NEC ND-2500A (DVD±RW)

This time we will take a look at the latest and greatest DVD-Writer from NEC with the model number ND-2500A. This is our first experience with DVD-Writers from NEC so we are unable to compare it to earlier NEC models. But NEC is a large and popular brand due to the low prices, so keep on reading to find out our experiences with this drive.

Also thanks to Memorex for being so generous and providing some of the media used in this review.

A short company presentation of the NEC Company:

And here is some information about NEC in Europe:

A leading global manufacturer and service provider of telecommunication, computer and electronic devices,
NEC began business in Europe in the early 1970s.
Since then, NEC’s activities have steadily increased to include sales, manufacturing and R&D functions.

Today, NEC has 21 affiliated companies, employing over 5000 personnel, located across Europe.
NEC’s net European sales are in excess of 4000 million euros
(FY 2000-2001).

NEC offers its customers high quality products, services and system solutions to
facilitate greater business development opportunities in the Internet era.
For further information on NEC’s products and sales & marketing activities,
please visit the relevant website.

Drive specifications:

First let us take a look at the specifications of the drive, the specifications are found at the NEC Europe homepage

This is the first writer we have seen that supports 8X DVD-R and 4X DVD-RW. But a CD-Writing speed of 32X and a CD-ReWriting speed of 16X is slower than most other writers in the same generation. To bad that we do not have any 4X DVD-RW diss and thus we will not be able to test this. But we will for sure find out if it have other qualities, so continue to read on.

Test machine:

For this review we will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

⋅         Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-8KNXP with Intel i875P chipset.
⋅         Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2,8GHz 800MHz FSB with Hyper Threading support.
⋅         RAM: 1Gb PC3500 DDR
⋅         GFX: ATI Radeon 9800 pro
⋅         Sound: SB Audigy 2
⋅         Hard disks: 2 x Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80Gb in RAID 0

System set-up:

The NEC ND-2500A was connected as Primary Slave and identified itself as _NEC DVD_RW ND-2500A. DMA (Direct Memory Access) and autorun was enabled for all devices.

Software:

Windows XP professional is installed on the computer along with Service Pack 1 for windows XP. We will be using the following software in this review:

⋅         Sonic DLA 4.5
⋅         Ahead Nero Burning ROM version 6.3.0.2
⋅         Ahead Nero CD/DVD Speed v2.11.4
⋅         Ahead Nero InfoTool v2.07
⋅         Slysoft CloneCD v4.3.1.9
⋅         Exact Audio Copy v0.95 prebeta 3
⋅         K-Probe v1.1.28

Head on to the next page and find out what the box we got contained…