CenDyne Lightning III review @ CDRLabs.com

The busy bees at CDRLabs.com have wrapped up another review. This time they've taken a look at a CenDyne writer, the Lightning III. A device capable of writing at 40x, re-writing at 12x and reading at 48x:

CenDyne has made a big name for themselves in the last year or so. Their drives have been a favorite among consumers, and have even gone on to win a few awards including our own coveted "Best Buy" award. In the last few months CenDyne has announced a slew of new products. This new product lineup has included drives for the growing recordable DVD and portable CD-RW drive markets, along with CenDyne's newest desktop 40/12/48 CD-RW, the Lightning III.

Part of the conclusion:

CenDyne has another award winner here. The Lightning III is one of the best performing 40x drives we've tested so far. When reading pressed and CD-R media, the Lightning III had no problems exceeding 48x and even read CD-RW discs at an impressive 40x. The drive also had some pretty good seek times, no matter what media it was reading. CenDyne's Lightning III also has some of the fastest DAE speeds found on a CD-RW. In our tests the drive's DAE speeds exceeded 48x, beating out the drives from both Plextor and TEAC.

The Lighting III isn't just a fast reader, it also has some of the fastest writing and rewriting speeds currently available. With the original firmware, the drive's writing times were not as low as they could have been. With the new firmware it was a different story. This new firmware shaved enough off the total writing times to make it one of, if not the, fastest writers currently available. The Lightning III's media compatibility is also very good. In our writing tests we found that the Lightning III could write at 40x to a variety of different media.

One thing that might hold back the Lightning III is its price. Currently the Lightning III is going for about $126 on Pricegrabber. A retail Lite-On LTR-40125S, on the other hand, goes for about $25 less. Which one is for you? If you need the better manual and tech support, the extra $25 might be well spent. However, if you want to save a few bucks the Lite-On might be for you. As usual, that decision is up to you.

Interested in reading the complete review of this CenDyne drive? Check it out here. Also some interesting last words of the author of this review:

.."I do need to remind you that CenDyne does not make the drives in their kits. They are using Lite-On's LTR-40125S right now and could switch to another manufacturer at anytime in the future.."

Source: CDRLabs.com