ASUS CRW4816A IDE CD-RW - Page 9

Conclusion

ASUS CRW4816A is the first recorder with the fastest available now recording/re-writing speeds. It supports 48x writing (P-CAV), 16x re-writing (CLV) and 48x (CAV) among with "FlextraLink", "FlextraSpeed" and DDSSII technologies. Let's see drive's positive and negative points.

ASUS CRW4816A supports definitely the fastest recording speeds, for now until other 48x recorders arrive in our labs. The secret is the high initial recording speed of 22-23X that makes the drive writing almost CLV at 24x and P-CAV for the rest speeds. The re-writing speed is also very good but supported with limited media. The DAE ripping speeds are very good, DAO-RAW is supported and the drive supports hardware EFM correction that will be useful for many users who wish to backup their protected discs.

On the negative side, we can list the drive's limited media support for both 48x (P-CAV) and 16x (CLV) speeds, the very bad writing quality with specific media brands and the complete lack of protected Audio discs support. Lastly, even Mt. Rainier is present doesn't seem to work as it should be....

The price of the drive would be an important issue for possible buyers and currently you can find the drive at $.... In order to make safe decision we have wait until a new series of recorders arrives that would support such high (or even higher) recording/re-writing speeds.

PS. The mentioned problems could be corrected with future firmware upgrades, which however is not sure since ASUS in past hasn't released any newer firmware for its 32x and 40x models. We hope that this will not be repeated one more time...