ASUS CRW-4012A review @ CDRLabs.com

It's time for another review from our friends at CDRLabs.com. Their latest review takes a look at the ASUS CRW-4012A. A drive that, like the name suggests, can write at a maximum speed of 40x but besides that can also read at an amazingly high maximum speed of 48x:

ASUS surprised many by announcing their new 40/12/48 CD-RW, the CRW-4012A. Along with some of the fastest writing and rewriting speeds available, the CRW-4012A has the ability to read CD's and do DAE at a whopping 48x. Like ASUS's other drives, the CRW-4012A isn't just about speed. The CRW-4012A features ASUS's own FlextraLink, FlextraSpeed and DDSS II technologies. The drive also includes everything you need to begin recording right away, like a software CD with Ahead Software's Nero Burning Rom, CD-R media and IDE and audio cables.

Part of the conclusion:

When reading CD's, the CRW-4012A was not quite as fast as some of the other 40x writers I've tested. While the drive's read speeds are rated at 48x, it had some problems actually reaching those speeds. And while the CRW-4012A's seek times were pretty good, they were not as low as those of the 40x drives from Lite-On and TEAC. The CRW-4012A really fell behind the others when reading CD-RW media. Most of the other 40x readers we've tested have been able to read CD-RW discs at 40x or higher, but the CRW-4012A struggled to reach 32x. On a positive note, the writer's DAE performance is very good. In our tests, the only drive that could top the CRW-4012A's DAE speeds was Lite-On's LTR-40125S. Even then the CRW-4012A did much better in our scratched and dirty disc tests.

The ASUS CRW-4012A has its highs and lows. While I think the drive has some potential, some of the lows keep it from being one of the top 40x writers on the market. Hopefully ASUS can tweak things like the CD read speeds and media compatibility in a future firmware update.

Interested in reading the full review? You can find it here. The ASUS CRW-4012A gets an overall score of 8.

Source: CDRLabs