Plextor PX-708A review @ CDRLabs.com

October 9, 2003

CDRLabs has posted
their review of the Plextor PX-708A
DVD recorder. By now, most of our readers will know that this drive is the first
drive to support 8x recording to DVD+R media. Besides that the Plextor drive
supports other fast recording speeds of 4x DVD+RW, 4x DVD-R, 40x CD-R and 24x
CD-RW. Here's part of what CDRLabs had to say about the PX-708A drive:

Plextor has shown us once again why they're considered to be one
of the top names in the optical storage business. While the PX-708A does
have a few growing pains that need to be worked out, they are few and far
between. Even in its current state, the PX-708A is still one of the best
DVD writers on the market today.

Are 8x DVD writing speeds as impressive as
they sound? I'd be lying if I said they weren't. The PX-708A blew away the
DVD writers from the competition, spitting out entire DVD's in less than 8
minutes. With 8x DVD+R media being in short supply, Plextor has also given
their new drive the ability to write to select 4x DVD+R media at 8x. While
sound in concept, we found that this didn't always work. As others have
reported, it had a tendency to drop the writing speed down to 4x with some
media. Thanks to its 4x writing speeds, the PX-708A also turned in some
very good times with DVD+RW media. However, it lagged behind some of the
other drives when writing to DVD-R and DVD-RW discs.

While most people will
probably buy Plextor's new drive for its DVD writing speeds, it's more
than capable when it comes to reading and writing CD's. The PX-708A was
able to read all types of CD media at 40x and had some pretty good seek
times. The drive also did very well in our DAE tests, reaching a maximum
speed of 41x. As one of the first DVD writers to feature 40x writing and
24x rewriting speeds, it shouldn't be surprising that the PX-708A
performed well in these areas. The drive was not only fast, it was able to
write to most of our test media at 40x.

Overall the Plextor PX-708A drive gets a perfect score of 10/10
and CDRLabs awards the drive with their 'Editors Choice Award'. If you want read
the complete review then check it out here. If you're looking for a second opinion on the drive then
you can check out our own review here.

Source: CDRLabs.com