Plextor's latest release, the Plextor DVR PX-755A DVD Burner, is here. Apart from supporting all the basic functions found on all Plextor drives, it also supports 10X +R DL writing speed. Some tests were pending but now are completed and we can evaluate the drive as a whole, with all its capabilities and features.

CD reading speed is not one of the drives "strong" features, as there are a lot of market drives out there that can outpace the 755A. On the other hand, the drive is a fast DVD reader that can read up to 16X SL media while offering 12X reading speed for DL media. This is not to be taken lightly, as most of the latest drives offer only up to 8X for DL media, so the extra 4X reading speed is sure to please a lot of users. With write-once and RW media, the drive was good in as far as reading speeds achieved are concerned. As a ripper, the 755 yielded some amazing results, with a max ripping speed of 12X! However for this you'll have to keep the eject button pressed for three seconds without inserting any disc.

The error correction mechanism is good. The results with the 721 test disc were quite good but it was the CD-Check Audio Test Disc, where the drive read up to the fifth level, which is a deed rarely achieved, that impressed us. DVD error correction gave good results, with the drive being able to read over all artificial defects on all our test discs. However, with two discs, it dropped speed substantially, although it didn't affect reading precision. Before moving on to the writing quality, we complete this section by saying that the PX-755A is quite the ripper when it comes to protected media, as it managed to rip all the audio protected media CDs, as well as all the protected games (CD-media) inserted. Unfortunately though, the drive cannot accurately backup SafeDisc 3.1 and the latest SafeDisc 4.6, making it a poor backup drive for the latest protected games.

Writing quality is one of the things that render this drive as a very good device. Autostrategy worked in many cases. As we saw in the previous pages, the 755A managed to burn all inserted media, for all DVD formats and speeds, producing good to very good burns in the majority. With specific media, the performance could be improved through a new firmware release. The 755A among other things, supports up to 10X burning speed for DVD+R DL media. There were some anomalies with the writing strategy though, with some drops in speed occurring during our tests with Verbatim +R DL 8X effective media, during the second layer. We performed the burning test twice, just to make sure. But the results were more or less the same. The drive dropped its writing speed just after the start of the second layer, even though CD-Speed (Create Data Disc function) reports an end speed of 10X. Nevertheless, the achieved burning quality was good, as it was with all media burned.

Last but not least, the Q-Check functions are back and with a blast. For the needs of this review, Plextor provided us with the latest version of Plextools Pro, which apparently is specifically designed to work with the PX-755A drive as well as with the drive to follow. The drive was tested with the latest available Plextools Pro (version 2.28) and could not perform Q-check, giving a warning message that the drive does not support this functions. The latest Plextools Pro(2.32v) is available from the Plextools web site and supports all the Q-check functions of the PX-755A drive. In the drive's features, we should add PlexEraser, a utility that makes a recorded CD-R or DVD disc unreadable.

Overall, a good drive, with good writing capabilities while the return of the Q-Check features in the Plextor drives are more than welcome.

- The Good

• CD/DVD error correction
• Supports protected Audio discs
• Writing Quality with most media
• Q-Check features
• 10X +R DL burning speed

- The Bad

• Cannot create working backups of SafeDisc's most recent versions
• Doesn't support DVD overburning
• Cannot read 90/99min audio discs
• Doesn't support Bitsetting change for all formats

- Like to be fixed

• DVD writing quality with specific media

Reading
Error Correction
Protected Discs
Writing
Features