A Kit Car, A Knock-Off Prada Bag, and Thou…
Written: Dec 27 '02 (Updated Dec 27 '02)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Excellent Design, Compact Size.
Cons: Outrageously Overpriced, Mid-Field Performance, The Software Bundle Is A Joke.
The Bottom Line: Bad execution and a high price makes this a poor choice even for style mavens.
|
|
|
| Brian_Igo's Full Review: Yamaha CRW 70 CD-RW Burner |
Anyone who has been to a large flea market or stood next to a fiberglass replica of a famous car knows that a great design can’t overcome bad execution. The Yamaha CDR-70 Spyder portable CD-RW drive is more evidence in support of that truth.
It feels funny, almost seditious, to begin a conversation on a computer peripheral with its design. This Yamaha drive was one of the first optical drives designed from the start to be a portable unit and, on paper at least, they succeeded spectacularly. Yamaha created a design that is handsome and almost elegant. It does not have the eye-popping splash and bright colors of an iMac or the other portable drives that soon followed the Spyder. But I think this design will be appealing a year and two from now when fashion has moved on and left the others looking dated.
The pictured lured me in. When I got the CDR-70 into my hands the problems with Yamaha’s execution become obvious. The case only looks like its made of metal. It is, in fact, plastic and the finish is about on par with the fake wood trim in a 1970’s Buick. The dull gray color and matte finish sucks light into it and dilutes the effectiveness of the lines. What looks so handsome in pictures more resembles a gray blob when sitting on my desk.
Maybe I’m paying too much attention to how the Spyder looks, but Yamaha really blew it. It would have cost no more than a few dollars a unit to stamp the clamshell lid and trim piece out of brushed aluminum. I could forgive cutting corners if this were a bargain drive or even priced in the midrange. But Yamaha priced this at $299 when it debuted and street prices are still over $200 almost a year later. On a drive that expensive there is simply no excuse for such a cheap appearance.
More dumb decisions were made in the included software suite. On the surface it looks good. Music Match 7.0, Liquid Audio and Nero 5.5 lead the list of the included software. But take a closer look. That’s the free, limited-feature edition of Music Match and the license for the Liquid Audio suite expires after a year. Most inexplicably, the included copy of the Nero burning software only works with Yamaha drives. If you have another brand of drive on your system you’ll either have to carry two burning programs on your hard drive or pitch this copy of Nero for whatever you are using now. This is a joke. To ask $300 for a CD-RW drive and offer only limited use editions of the entire software package is unbelievable.
The CDR-70 might be redeemed if it worked brilliantly. Unfortunately, it is at best a mid-pack performer. The 12/8/24x speed was below par when the drive was first released and the last eight months has seen portable USB 2.0 drives that record at 40x. (A word of caution regarding speeds: On older (USB 1.0) systems the speed of the drive ramps down to 2/2/8x. If you have an older system don’t even think about trying to use the CDR-70-or any USB2.0 drive-for anything other than audio CD playback.) The Spyder will play back MP3 discs. That good news comes with yet another example of stupid cost-cutting: the tracks must be encoded at or below 128Kb. Its not like someone willing to spend three bills on a CD-RW is going to care about the sound quality of his MP3’s, right?
One of the biggest problem with using the CDR-70 is deciding exactly whom Yamaha intended it for? The portable CD-RW customer has traditionally been a laptop owner, but this isn’t a drive I’d pick if I were a road warrior. The clamshell door is too vulnerable and, in another stroke of genius, Yamaha spec’ed a two-piece AC adapter that uses a rather substantial brick transformer. The adapter also uses a proprietary plug into the drive so if you should lose it on the road you probably won’t be able to get a replacement at Radio Shack. Finally, at more than two pounds including the adapter, the Spyder is on the heavy side for a travel CD-RW drive.
I think the Spyder is better suited as a desktop drive. Having a portable drive at your fingertips so you won’t have to reach for your computer case might be a good working definition of lazy but c’mon, its not like you’re breaking a sweat right now, eh? Even here the Yamaha package is still compromised by cheap decisions. The manual notes that for best performance the drive should be connected to a USB 2.0 port on your motherboard. Try any performance. The CDR-70 wouldn’t even play an audio CD running through a hub on my system. To connect it to the USB ports on my motherboard required buying a $20 USB cord because the included cord isn’t even two feet long. Again, for $300 a proper USB cord is not too much to ask.
Once set up it works well given its dated performance specs. For reasons I don’t understand there is a power switch on the right side of the drive at the rear. The front panel has a LCD screen for basic track information, membrane buttons for opening the door, track selection and play control, and a final membrane button for volume control. I would have preferred a recessed analog dial to change the volume if they had to include one at all. This makes six hardware volume controls on my computer, on top of all those in the different software packages. I’d consider reducing this inventory to one an achievement worthy of the Nobel Prize.
Someone who likes the CDR-70 more than I do, or Yamaha for that matter, could retort that the drive looks good and does what it claims to do. If the software they bundled doesn't work with my Plextor drive, that's not their problem.
If you only want to look at it that way, then the Spyder is a competent and (so far) reliable piece of equipment. Had Yamaha priced this in line with other portable drives I might agree. But that's not the case. The CDR-70 Spyder was outrageously expensive when it debuted last year and it still costs substantially more than portable drives with better burning and playback performance.
A high price should indicate that no compromises, or at least few notable compromises, were taken. The only step without compromises in the CDR-70 was the initial design. After that everything was fair game, from the material used to make it, to the software and the specs. Because of the compromises made by Yamaha, what could have been a great product belongs at the flea market with the Foakley sunglasses and bootleg Polo shirts. It does not belong on your desk.
-Brian Igo
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 144 (eBay)
Operating System: Windows
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Brian_Igo
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Brian Igo
Reviews written: 59
Trusted by: 125 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.