Positive:

• Good writing performance on DVD±R media.
• Excellent writing performance on CD-R media
• Excellent/very good CD-R writing quality and compatibility.
• Excellent/very good DVD±R/RW writing quality.
• Can burn selected DVD±R media faster than its rated speed.
• Excellent reading performance and reliability.
• Reads pressed DVD Video SL/DL and recordable media at 16x/12x.
• Supports DVD-RAM read/write at 12x speed.
• Supports automatic BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R/RW/DL.
• Supports Disc Quality Scanning with CD-Speed and KProbe.
• Good software bundle.
• Can read/write MINI DVD.
• Can overburn CD-R and read 100 minute CD-R.

Negative:

• DVD±R DL writing quality needs improving.
• CD-RW and DVD±RW writing quality could be improved.
• Noise levels are high when the drive is running at high speed.
• Single coloured LED for read/write.

Conclusion:

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

The HP DVD-1035i is a fast drive as far as writing DVD media is concerned and extremely fast when writing CD-R media. Being a so called multi-drive, the HP DVD-1035i supports all of the currently popular CD/DVD formats including DVD-RAM.

The HP DVD-1035i was able to burn all our tested CD-R media with excellent/very good quality and media compatibility was also very good.

DVD±R writing quality was also of a very high standard and on most media excellent. The HP DVD-1035i was also able to burn selected DVD±R media at faster than its rated speed.

The HP DVD-1035i also proved to be a good performer with DVD-RAM media, again recording some very fast write times with our tested 12x DVD-RAM media.

Reading performance and reliability is excellent with most media groups.

The supplied software bundle should provide a good starting point for new and more advanced users alike.

The main negative points:

There are not that many negative things to say about the HP DVD-1035i.

DVD±R DL writing quality in most cases was not good and requires improvement via a firmware update.

CD-RW and DVD±RW writing quality could also be improved.

The HP DVD-1035i is noisy when running at high speed and caused a lot of vibration in our review PC case.

We would also like to see different coloured LED’s being used for read/write.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The HP DVD-1035i is good in the most important areas (CD-R and DVD±R writing quality and performance) but could be improved in other areas”

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