FredF used our newssubmit to tell us that CDRlabs has taken a look at the Mitsumi CR-4809TE 24/12/40 CD-RW. This drive writes at 32 speed, rewrites at 12 speed and reads at 40 speed.
It has some nice special features like the 12 speed rewrite that you won't find on most other 24 speed writers, and a 16 MB buffer. It has ExacLink for buffer underrun protection. Besides that it performs pretty well and is cheap:
Part of conclusion: |
As a reader, the drive was able to come very close to its rated speeds with all types of media, including CD-RW discs. The drive's DAE performance were pretty good in our benchmarks. It also faired pretty well in our scratched and dirty disc test. Even though the drive slowed down considerably to read the disc, it created a very low number of errors. On the down side, even with clean discs the drive had a tendency to slow down on some of the tracks. Hopefully future firmware updates will fix this problem.
Currently coming in at only $76 on Pricewatch, the Mitsumi CR-4809TE is one of the lowest priced 24x writers available. Is the Mitsumi a better choice than say the Lite-On LTR-24102B or AOpen CRW2440? The all have their strengths and weaknesses, but the Mitsumi's 12x rewriting speeds and 16MB buffer might be what some of you are looking for. In any case, I give this drive our "Best Buy" award for its great mix of performance and features at a very affordable price.
Read the entire review @ CDRlabs.
Source: CDRlabs.com
