In House Review - NEC ND-4550A Super-Multi DVD±RW/RAM

[Ian]

CDRLabs kicks off the new year with a review of NEC's first "Super-Multi" drive, the ND-4550A. Featuring some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available, the drive is capable of 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R DL and 6x DVD-R DL writing speeds and has a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. Staying true to the "Super-Multi" specifications, the ND-4550A can also read and write to DVD-RAM media at 5x.

In this review we'll take a look at some of the features found on the ND-4550A and see how it compares to some of the 16x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does NEC's new "Super-Multi" drive have what it takes? You'll have to read the review to find out.

[url=http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=278]
NEC ND-4550A Super-Multi DVD±RW/RAM[/url]

As usual, if you have any comments or questions about this review or the NEC ND-4550A, please post them in the forum by clicking the link below.

[Scour]

Hello!

Great review, Ian

But I don´t know what to think about it...

If I look at the Kprobe-scans, I think it´s a good, but not a top-writer.

When I look at the Benq-scans I think it´s an extremly worse writer, only MCC03RG20 looks acceptable.

I discuss at Cdfreaks:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p ... stcount=93

I don´t agree with Dee´s statement

[Ian]

Well.. we all have our opinions about what drives produce the most accurate results. Both BenQ's and Lite-On's have their good and bad points and that's why we've started to use more than one in our testing.

Going back to our review, the writing quality really isn't that bad in a lot of cases if you ignore the spike. Unfortunately, I have yet to get an explanation from NEC as to what exactly is causing it.

I think the most surprising results came from TYG02. When writing at 12x, the results are pretty crappy, even when testing with a Lite-On.

[Scour]

Going back to our review, the writing quality really isn't that bad in a lot of cases if you ignore the spike. Unfortunately, I have yet to get an explanation from NEC as to what exactly is causing it.

Like someone says: The NEC-burned-media works mostly flawless in every drive, but when you like nice scan-results, use another drive

[Ian]

You can get the Mad Dog version of the ND-4550A at Circuit City for $49.99 this week.

Circuit City

It's $59.99 out the door and then another $10 MIR.

[dodecahedron]

don't count on getting that rebate money - assume the price of the drive is $60.
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... ht=mad+dog