Plextor PlexWriter PX-W4012TA CD-RW Burner
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Similar in CD, DVD and Blu-ray Burners
- Enclosure Type: Internal
- Read Speed: 40x (CD)
- ReWrite Speed: 12x (CD-RW)
- Write Speed: 40x (CD)
- Burner Type: CD-RW
- Platform: PC, Mac
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Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A, the Ultimate CD Rewriter.
Pros
40x writing, Software Bundle, Plextor Reliability and Quality.
Cons
Best results from high performance processors and rather expensive.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Plextor has done it again with the PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD Rewriter to become the pinnacle in CD Rewriters.
With many CD Rewriters on the market today that write at least 24x on CD-R media, many might want to go faster by replacing their aging and dated CD Rewriter by going beyond 24x writing alone. So the 32x burners came along at the end of 2001 and they were in fact great products, especially with TDK's 32x VeloCD and LG's 32x CD Rewriter, but again Plextor has again won the leading title for offering the first 40x CD Rewriter on the market. Although many have bought LG CD Rewriters for their affordability, but all too often they may have quality problems of their own, despite the lower price compared to their TDK or Plextor cousins.
Hardware and Using the CD-Rewriter
The PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD Rewriter features up to a 40x writing speed for the CD-R media, which allows you to completely write a full 80 minute CD in just well over 2 minutes, but all of course to achieve that result requires a high performance processor such as the Pentium 3 at least 800MHz for my suggestion; even if the system requirements are much less demanding. Otherwise, if you do have slower processors, try to experiment writing a CD at lower speeds before proceeding to the higher speed settings, even though you have the BurnProof enabled. With up to12x (re)writing for the CD-RW media, you can safely backup a part of your hard drive in no time at all. In fact it can even be done within just less than 7 minutes at the 12x setting. Plus with the CD reading of up to 40x, it allows you to easily replace your old and aging CD-ROM that completely slows you down.
With the BurnProof feature that I've mentioned, it provides a buffer underrun protection, which prevents the drive from creating wasted CDs or coasters and it's very useful for those that have slower and aging processors for their computer. What it does is that when the buffer runs out of data, the drive immediately stops writing to the CD until it has sufficient amount of data and detects where the drive left off from the media, where it stopped writing and from there, it continues burning the CD until the next buffer underrun (if it will occur) within the process of writing the remainder of the CD.
To aid the process of writing a CD at an extremely high speed, Plextor used a black CD tray, instead of the conventional white, because the design of the black tray can actually enhance the quality of the CD, reduce errors in writing any CD media and even with the created CD used in a CD-ROM drive that performs rather shabbily, it can even substanially improve the quality of the transfer of data from the created CD to the memory.
Installing the drive is very easy too, with the 66-page manual that shows you step by step in the installation procedure. With easy to follow diagrams, anyone can do it, even though you've never installed any computer hardware yourself at all.
Software
The software bundle for the PlexWriter 40/12/40A is also very generous too. With the Plextor Manager, it allows you to manage the way how you would like to write your next CD and you can even drag and drop the files that you would like to have on your new CD as well. So this means you don't have to type out the particular file name for just writing that particular file in that CD. Plus, you can even copy CDs through this software title easily, even if you are using this drive as a sole CD-ROM drive for your computer. Other than that, this is basically the only title of software that Plextor bundles with their ATAPI CD Rewriters. However for those that would like a utility that could easily back up their hard drive, you can purchase CD Res-Q from Plextor too. With that software title, you can stop worrying about your sensitive data being lost during any computer collapses. Keep in mind though as the Plextor Manager 2K is not compatible with Windows XP.
The minimum system requirements are basically at least a Pentium 2 processor at 300MHz; 64MB of RAM (128 is recommended); and at least 200MB of hard drive space (1GB required if using the drive as a sole CD-ROM).
Ease of use
Overall, the CD Rewriter is very easy to use and the software itself was part of the answer to make it really easy for me to really get my creativity going with the new CD Rewriter going.
Conclusion
In conclusion, because of Plextor's high quality and standards for storage devices, I would have no hard time in recommending a Plextor CD Rewriter, even though it maybe a little expensive, compared to the lesser recognized vendors for CD Rewriters like LG, but it's really worth the extra money for quality, reliability and being the reputation of being a market leader of CD burners. At about $180, it's really worth every penny that you've used and you won't really regret your purchase at all. But if you're on a tighter budget, a 24x Burner will do just as well, except for the slight sacrifice in speed though; since the PlexWriter 24/10/40A costs about $140 or less in many local computer hardware stores.
Hardware and Using the CD-Rewriter
The PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD Rewriter features up to a 40x writing speed for the CD-R media, which allows you to completely write a full 80 minute CD in just well over 2 minutes, but all of course to achieve that result requires a high performance processor such as the Pentium 3 at least 800MHz for my suggestion; even if the system requirements are much less demanding. Otherwise, if you do have slower processors, try to experiment writing a CD at lower speeds before proceeding to the higher speed settings, even though you have the BurnProof enabled. With up to12x (re)writing for the CD-RW media, you can safely backup a part of your hard drive in no time at all. In fact it can even be done within just less than 7 minutes at the 12x setting. Plus with the CD reading of up to 40x, it allows you to easily replace your old and aging CD-ROM that completely slows you down.
With the BurnProof feature that I've mentioned, it provides a buffer underrun protection, which prevents the drive from creating wasted CDs or coasters and it's very useful for those that have slower and aging processors for their computer. What it does is that when the buffer runs out of data, the drive immediately stops writing to the CD until it has sufficient amount of data and detects where the drive left off from the media, where it stopped writing and from there, it continues burning the CD until the next buffer underrun (if it will occur) within the process of writing the remainder of the CD.
To aid the process of writing a CD at an extremely high speed, Plextor used a black CD tray, instead of the conventional white, because the design of the black tray can actually enhance the quality of the CD, reduce errors in writing any CD media and even with the created CD used in a CD-ROM drive that performs rather shabbily, it can even substanially improve the quality of the transfer of data from the created CD to the memory.
Installing the drive is very easy too, with the 66-page manual that shows you step by step in the installation procedure. With easy to follow diagrams, anyone can do it, even though you've never installed any computer hardware yourself at all.
Software
The software bundle for the PlexWriter 40/12/40A is also very generous too. With the Plextor Manager, it allows you to manage the way how you would like to write your next CD and you can even drag and drop the files that you would like to have on your new CD as well. So this means you don't have to type out the particular file name for just writing that particular file in that CD. Plus, you can even copy CDs through this software title easily, even if you are using this drive as a sole CD-ROM drive for your computer. Other than that, this is basically the only title of software that Plextor bundles with their ATAPI CD Rewriters. However for those that would like a utility that could easily back up their hard drive, you can purchase CD Res-Q from Plextor too. With that software title, you can stop worrying about your sensitive data being lost during any computer collapses. Keep in mind though as the Plextor Manager 2K is not compatible with Windows XP.
The minimum system requirements are basically at least a Pentium 2 processor at 300MHz; 64MB of RAM (128 is recommended); and at least 200MB of hard drive space (1GB required if using the drive as a sole CD-ROM).
Ease of use
Overall, the CD Rewriter is very easy to use and the software itself was part of the answer to make it really easy for me to really get my creativity going with the new CD Rewriter going.
Conclusion
In conclusion, because of Plextor's high quality and standards for storage devices, I would have no hard time in recommending a Plextor CD Rewriter, even though it maybe a little expensive, compared to the lesser recognized vendors for CD Rewriters like LG, but it's really worth the extra money for quality, reliability and being the reputation of being a market leader of CD burners. At about $180, it's really worth every penny that you've used and you won't really regret your purchase at all. But if you're on a tighter budget, a 24x Burner will do just as well, except for the slight sacrifice in speed though; since the PlexWriter 24/10/40A costs about $140 or less in many local computer hardware stores.
