Plextor PX-820A DVD ReWriter None Specified   Page 1

Reviewer: RWL Staff Article Publish Date: 2/1/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Optical drives entered our lives sometime about 20 years ago and ever since they have been a crucial part of every system. From the first CD Players up to the state of the art Blu-Ray recorders there always was the matter of which company made the best ones not only in read and write quality but also build quality since it wasn't a rare phenomenon to see optical drives break down. The first companies that joined this fight were Sony, Philips, Mitsui, Toshiba and later on a vast number followed such as Texel ( which later on was named Plextor ), Kenwood, Nec, Sanyo and more. However it wasn't until an unknown company joined the fight that stirred things up. The name of that company was Plextor and with a complete range of CD-ROM drives and CD-Recorders they soon gained the respect of computer enthusiasts around the world.

 

 

 

        Plextor has always been the Leader in optical drives around the world ever since its conception under a different name in 1985. In 1985 it was called TEXEL Corporation and was established in Tokyo as a subsidiary of Shinano Kenshi Co.Ltd. It wasn’t until 1993 that Plextor was established in Brussels and started its long and very successful domination in the Optical drive market manufacturing from plain CD-ROM, CD-RW drives with either IDE or SCSI connection up to Dual Layer DVD-RW and Blu-Ray drives with the latest SATA connection these guys have done it all. Of course with such a great course Plextor decided to venture into other hardware areas such as Multimedia Players, HDDs and Floppy Disk Drives. It is also worth mentioning that Plextor gives the best warranty around the world with 2 years pickup service in the EU, meaning that if your drive breaks you only need to apply for an RMA online and Plextor will send an brand new drive at your house within 2 working days.  That combined with the excellent build quality and performance of Plextor optical drives is the reason behind as to why enthusiasts around the world have only the best to say about Plextor.

 

 

 

         Today we will take a look at one of their latest Optical DVDRW drives, the PX-820A, an IDE DVDRW that is capable of burning DVD Discs with speeds that can reach 20x while it can also burn DVD-Dual Layer Discs with a speed of 12x and DVD-RAM discs with a speed of 12x. The numbers do sound impressive but it is up to us to see if they really stand up to reality when using the PX-820A.