CyberDrive CW088D IDE CD-RW - Page 9

Conclusion

Cyberdrive CW088D is easily characterized as a very fast recorder and reader. The 48X CAV writing strategy gave the drive the first position in the writing tests, and the interesting point is that the produced discs did not fall short of quality. The ExacLink feature interferes to assure a safe burning process and adjusts the maximum writing speed according to the inserted media limits. In the data reading part, the Cyberdrive CW088D is also fast and the seek times seems to be adequate. Especially in the HS-RW reading test, the drive reached the 40X speed giving approximately a 31X average speed.

Cyberdrive CW088D can read / write subchannel data from audio /data tracks, supports overburning up to 99 minutes and leads in the DAE speed with audio CDs. However, the DAE quality is questionable, since the drive gave a high error rate in the "bad medium" test, and the CD Check test showed that the drive's concealment performance with audio CDs could be higher. Some indications in the ABEX tests also could make us believe that the drive needs some improvement in the error correction part. Of course, the possible lack of C2 error retrieving of the drive or even some CD Speed Quality test incompatibilities with the drive could give a faulty picture for this matter. As for all the CloneCD users, CyberDrive CW088D is not the faster reader of protected discs, with an exception in SecuROM v.2 titles, and the latest SafeDisc v.2 build was impossible to be overpassed with software or hardware EFM correction feature.

Cyberdrive CW088D is available in a very attractive price for its category, and can be found in the price of Euro 87 plus V.A.T. Therefore it gets our "Safe Buy Award".