Excellent burner but needs better software
Written: May 10 '00 (Updated May 11 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Fast, easy to use, reliable, HP warranty, SCSI power and speed, reasonable cost
Cons: additional price of SCSI card (and cable if external), slightly higher price than ATAPI/IDE version, average software package
|
|
|
| yusakugo's Full Review: Hewlett Packard CD-Writer Plus 9200i CD-RW Burner |
I've had this drive for 8 months now... I love this drive. It's great for backing up data, making data CDs, and decent for music CD creation (1-2x speed seems to be the most stable way of making music CDs).
First this is one of the faster drives in the market... at this time, HP released the 9300i which is an ATAPI/IDE 10x/4x/32x drive and Smart and Friendly 12x/4x/32x CD-RW are two of the fastest on the market. This drive is 8x/4x/32x and requires a SCSI-2 card and connection. What this means is that the drive records CD-R at 8x speed, CD-RWs at 4x, and reads data CDs at 32x speed. Note that these speeds are the theoretical maximum of the drive.
Note that I said you need a SCSI-2 connection. If you don't know what SCSI is, then you probably don't have it in your computer. You would need to buy a SCSI card that supports SCSI-2. This can run another $100 or more. If you're lucky, you can get the card for $35 or so off some internet sites but you have to look hard. I bought a SCSI-3 compliant card for $40 plus S&H a year ago from www.onsale.com (now www.egghead.com), but I haven't seen the card sold there in the past 6 months. If you are getting an external drive, the SCSI cables are also expensive! If you're lucky, the SCSI cable may cost $15 but the average prices fall in the $20-$35 range. SCSI is a standard used in the older Apple Macintosh computers (before the iMac) and is known for its speed and power. SCSI cards takes up a PCI slot unless you have a really old card. The advantage of SCSI is that the CPU isn't utilized as much as with ATAPI controllers, and you have a faster consistent data transfer rate.
The entire package comes with 1 CD-R and 1 CD-RW, an instruction manual, and several posters for installation... these posters are very straightforward and you should have no problems setting up the drive. The software package includes HP Fast Format, HP Disaster Recovery, Adaptec Direct CD and Easy CD Creator, Neato CD Labeler, FilingCentral by eFax.com, Broderbund Multimedia Organizer Professional, and Corel Print Office. The software is average... Adaptec Direct CD and Easy CD Creator are easy to use but lack the power and functions to access the full potential of the drive. I would recommend CD-WIN or Nero's Burning ROM over Adaptec's software package... but remember to uninstall Adaptec's software before installing CD-WIN or Nero Burning ROM. Both of these package give you more control in burning CD-Rs and CD-RWs and can access the full potential of the drive. HP Fast Format and HP Disaster Recovery are based of Adaptec's software as well. I haven't used Corel Print Office or Broderbund Multimedia Organizer so I don't know how these are. The 9210i/e series has Broderbund Multimedia Organizer Deluxe and Sonic Foundry ACID instead of Corel Print Office and the Professional Multimedia Organizer. The Adaptec package is just about standard for almost every CD-RW package (Sony bundles their CD-RW with Nero Burning ROM however).
The 9200i/e has 4 Meg buffer that is about average for CD-RWs. The CD-RW has several write methods including write at once, disc at once, incremental/packet, and multisession modes. Duplicating normal data CDs takes anywhere from 7 to 15 minutes at 8x speed.
This package is not the cheapest 8x/4x/32x CD-RW on the market. I bought mine for $245 with S&H included at the time (fall last year). www.pricescan.com gives a price of $247 for the internal version as the lowest advertised price on the web. Don't forget to add the cost of a SCSI cable if the drive is external and the price of a SCSI card if you don't have one. This CD-RW package gives a decent software package and is backed by a good warranty by HP and is one of the lower priced brand name packages out there. I would recommend this to people with SCSI equipped computers or people who definitely want to upgrade to SCSI technology. Otherwise the 9100i/e is also another fine choice although slower choice that uses your existing IDE connections. I would check www.pricescan.com and www.onvia.com to try to get the lowest price you can.
I am planning to write an article on epinions on Cd burning and the limits of the hardware used... too many people don't understand the process of burning a CD isn't as simple as having a CD reader and a CD recorder. Many people get buffer underruns that they blame on the CD recorder... which is almost never the case! Recording an image to the hard drive will usually eliminate this buffer underrun problem... another solution is to record at a slower speed. Hopefully I'll have it up by mid-May 2000.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
yusakugo
|
 - Top 10 |
|
Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
Reviews written: 399
Trusted by: 498 members
About Me:
Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.