NEC 2500A is a dual format (+/-) drive that burns at 8X in both
formats.  As far as quality of burns go, at this point it has no equal.
LiteOn 4X and 8X have been problimatical.  Bad firmware-problems with
many disk brands.  Sony is not building anymore DVD drives and what's in
the box is NOT a Sony product.  Are you willing to pay a premium price
for a burner of dubious quality?  Pioneers new 8X (A-07) does not
produce burns as clean as NEC, but is an excellent burner.  Plextors
currently available 8X burns - at 4X max.  It has the best CD burner on
the market.  It is touchy with disk quality.  The only drawback to NEC's
burner is that it spends a long time on an 8X disk burning at 6X and is
very close to the slowest 8X burner.  If you can live with a full disk
burn that takes 10 minutes (as opposed to 8 minutes), NEC is the best
bargain in town.  I paid $70 for mine rebadged as a Pacific Digital.

Art Cassel

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