Plextor PX-740A

Introduction

Our last look at a product from Plextor was at the PX-712A 12x model, which performed extremely well in our media tests. The PX-712A had an 8MB buffer and was the first to market the 12x speeds. Plextor brought the PX-712A fast and hard, but the only thing that kept many from investing in one was just that - it was quite an investment to make. At the time that our review of the drive was published, the PX-712A retailed for around $175-$200, which made it the most expensive drive, and probably 3 times the price of other drives on the market.

The performance, large buffer, and high price carried over to the PX-716A models, but Plextor has also introduced the PX-740A, which is part of the latest generation of DVD writers. The PX-740A carries a price much lower than the PX-716A while picking up a few new features like speed increases for writing to DVD-RW, CD-RW, DVD+R DL, as well as the addition of writing to DVD-R DL media.

The PX-740A is priced much less than the PX-716A series, but can the PX-740A match the performance of its last generation counterpart? Since our Summer 16x roundup a few weeks back, we have taken some of our readers' requests of adding more media to our tests and also to bring back the detailed specifications of the products that we review. Let's take a look at what the PX-740A has to offer.

Special thanks to Marken Communications for supplying us with Verbatim brand test media.
Special thanks to Antarra Communications for supplying us with Ridata brand test media.