Hi,

Chances are that Memorex does not make the unit they are selling, but has
them OEMed for them, and they have their marketing name put on it as do
many of the "Brand name" cd-roms that you see available.  It is probably
marketed through a mass merchant and is done so with a i house rebate.

That in itself is not a bad thing.  What you want to really look at is the
warranty.  Where do you send it to have it repaired if needed.  Can you get
it done locally, does it go cross country and for how long?

The second thing to consider is what software comes with it?  Roxio, nero,
Nti?  You might want to see if you can try and find a CDRW that comes with
software that you like to use, has the features you need, runs in your
choice of OS, or allows you to upgrade to their premium edition at a less
than retail cost.

I find Plextor CDRW's to be the top of the line (i'm using a 12x at
present) and as such are more expensive than a lot of others.  You do get
what you pay for though. Last I knew, they had a $20.00 rebate on their 40x
burner.  You can check either their website or rebates.com  They have
always been reliable and they come with Roxio, which I like.

Lite-on is a name that is starting to come around on it's own, even though
they are probably one of the largest manufacturors of OEM products.  Their
products come with Nero usually.  At my full time job, people have brought
back the Lite-on's and gone away with the Plextors, never to be heard from
again (on cdrw matters that is).

Sony had their own software called CD-express which whan I tried one would
not work fully with windows 2000. I'm sure that is probably fixed by now.
I also heard they switched to NTI burning software, but I'm not 100%
positive on that issue.

HP used adaptec (now roxio), and was one of the first burners (4x2x8) I
had.  Still working today.
Thanks,

Joe

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