I've been doing my research on cd burners over the past month, and recently I picked one of these up at a Best Buy. I've seen this model sell for as much as $329 online, but I think the retail price is $249 or so. Anyways, I got an open box, for $211, and there is still a $30 rebate on it. So for $181, this is definitely a best bet, especially since it's 2 to 3 times faster than all other externals within its price range. The only gripe i have is that you need to hunt down a 4 to 6 pin Firewire connector before you go home with it. DON'T FORGET IT! It doesn't make sense why Sony doesn't make their products completely plug and play with their own devices.
So after setting it up, I finished burning my first music cd (700 MB) in less that 8 minutes. That's blazing fast.

Recommended: Yes