I bought the Ricoh 7060a from Comp USA well over a year ago. This is easily the most reliable computer component I have ever owned. I have burned hundreds of discs on this thing and there was only *1* time that it failed, and that was my fault. I actually bought this burner to replace the troublesome phillips burner that came with my Gateway computer. It would constantly forget it was installed and ruined more discs than I care to say before I decided to replace it. Isn't it terrible that the hardware that comes with your computer works so poorly?

Installation
The 7060 installed easily. Just attach it along the same chain as your current CD-ROM, or if you are replacing your CD-ROM, you just put it in it's place. I didn't have any problems mounting the drive in my Gateway tower.

Software
My version of the 7060a came with
* Seagate Backup Exec
* CeQuadrat Packet CD
* CeQuadrat Win On CD
* CeQuadrat just! audio

I'm not sure if this is the current software bundle that Ricoh is shipping. Like I said, I bought my drive quite awhile ago. I can't comment on the Backup software because I have never used it, but Packet CD and Win On CD are wonderful. Packet CD allows you to format a CDRW disc in a special packet mode and then use the disc as if it were another hard drive in your system. It obviously isn't as fast as a hard drive, but it is great for making quick backups of important files and keeping a selection of mp3s that you aren't sure if you want to keep or not.

The Win On CD isn't a piece of well known software, but I wish it was. I prefer this program to all of the other burning programs I have used. I especially like the built in audio editor and the simple, yet effective, CD-TEXT info editor. The audio editor is great for trimming tracks that you are getting ready to burn to audio CD. It is surprisingly quick when making large cuts and includes some nice fade in/fade out effects that help when building a live disc. You probably won't want to use this editor to mix and edit your own music, but it works just fine for simple touch ups you need to do before putting music to disc.
Unfortunately I don't think they are making Win On CD anymore. I have gone to the web a couple of times to find updates and haven't come up with much.

If you are concerned about wearing out your burner, you can breathe easy with this drive. My regular CDROM broke long ago and I have used this drive for software installation, game playing, and playing of audio cds and it hasn't broke yet :)

One additional nice feature is the headphone out with adjustable volume. I don't use this myself, but I know some people do, so it's nice to know it is there.

The only bad thing I can say about the drive physically is that the eject button needs a firm push to open. Lots of times I will push the button and nothing will happen. Even though the button presses in, you need to push it harder for it to register the button push.

Some of the other software included with this drive isn't very useful. There is a label editing program, but I prefer just designing my labels in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. There is also software made specifically for copying audio CDs. I don't do a whole lot of CD copying, but I did try it once and found it difficult to use and not very feature rich. Stick to your regular burning software. The audio-only copy program doesn't make the job any easier.

One final thing to mention. After about a month of using this drive, 3 of my friends went out and bought the same drive because they liked mine so much. Each of them has had a similar experience to mine.

The thing just works!

Thank you Ricoh.



Recommended: Yes