it's no longer on Newegg (was less than a month ago).
called a couple local stores and they only have the newer 1812


looks like i deliberated just a little too long and missed it.
anyway i'm looking at the product pages: SD-M1712, SD-M1802
differences between the two drives i can see:
- 1802 doesn't support DVD-RAM anymore!
Han, you said a few times that the 1712 was DVD-Multi, but i don't see that anywhere on the product page.
if the 1802 doesn't support -RAM anymore then obviously it isn't DVD-Multi. - the 1712 supports the CD+(E)G format, the 1802 doesn't.
- Audio distortion: -80dB for the 1712, -77dB for the 1802. which is better?
- buffer size: 192K for the 1712, 256K for the 1802
also, according to Han here, the 1802 doesn't (yet?) have a hacked firmware for RPC1 and no-speed-limit reading.
also Han says the 1802 is based on a new chipset from VIA. i wonder what this will mean in terms of performance, quality etc.
the 1712 can read both +R/+RW media, according to many posts, even though it's not in the drive specs. can the 1802 too?
does anyone have more info about the 1802 and the differences?