thwart certain CD readers. However, this has yet to happen in the practical real world.
It took 2:34 minutes to burn a full 80 minute disc (700 MB) from begining to end - a full second slower than the AsusTeK.
The Bottom Line
My experience with both drives prove that CD-RW drive technologies have matured to an almost indistinguishable performance lead. Pick your poison - as both will drive to the same outcome, at the same time.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 40
Operating System: Windows
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