BenQ DW1620A Dual format & Double layer DVD Burner

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It has been a while since last time we looked into a BenQ drive. The drive they sent us was their latest DVD-Writer; the BenQ DW1620A. The drive supports both DVD+R and DVD-R at 16x as well as double layer technology and is thus a very interesting drive. Let us see how it performs compared to some other drives.

Some BenQ history:

We took a quick look at the company information found at BenQ Europe’s web pages:

The BenQ Group, formerly known as Acer Communications & Multimedia Group, is a global operation, employing over 14,760 people worldwide and with an annual turnover (2003) of US$ 3.6 billion. Its expertise encompasses: Communications, Imaging, Display technology, Digital media and Electro-optics products. As home, office, and entertainment merge with each other, BenQ will use these competencies to create networked digital lifestyle devices that will increasingly become part of our world.

BenQ is in a unique position to serve this newly emerging world. It owns more than 1,382 global patents. In addition to this, R&D is carried out in the Hsinchu Lab in, the Suzhou Software Development Center in , and the Wireless Technology Center in San Diego, . BenQ currently employs some 2,000 R&D specialists worldwide. It spends about 4% of its income on R&D.

For production, BenQ has facilities in , , , and . BenQ Suzhou is the flagship facility covering 600,000 sq. meters and employing over 6,000 people. Today that centre boasts an annual output capacity of 4 million colour monitors, 8 million keyboards, and 4 million scanners.

As you could see it’s a large company with long history. But it’s time to look at the specifications of the drive.

Drive specifications:

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These are the specifications of this drive, found at the BenQ’s webpage:

The specifications are very good, but we have seen drives offering 48x CD-Writing and reading as well as 4x Double Layer writing speed.

But let us continue this review and see how it really performs. First we will take a look at what we got.

What’s inside the box?

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Let us start out pretty easy with taking a look at what we got and what the box contained.

 

The drive we received was a retail drive that came in a nice looking box, but a nice box is not worth much ‘� so let us look at the content.

 

Notice that BenQ sent us some extra discs that are not a part of the retail bundle; to make sure that we do not miss anything we list what we got below:

This is what the Retail bundle consists of:

⋅         The drive itself
⋅         BenQ Software CD (Sonic recording software, intervideo software, booktype management tool, BenQ Q-Video 2.0 and manuals)
⋅         Quick installation guide
⋅         Quick start guide
⋅         Screws
⋅         Audio cable
⋅         IDE cable
⋅         16x DVD+R disc (Philips)

This is what we got in addition to the Retail Bundle:

⋅         2 pieces of Mitsubishi Double Layer 2.4x DVD+R discs
⋅         2 pieces of Daxon 8x DVD-R capable of 16x recording speed.
⋅         2 Pieces of That’s 8x DVD-R capable of 16x recording speed.
⋅         1 additional Philips 16x DVD+R disc

The bundle is very good and we only miss a thicker printed manual as well as maybe a ReWritable DVD disc in the bundle.

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

 

The front is pretty strange looking, a lot of ’sharp" edges, at the same time it’s pretty simple as it only has an eject button, a LED and an emergency eject hole.

 

Our sample was produced in and has a production date of July 2004.

 

On the back of the drive there are from the left: digital audio connector; analogue audio connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or master; IDE connector, power connector.

Now, let us install the drive and check out the features and program bundle of this drive on the next page…

Performance	DVD+R DL : Data Transfer / double layer write: 26.59 Mbit (2.4x) DVD+R/+RW : Data Transfer Rate /write: 177.28 Mbit/sec (16X) Data Transfer Rate /rewrite: 44.32 Mbit/sec (4X) DVD-R/-RW : Data Transfer Rate /write: 177.28 Mbit/sec (16X) Data Transfer Rate /rewrite: 44.32 Mbit/sec (4X) DVD ROM : Data Transfer Rate /read: 177.28 Mbit/sec (16X, MAX) Access time: 120 ms CD : Data Transfer Rate /write: 6000 KByte/sec (40X) Data Transfer Rate /rewrite: 3600 KByte/sec (24X) Data Transfer Rate /read: 6000 KByte/sec (40X, Max.) Access time: 120 ms
Interface	E-IDE/ATAPI
Supported IDE mode	PIO mode 0/1/2/3/4 DMA mode 0/1/2 UDMA mode 0/1/2
Buffer Size	2 Mbytes
Writing Mode	DVD : DVD Data and Video CD : Track-at-Once, Disc-at-Once, Multisession, Packet Writing (fixed & variable packet), CD Digital Audio, Direct-Over-Write on CD-RW, Test Write
Disc Size	DVD : 120 mm disc CD : 80 and 120 mm discs
Disc Formats	DVD : DVD+R 4.7GB, DVD+RW 4.7GB, DVD-R 4.7GB, DVD-RW 4.7GB (closed session) DVD Video, DVD-5, DVD-9, DVD-10, DVD-18 CD : CD-DA, CD-ROM XA (m1, m2f1/m2f2), CD-R, CD-RW, Bootable CD, Photo CD (single & multi-session), Video CD, Super Video CD, CD-Extra, Mixed-mode CD, CD-Text, CD-Graphics
Audio Performance	Signal-to-Noise ratio: 76 dB min. Number of stereo channels: 2 Analog audio line output: 0.75 VRMS at 470 Ohm Analog headphone output: 0.6 VRMS at 34 Ohm CD sampling frequency: 44.1 KHz
Power Requirement	+5V ± 5%, ripple: 100mVpp +12V ± 10%, ripple: 200mVpp
Environment Conditions	Operating temperature: 5°C~45°C (41°F~113°F) at humidity of 8-80% RH Non-operating temperature: -40°C~60°C (-40°F~140°F) at humidity: 5%~95% RH Non-operating humidity: 5%~95% RH
Reliability Characteristics	MTBF: 50,000 POH Non-recoverable read error < 1 block in 1012 bits (CD and DVD)
Physical Characteristics	Dimension: 146 X 42 X 198 mm (W x H x D) Weight: 1.0 Kg
Firmware Update	Flash memory upgradeable
Panel Design	Front side: open/close button, read/write status indicator LED Rear side: 40-pin ATA-2 dual row flat-cable connector, 4-pin DC power connector, 3-position device jumpers, digital audio output and analog audio output
OS Compatibility	Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98SE
Minimum System Requirement	IBM PC compatible Pentium III 550MHz CPU 128MB DRAM 100MB free HDD space for CD/DVD recording related software installation 1GB free HDD space for CD Image recording (10GB for DVD authoring) is recommended.

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• Features and program bundle