BenQ DW1800 18x DVD Burner Review


 

Review: BenQ DW1800
Reviewed by: agent009
Firmware: ZB35
Manufactured: October 2006

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Introduction

A few months ago, we acquired a BenQ DW1800 drive in Asia. Finding BenQ drives in the United States has become challenging since the company stopped North American distribution of its brand of optical drives in 2006. It is unfortunate because BenQ drives have gained a very good reputation on this side of the Pacific, beginning with the success of the DW1600 series in 2004.

The three year history of Philips BenQ Digital Storage (PBDS), the optical-drive division of the larger Taiwanese company, BenQ Corporation, has been remarkably successful, with a rise from a 0% to a 12% market share of half-height DVD drives in the first two years. Unfortunately, we now must speak of PBDS in the past tense, but we hope it continues to do just as well under the new name.

The division's ownership has changed in mid-2006, when Lite-On IT Corporation has acquired the 49% stake in PBDS held by BenQ Corporation. The other 51% of the joint venture is still owned by Philips Electronics N.V. The new name is Philips Lite-On Digital Solutions Corporation (PLDS). The combination of Lite-On IT and PBDS, the former number 3 and 4 optical drive suppliers, into PLDS makes it the number 2 supplier, second in volume only to Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS).

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BenQ DW1800 is one of the first BenQ-branded drives that came out of PLDS, and while it exhibits a curious mix of features that we associate with both Lite-On and BenQ drives, it is undeniably a Lite-On device in a BenQ shell. BenQ DW1800 is a close mechanical, optical and electronic relative of Lite-On LH-18A1P. The two drives have almost identical features and differ only in their external appearance, firmware, and included software.

BenQ DW1800 reads and writes all DVD and CD formats: DVD+R/RW/DL, DVD-R/RW/DL, DVD-RAM, and CD-R/RW. Single-layer DVD+R and DVD-R are written at up to 18x, double-layer DVD+R DL and dual-layer DVD-R DL at up to 8x, DVD-RAM at up to 12x, CD-R at up to 48x, and CD-RW at up to 32x.

Corporate information


BenQ company logo and slogan

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BenQ Group is headquartered in Taiwan but its manufacturing operations and sales and marketing offices are scattered throughout East Asia, North America and Europe.


BenQ headquarters, Taipei

BenQ Group's corporate information page begins with the following vision statement and summary:

Vision: Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to Life.

Group Overview: The BenQ Group is currently comprised of 10 companies that operate independently while sharing resources and leveraging synergies among them. BenQ Group 2006 revenues exceeded US$16.5 billion.

Group Companies: The BenQ Group companies include AU Optronics Corporation, the world's leading manufacturer of LCD panels; Darfon Electronics Corporation; Daxon Technology Inc; Wellypower Optronics Co., Ltd.; Raydium Semiconductor Corporation; Cando Corporation; Darwin Precisions Co., Ltd.; BenQ Corporation; BenQ Hospital and BenQ Guru Software Co., Ltd.


BenQ Group companies

Some of BenQ's milestones relevant to its optical-drive division are listed below.

BenQ Group Milestones:

  • 1984 - Acer Peripherals Inc. established
  • 1991 - Changes name to Acer Communications & Multimedia
  • 2001 - Birth of the "BenQ" brand - Official company name becomes “BenQ Corporation”
  • 2003 - Royal Philips Electronics and BenQ establish Philips & BenQ Digital Storage
  • 2006 - Lite-On IT and BenQ form a strategic alliance in optical storage products

Learn more about BenQ Group by visiting the company website: http://www.benq.com/.

Learn more about BenQ storage products at the BenQ Global website: http://www.benq.com/products/Storage/.

Drive overview


Beige retail drive


Black retail drive

BenQ DW1800 is a DVD burner capable of reading and writing DVD+R/RW/DL, DVD-R/RW/DL, DVD-RAM, and CD-R/RW formats.


Tray logos

In addition to the standard DVD-, DVD+ and CD logos, BenQ DW1800 displays BenQ's DVD3 logo that first appeared on DQ60, indicating triple-format DVD-R/DVD+R/DVD-RAM support, and the SolidBurn logo that made its debut on BenQ DW1640, indicating that the drive adjusts laser power for each individual piece of DVD media by performing brief test burns in the reserved area at the beginning and the unused area at the end of each blank disc.

Drive specifications

BenQ DW1800 specifications on BenQ website list the following:

BenQ DW1800 uses the 33.3 MB/s ATAPI-4 ATA Packet Interface, also known as Ultra ATA/33 or Ultra DMA Mode 2.

ATAPI-4 specification recommends using of an 80-wire EIDE cable in order to work reliably at full speed. 80-wire EIDE cables have the same 40-pin connectors as 40-wire cables, but they can be easily recognized by higher wire density in the cable and differently colored (blue, grey, and black) connectors.

Retail package

The drive we are reviewing is a retail package. It includes the following:

  • Internal 5.25" BenQ DW1800 drive
  • BenQ DVD Re-Writer Software Disc (Ver. 2.5)
  • Warranty and Product Registration Information booklet, for approximately 20 countries
  • Hardware Quick Start Guide card with text in 22 languages: English, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Serbian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, German, Dutch, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Turkish
  • Software Quick Start Guide booklet in 12 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish, Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
  • Four mounting screws


Retail box and its contents

BenQ-branded, retail-packaged drives come in one of three colors: black, beige, or silver. The color of the drive inside the package is indicated by a round red sticker with a white check mark, placed on the side of the box:


Color sticker

The front panel of the drive has the new look first seen in retail versions of BenQ DW1670. The plastic surface of the front of our drive is neatly textured, giving it a sophisticated look, not unlike black anodized finish on brushed metal. The tray cover occupies the entire upper half of the front, similarly to retail Pioneer drives; a welcome deviation from the traditional front cover layout.

A blue stripe of transparent plastic runs across the front, just under the tray cover, giving the drive a unique look. The LED activity light is located under the blue stripe, about 1/3 of the way from the left, and appears to be the usual green light that lights up during disc recognition, is off when a disc is inserted, and flashes during data transfers; typical Lite-On LED behavior all around.

The grey-colored company logo and various SolidBurn, DVD and CD logos indicating drive capabilities are arranged in the familiar fashion that hasn't changed since the days of BenQ DW1600. The eject button is unusually large but seems to fit well with the rest of the new layout.


Front panel


Top view

The top cover of the drive has the easily recognizable indentations exclusive to BenQ designs since BenQ DW1640. BenQ's Air Flow Cooling System (AFCS) is quite effective at reducing the heating effects inside the drive enclosure during high-speed operation. It works be redirecting the airflow naturally created by fast rotation of the disc inside the drive, and also helps reduce disc resonance and chassis noise.

Thanks to AFCS and evidently less wind noise leaking through the front panel, BenQ DW1800 is a comparatively quiet drive when it is spinning the disc at maximum RPM. Spin-ups and spin-downs, however, are an entirely different affair, but we will get to that later.

The sticker lists the drive model (DW1800-0B4 for the black retail drive), serial number, engineering revision (01-101), firmware revision installed at the factory (ZB34), manufacturing date (October 2006) and country (China) and power ratings (1.5A of each of the 5V and 12V DC). No less than one third of the sticker is devoted to various regulatory compliance logos and notices:


Drive sticker

Left, right, and bottom sides of the drive provide standard mounting holes for case or rail screws and attachment points for the removable front panel:


Bottom view


Left-side view


Right-side view

As you may have noticed in the pictures above, the two parts of the front panel are slightly angled and the middle part of the front protrudes forward a couple of millimeters farther than in more traditional, flat layouts.

DW1800's front panel is interchangeable with front panels of all recent Lite-On drives. However, the front panel's attachment points are different from earlier BenQ designs and make it non-interchangeable with front panels of BenQ DW1640, DW1650/55 or DW1670 drives.

The rear side houses the standard 4-pin DC power connector, a 40-pin EIDE/ATA connector, jumper pins that set the drive to IDE master, slave, or cable-select mode, and a four-pin analog audio connector:


Rear view

The drive's electronics is based on a popular MediaTek chipset, MT1898E, also used in several other 18x and 20x BenQ/Lite-On/Philips and Samsung DVD drive designs:


MediaTek MT1898E chip


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