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Well, I've had a few NEC and Pioneer drives, and voted for the NEC here. First, I had an NEC 1300, which was pretty good, but occasionally a little picky with -R media. Good burner on the whole, and discs tended to be very compatible in standalones.

Then had a Pioneer 106, which was a great drive. Pretty much no coasters, and build quality felt better than the NEC. Burnt probably about 200 DVDs on it in total, and it's still working fine. Burns were better than the NEC 1300.

Now have an NEC 2510, and it's simply fantastic. Burns are extremely nice. Have had no problems on any media I've thrown at it, NEC seem to be ok (if a little slow - still no Ritek +DL) with firmware updates. Definitely the best drive I've had so far, though it is a little slow for an 8x drive. And the greatest thing is that it's also cheaper than the less good drives (Sony/Liteon, etc..).

A no-brainer for me, though you'd prob also be very happy with the Pioneer. If you can wait, then wait for drives that do -DL, and maybe 8x +/-RW?

**bump**

Well i went with the pioneer 108 it went down 3 dollars to 91.00 and i liked the review wrote here http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... i=2186&p=1


here is a quote "Without a doubt, this is the best DVD Recorder that we have tested to date. We are looking forward to catching a glimpse of some of the BenQ and NEC solutions in the upcoming weeks, but until we can obtain samples, we have to claim the Pioneer DVR-108D as our recommendation for best DVD recorder"

but they say they have not done the 3500a

thanks all

pinballnut wrote:here is a quote "Without a doubt, this is the best DVD Recorder that we have tested to date. We are looking forward to catching a glimpse of some of the BenQ and NEC solutions in the upcoming weeks, but until we can obtain samples, we have to claim the Pioneer DVR-108D as our recommendation for best DVD recorder"

Yeah, I saw that too. I felt that they went a little over the top with the praise considering they didn't write any discs at 16x. As many of you already know, the 108 is slower at 16x than some 12x DVD writers. I'm sure Kristopher (the reviewer) can share his own feelings on why its the best.

Don't get me wrong though.. it is a good drive. But the best??? Hmmm...

regardless of their comments, the review was oddly well done for Anandtech.... looks like they may have learned a few things!

Purchased NEC 3500 from NewEgg (bare). Won't burn anything even at 4X using USB connection when put in a CoolMax CD-510-COMBO external enclosure, I have a P4P800 motherboard. Tried both NewEgg branded and Maxell 4X DVD-R media. The burn process stayed at 1% and gave me an error. Used Nero OEM 6.3.1.20. Sony DVD-RW (4X) media worked ok with USB. Seemed to work with USB when using ULead VideoStudio8 to burn my home movies. Switched to firewire interface and everything burns ok at 4X.

anonymouse wrote:Purchased NEC 3500 from NewEgg (bare). Won't burn anything even at 4X using USB connection when put in a CoolMax CD-510-COMBO external enclosure...

Another unhappy Coolmax customer. Sorry you didn't ask or search first. Here is my story from a year ago (I can't believe it has been that long already ):

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12097

cfitz

Over at CDR Info they did a quick comparison of four 16x DVD writers including the Pioneer and NEC offerings. The Pioneer was the slowest but had the best write quality. The NEC was next slowest but also did well on write quality. They only tested the burners using Verbatim 16x +r media, so I'm not sure the results are as meaningful as they otherwise could have been. However, it is nice to see all these burners tested side-by-side with the same media.

The URL of the posting is:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Forum/tm.asp?m=78509

id like to see them tested with dvd-r media

but at least they were tested none the less