Plextor Premium

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Senior Moderator: Article posted 04 Jun 03 18:45

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Review: Plextor Premium (IDE)
Reviewer: Dennis
Provided by: Plextor Europe
Firmware: version 1.01
Manufactured: April 2003
TLA: #0000

As some of our visitors will know, when Plextor announced their PX-W4824TA recorder, they also gave out signals that 48x writing was the maximum speed a PlexWriter would support. As you can imagine it was quite a surprise when we spotted a 52x PlexWriter during our CeBIT 2003 coverage.

Perhaps due to the heavy competition in the CD-RW drive market Plextor was forced to release a 52x writer but we’re of course speculating here. In order to make sure that their latest 52x writer doesn’t just have improved read and (re-)write performance, Plextor has put in some very unique and innovative techniques into their latest writer.

Because of these unique features, such as GigaRec and SecuRec for example which we’ll of course get back to later on in this review, Plextor has dubbed their latest writer, the PlexWriter Premium (in some countries the drive is promoted as Plextor PX-W5232TA) indicating that this drive will support the best that Plextor has to offer.

In this review we’ll see if this new PlexWriter is indeed a ‘premium’ drive and how it stands up to the competition. We’ll of course also test the drive’s unique techniques. Besides that we’ll also take a look at the new PlexTools Professional software with which it’s possible to perform advanced tests (C1/C2 error measurement, Focus/Tracking error tests and Beta/Jitter tests) using the Premium drive.

Test Machine:

For the tests we’ll be using the following configuration:

Hardware:

Motherboard: GigaByte GA-7VAXP
Processor: AMD AthlonXP 2100+
RAM: 512MB (PC2700)
GFX: ASUS V8200 (GeForce 3 Ti200)
Hard Disks: DiamondMax 40GB (7200rpm)

System set-up:

The Plextor Premium drive was hooked up as Master to the (onboard) secondary IDE-controller and identifies itself as “PLEXTOR CD-R PREMIUM”. DMA (Direct Memory Access) was enabled and autorun was disabled for every device.

Used Software:

The Windows XP Professional operating system is installed on our test machine. We’ll be using the following software to perform the various tests:

On the next page of our review we’ll take a look at the drive’s package, the drive itself and its specifications and features.

Package and Features

9 Comments

Hemispasm: Posts: 5277; Posted on: 04 Jun 03 21:53

Very nice review Dennis

Wow, "Editor's Choice Award" !!!!! Thats new! :g

hnevnik: Posts: 33; Posted on: 05 Jun 03 07:43

Very nice review and very nice drive.

Since yesterday I have one best 'Two-sheep' recorder - PlexWriter Premium!

Howg!

Dee-ehn: Posts: 15203; Posted on: 05 Jun 03 10:31

What can I say...? I've had this drive for couple of weeks now and I am really satisfied with it.. works like a charm and had quite some good aspects (the review confirmed my opinion).... Way to go Plextor! /me waites for the Plextor Premium 52x DVD writer

Mr. Belvedere: Posts: 16075; Posted on: 05 Jun 03 10:52

Good review , but i'd like some more read and write tests on GigaRec. I'm very curious to know which drives will have problems with the compressed format and which won't

Mgz: Posts: 219; Posted on: 11 Jun 03 04:17

"2 sheep" concept maybe out date now, it should be "2 lite BEER" or 2 drunk man or something like that :d BTW this is an awsome drive, but it will be good if Plextor join the DVD-RW maker group :g

Shoebedobedoo: Posts: 586; Posted on: 02 Aug 03 14:04

The Plextor Premium is having its difficulty backing up Safedisc 2.9.x (The Sims Superstar). Some have reported the drive can defeat the protection, some have reported the drive can't defeat the protection. Sounds like a TLA# issue or possibly future firmware updates? I adore Plex drives but they are WAY TOO expensive.

Chilly: Posts: 3; Posted on: 30 Aug 03 05:02

No problems backingup SIMs Superstar...This is a great drive

fmaxwell: Posts: 2; Posted on: 15 Sep 03 21:12

> I adore Plex drives but they are > WAY TOO expensive. Come on! They can be had for a little over $100 U.S. That's chump change for a top-quality CD-R/W drive. I remember when CD-ROM drives cost over $200 and people bought them. It's that kind of cheap attitude that drove Yamaha from the CD-R/W market. Do you want to do the same thing to Plextor? A premium product deserves to sell at a premium price. I don't want to be left to choose between various cheap, low-quality drives like Aopen, Benq, and Memorex. So go buy a Plextor and support a company that makes top-quality drives that are fast, reliable, and can read "copy-protected" discs with ease.

iampedro: Posts: 29; Posted on: 25 Oct 03 20:40

What software did you use over Shoedobedoo?

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