ASUS DRW-1608P3S DVD Burner Review

ASUS USA was kind enough to send us their latest Multi Function (X Multi) DVD Burner: the ASUS DRW-1608P3S. ASUS’ newest DVD burner incorporates DVD-RAM recording, creating a true DVD Multi drive. Single layer 4.7GB DVD burning is supported at 16X max. Double Layer and Dual Layer Recording speed is 8X max. DVD Rewriteable speeds are 8X max for DVD+RW and 6X max for DVD-RW respectively. DVD-RAM recording is supported at 5X max. Very fast 40X max CD-R burning and 32X max CD-RW means you no longer need a separate CD Burner for high performance CD burning.

In this article we will show the performance of the DRW-1608P3S by running the drive through many tests on a considerable amount of various CD/DVD media.

Corporate Information:

We took a quick look at the company information found at ASUS web pages:

ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world’s top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.

In 2005, ASUS shipped 52 million motherboards, which means one out of every 3 desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard. If we line them up side by side, the length will be longer than the distance from New York to San Francisco.

ASUS products’ top quality stems from product development. It’s like learning Chinese Kung-Fu; one must begin with cultivating the “Chi” and inner strength. Besides innovating cutting-edge features, ASUS engineers also pay special attention to EMI (electromagnetic interference), thermal, acoustics and details that usually go unnoticed to achieve complete customer satisfaction. ASUS notebooks are the first TCO’99-certified notebooks worldwide. The requirements for this honour include radiation emission control, energy (battery consumption), ecology (environment friendly) and ergonomics.

To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That’s why all 58,000 employees of ASUS strive for the “ASUS Way of Total Quality Management” to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services.

ASUS won 1706 awards in 2005 from the world’s most respected IT media and organizations. Business Week ranked ASUS amongst its “InfoTech 100″ for the eight straight year. The readers of Tom’s Hardware Guide, the world’s largest IT website, selected ASUS as the best maker of motherboards (4 consecutive years) and graphics cards (two consecutive years). Furthermore, the company took home the prestigious “National Award of Excellence” presented by the Ministry of Economics Affairs and Germany’s Industrie Forum (iF) Gold Award for industrial design excellence.

Drive Overview:

The ASUS DRW-1608P3S is X Multi DVD±R/RW drive capable of reading data from and writing data on DVD+R/RW/DVD-R/RW/ DVD-RAM formats. The dual compatibility feature of the DRW-1608P3S allows you to create DVDs that can be played or read by most DVD-ROM drives and DVD players. This function provides you with flexibility and efficiency in terms of multimedia data storage and sharing.

¨ Multi Function: (X Multi)

• Max. 16X DVD±R / 8X DVD+RW / 6X DVD-RW / 8X DVD±R (DL)
• Max. 40X CD-R / 32X CD-RW
• Max. 16X DVD-ROM / 40X CD-ROM
• Max: 5X DVD-RAM Write / Read

¨ Over-Speed Burning

• Burn 2.4X DVD±R (Double Layer) Disc at 4X / 6X / 8X Speed
• Burn 8X DVD±R Disc at 16X Speed

¨ Liquid Crystal Tilt Technology ‘“ Precision on Uneven Discs

LCT (Liquid Crystal Tilt) technology provides enhanced pick up head accuracy during recording and playback on discs with uneven curvature and thickness.

¨ FlextraLink™ Buffer Underrun Errors Prevention Technology

Built-in FlextraLink™ prevents users from buffer underrun problems and eliminates the creation of unusable discs. Throughout the recording process, FlextraLink™ consistently monitors the data buffer status to ensure best recording quality under high-speed operation.

¨ FlextraSpeed™ Optimal Writing Speed Adjustment Technology

Built-in FlextraSpeed™ and AI Auto Speed Adjustment Tech. enhance accuracy and reliability when reading/writing/re-writing across a broad range of certified media in different formats. FlextraSpeed™ continuously monitors the recording media and sets the optimal writing speeds to ensure best recording quality. The ASUS proprietary FlextraSpeed™ occupies minimal system resources so the PC remains full operational and available for other applications even during recording process.

¨ Superior Stability with DDSSII

The DDSSII technology is designed to minimize the vibration caused by the spindle motor and resonance between components as well as the drive and PC cases. The ASUS patented DDSSII stabilizes, both horizontally and vertically, the pick-up head, achieving more precise tracking and focusing, while reducing vibration and noise caused by high-revolution spindle motors.

Drive specifications:

Now let us take a look at the specifications of the ASUS DRW-1608P3S.

What’s inside the box?

The drive we received was a retail package and comes with everything you need for quick and easy installation. The retail package includes the following items:

• The internal DRW-1608P3S drive itself

• Quick Installation Guide

• Nero OEM Suite 2 software disc

• DVD MovieFactory 4 SE software disc

• 4 Screws

Retail package

Now let’s take a look at the details on the retail box:

Box Front

Box Rear

 
Box Left and Right

Box Top

Box Bottom

Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself:

Drive with black bezel

With the black front panel, the drive tray has a nice appearance with lines and contour. In the left of the bezel there is an emergency eject hole, to the right there is a X Multi logo (Multi Function), LED indicator, and from left to right we have DVD Multi Recorder logo, a DVD Alliance (DVD+R DL) logo, and a Compact Disc Ultra Speed ReWriteable logo. Finally at the far right is the eject button.

 
Top

Drive Sticker

On the top of the drive we found a sticker that shows it was made in China and has a production date of March 2006.

Bottom

Drive Right

Drive Left

 
Rear

Now, let us connect the drive and check out the features, program bundle and writing technology on the next page…