Review:
NEC
ND-3540A
Reviewer: Jan70
Provided by: NEC
Germany
Firmware: 1.01
Manufactured: May
2005
NEC Germany, was
kind enough to send us their latest DVD-writer the NEC ND-3540A. This drive
supports 16x DVD+R/-R writing, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW and 8x/6x DVD+R DL/-R DL writing
technology - allowing Double Layer discs of 8.5GB to be written.
Company
information:
Let us take a look
at some of the company information found at the NEC Germany site:
NEC Deutschland GmbH,
based in Ismaning near Munich, was established as a wholly-owned subsidiary of
NEC Corporation in 1987.
The product portfolio includes the most modern
presentation technology, such as Video, LCD and DLP™ projectors and plasma
monitors as well as peripherals such as CD-ROM, DVD drives and floppy disks.
Telecommunications products and biometric security solutions round off the
product range.
The sales territory covers Central Europe, including
Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as the Benelux countries and Eastern
and South East Europe
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Facts &
Figures:
NEC
Group Structure
NEC
Corporation will position its business on "providing integrated solutions
(including services) for mission critical systems in open environments" and
concentrate further on IT and network integrating solution
businesses.
NEC Electronics Corporation which concentrates its management
resources on system large-scale integration (LSI) business will strengthen its
global competitiveness, expanding its business as a specialist enterprise that
empowers its global customers by providing semiconductor solutions for high-end
system needs.
Through this new NEC group structure, NEC aims to increase
the corporate value of the entire NEC group.
If you are
interested in reading more company information, please visit: NEC GERMANY
Drive specifications:
The official
listed specification of this drive was found on the NEC Germany
website:
What's inside the
box?
On this page
we will take a look at what the drive came shipped with and take a look at the
drive and its technology.
Front
This sticker looks
interesting
Back
Left/Right side
Top
Bottom
Below you will
see the contents of the retail box:
- The
internal ND-3540 drive itself
- NEC Writer
CD-ROM:
- Documentation for NEC DVD
Writer
- Software
documentation
- NeroExpress 6.6 for Windows
98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP and 2003 Server
- NeroVision Express 3
& ShowTime 2 for Windows 98SE, ME, 200 and XP
- Documentation for NEC DVD
- MPC Audio
cable
- Screw
set
- IDE
Cable
Now it's time
to take a look at the drive itself:
The NEC
ND-3540 uses the same bezel that previous NEC DVD Writers have used. A simple
and clean design that includes a few logos, a single green coloured LED, an
emergency eject hole and an eject button. (We would prefer different LED colours
to distinguish between reading and writing operations). The logos located on the
right side of the drive tray include a DVD Forum logo, a DVD Alliance DVD+R DL logo, and a CD-RW Ultra
Speed logo.
Top
On the
top-side of the drive we found one sticker and we can read it was made in
Malaysia '“ May 2005.
Underside
On the underside of the
drive we can see a pattern of holes, which is used for ventilation.
On the back of
the drive starting from the left, we can see a digital audio connector; analogue
audio connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or
master; IDE connector and finally the power connector.
We installed
the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero
InfoTool:
From the
screenshot of Nero InfoTool above, we miss Mt. Rainier
support and a larger buffer size. Our drive came shipped with firmware
1.01.
And another
shot from Nero Burning ROM:
We do not
really find anything alarming here, but Mt. Rainier and a larger buffer would
have been nice.
But let us continue
this review and see how it really performs.
On the next page we
will take a look at the test machine, the software, the drive features and the
included software…………