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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
30 Comments
View All Comments
n7 - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link
Moral of the story: The BenQ DW1640 still pwns :)Heck, it's good enough that Plextor (who is really quite a joke nowdays) is using the BenQ drive :)
quanta - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
The Mt.Rainier spec has been around for a while now, and it still doesn't support Mt.Rainier? So much for a manufacturer with 'high end' optical drives. But then again, what do you expect from someone ?http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?p=1000879#...">suing PxLinux developer with DMCA?Den - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
Why is it that the drive being reviewed is not in most of the error rate graphs? And I think the headings are with the wrong graphs for some of the article too. This is pretty sloppy work even by web standards...Den - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
Just to be more specific, no plextor on the error rate graph for MCC 03RG20 on page 5, or Ritek 008 (DVD+RW) on page 6, or c1 or c2 errors on page 8.semo - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
that sentence does not sound right to me...surely the dw1640 gives more bang for the buck if it is cheaper and since the plextools does not even work with the 740a (because of the dumb rebadging).
shabby - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
I bought the 1640 for $53 cdn, its impossible that it costs even more in the states.LX - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
Since hardware-wise this drive is the same as the BenQ DW1640, it may make more sense to buy the BenQ (cheaper) and flash it with either the latest BenQ or latest Plextor firmware (yes, it works)dmxlite - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
Flashing the 1640 with the 740 firmware works? Cool. I'll keep that in mind, since it looks like the 740 firmware is a bit better in some cases than the 1640's.WooDaddy - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
Ok... I think we've been scammed yall. Dual layer media has been out for prolly 2yrs now and it is still $4-5 a pop. For the same amount of time, single layer has dropped almost 70%. I'm really tired of all these new burners that are expensive to actually use (for dual layer).It's like having a Ferrari for $20k but gas costs $5k a gallon.
andrep74 - Monday, August 8, 2005 - link
Blame all the people that decided to steal DVDs using Netflix or Blockbuster, renting them as fast as they could for $15/mo and ripping the ones they _would_ have bought, burning them to DVD-(+)R instead.In reality the only (obvious?) use for DL-DVD is making exact copies of commercial DVDs, including the menus and extra features that were usually ignored during the above process; now DL carries an extra "tax" to help movie companies recover their "losses".
So, yeah, some assholes won in the short term, but now we _all_ pay for their theft in the long term. Don't think others' actions don't affect you.