Great for Novices and Experts
Written: Jan 31 '01 (Updated Jan 31 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Speed, Prince, Reliability
Cons: None as of yet
The Bottom Line: A must-buy if you ever wanted a CD-RW drive.
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| freestyle's Full Review: Philips PC 800 Series Internal CDRW |
When I received the Phillips PC800, I was both excited and worried at the same time. Excited because I've wanted one for a long time, but worried that I wouldn't know how to install it. My worries were not needed.
Within an hour I installed it in my computer. This time would have been drastically decreased if removing the cover for my computer wasn't such an ordeal. I also had to remove the line from my config.sys containing info on my previous CD rom drive.
Although I knew I would be using the Phillips Drive primarily for music, I first started transferring my files
from disk to CD. The software included (Direct CD) quickly enabled the CD-R I inserted to be used as removable storage. I condensed my entire floppy collection onto 2 CD-Rs, and that is truly invaluable.
It is great for making music CDs - the software enables you to make an audio CD from another audio CD, mp3 or wave files. The drive can also create/read CD-Extras, if you wanted to combine CD audio with pictures or a video clip.
It comes with Easy CD Creator 4, which is great software for the beginner, and has everything you need to create CDs quickly and easily. It also comes with this absolutely terrible jewel box printing software created by satan himself. I recommend downloading "CD Box Labeler Pro" from www.softseek.com, or use the CD template in Pagemaker.
The only thing I can't do is run another program while the CD is "burning" (it's okay for me to run when it is "reading" another CD). When I try to run another program, I get a "block error." I know that this is due to my computer and not the drive.
The minimum requirements for this drive are 32 MB of Ram, a 166 MHz pentium, a vacant half-size bay, and at least Windows 95. The box says you need at least 12 MB of free hard drive, but you need a LOT more. If you are copying a CD, for example, you need to have about 650 MB on your hard drive to store the temp files,
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID: freestyle
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Location: Yonkers, NY
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 3 members
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