After reading Ian's review of the 716...

[Nocturnal]

I get the opinion that Plextor once again has reached king status and that it's ok to buy said drive? I'm mainly looking to upgrade from my 708. Thanks for the input.

[NoLimit]

I had the 708A and after reading many threads about the writting quality on the nec 2500 i bought it.For the media i used,the 708A was most of times better than the nec.Few weeks ago I got myself a 716A and i'd say its great, many features to play with. If you can afford it go for it!

[ETP]

Jump in and see! I took the plunge last week and should have some feedback soon. Check out BUY.COM and use the coupons at APEX plus free ship. With rebate it will be around $79.
Like I need another drive, but for that price I couldn't resist!

[RJW]

Well based on Ian review that conclusion could be justified.
But keep in mind that this is only one source another source which focus on other things and with a bit differnt test methodes might say a bit different.

For that reason I allways use multiple sources.
However I would suggest only usseing good sources since there are also sources (sites/magazines) that unlike CDRLABS just name something the king just because of reputation of the brand.

I personally these days mostly choose/recommend on a combination of cdrlabs, crlabs forum and cdfreaks forum and C't.(germanny)

Now I know that you American folks most times only have access to cdrlabs and the 2 boards I named when it comes to quality info. However some of the C't results of writing quality are posted up on cdrlabs. We got a nice sticky topic for that.

About the plextor drive it has turned out to be a ok drive at this point (which was unlike some months ago) however I will leave it open if the plextor px-716 justifies the double price compared to a benq 1620 PRO

[ETP]

BUY.COM has a higher price for the weekend! Newegg.com is cheaper with free ship today. Or wait a week!
Prices are drifting down on burners and there are a number of 16X burners that can be had for under $60 shipped in the US.

[Ankerson]

I personally these days mostly choose/recommend on a combination of cdrlabs, crlabs forum and cdfreaks forum and C't.(germanny)

Alot of people do check more than than just one source, me included.

But I always lean toward Plextor anyway.

I do ALOT of burning and they have never let me down yet.

By alot I mean that I have burned thousands of CDR's with my Plextor 24X and 40X CDRW's.

I went from a Pioneer AO5 to the PX716A and I will say it was an excellent buying choice as the 716A is excellent.

[Ankerson]

As for other reviews here is another one.

http://www.benscustomcases.com/index.ph ... iew&id=568

[alexnoe]

CD-RW and DVD±RW writing is still severely broken

[Ankerson]

CD-RW and DVD±RW writing is still severely broken

I haven't seen or had any issues at all and the write quality is excellent.

[alexnoe]

On Verbatim 32x CD-RWs, i'm getting a write error, Verbatim 24x CD-RWs are barely readable in the outer region, and after doing a real overwrite test, neither the DVD-RW nor the DVD+RW (both Verbatim 4x) were in acceptable condition

[Ankerson]

Haven't experienced any writing issues at all.

[MadBurner]

On Verbatim 32x CD-RWs, i'm getting a write error, Verbatim 24x CD-RWs are barely readable in the outer region, and after doing a real overwrite test, neither the DVD-RW nor the DVD+RW (both Verbatim 4x) were in acceptable condition

No surprise here. I've never had great success with Verbatim media on any of the Plextor drives.

MB

[alexnoe]

The Plextor 712 doesn't have any problems with the same discs, even after trying to write to them in a PX716 the PX712 could still handle them

[dolphinius_rex]

The Plextor 712 doesn't have any problems with the same discs, even after trying to write to them in a PX716 the PX712 could still handle them

I've noticed this is something VERY common these days. DVD+R/-R support is the first to be fixed in newer firmwares (note: I say fixed since most initialy firmware are crappy!). Then Dual Layer support, and CD-R support. DVD+RW and DVD-RW support eventually get fixed, and if you're lucky CD-RWs might become better supported near the end of the drive's life.

[alexnoe]

Actually, DoubeLayer works usually upon release at least on MKM-001-00, and DualLayer is not really supported by many drives

[dolphinius_rex]

Actually, DoubeLayer works usually upon release at least on MKM-001-00, and DualLayer is not really supported by many drives

Yeah, most drives can burn the MKM media... but I'm hoping for some more options

[alexnoe]

Besides MKM, There is Ricoh media and crap media, so.... the Plextor 716 is writing Ricoh media pretty well, even though it only supports up to 4x speed on them.

BTW When disabling PowerREC, it shows that 6x is available, and the FE/TE test is indeed performed at 6x, but i haven't tried real writing at 6x on Ricoh DL media