For the serious pyromaniacs
Written: Apr 05 '01 (Updated Apr 05 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good speed, good media compatibility, solid.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: This burner is perfect for everyday use. It is fast and reliable.
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| bnita's Full Review: Plextor PlexWriter 8/4/32 CD-RW Burner |
It is good to have a cd-wr these days. We live in a world where a lot of information is easily accessible via computers and some of it needs stored for future reference. I am thinking about all those mp3, jpgs, movies, data etc. If you don't want to fill all your hard drive with them, you better buy yourself a cd-wr; it is an inexpensive alternative to a new hard-drive every time your disk is full.
Why Plextor? Reading lots of reviews and Computer Magazines I found out that Plextor is famous for their solid hardware. Everybody was recommending it and I decided to go with it. My other choice was a HP model. They were both sold by Amazon for the same price. I bought it about a year ago and I have been a happy pyromaniac ever since.
Copying CDs: you can copy software cds at its maximum speed of 8x which takes around 8 minutes, depending on the quantity of information on it. However for music cds it takes a little longer because the copying is done at a speed of 1x. Anyway the operation is done flawlessly and the needed speed is automatically detected by the software.
MP3's: There are two ways of dealing with the mp3 you have stored on your hard drive. First you can put them as mp3's on your cdr's just as you would put files on a floppy disk. I will describe this operation in detail latter. Second, you can burn yourself an audio cd (which can be listen to in a usual cd player). The difference is that as mp3's you can put hundreds of songs on a cdr while as audio tracks there is a limit of 80 minutes (or 74 depending on the type of media you bought).
Copying files: You can use you cd-wr as a huge floppy drive. How does it work? You tell your software to format the media in the cd-wr after which you can access it with the Explorer just as you did with regular floppies. Then it is all about dragging the files with your mouse and copying them onto it. The disk is always accessible by your Plextor cd-wr but if you want to make it available for other cd drives you have to close the cd. You can open it at a later time to add more files. I personally keep all my demo games, pictures, applications on a few cds. And it works with both cdr or cd-wr media but cdr are cheaper.
Software:Last year the drive came with Easy CD Creator 4 but this year probably they will include the next version 5. Also there is another utility Plextor Manager for copying cds or listed to mp3's. You don't need it but it's there anyway. As a matter a fact I preferred it to Easy CD Creator until a couple of weeks when it stopped working due to the newly installed software for dvd-rom (this is just my guess). So I have uninstalled it and went on with Easy CD Creator.
Installation: this is pretty easy, but you have to set the drive as master. So if you already have a master cd-rom you have to change that to slave. The manual included describes all the procedure in detail, as well as the software installation and usage. These are the best manuals I have ever seen for a computer hardware. For more details on the requirements and installation procedures check out the web page at
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/8%5F4%5F32.html
Overall Very reliable burner. Its firmware can be upgraded over the internet and Plextor offers One-Year Full Warranty and Unlimited Toll-Free Tech Support.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
bnita
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Location: Houston, TX
Reviews written: 39
Trusted by: 68 members
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