|
CONCLUSION
Pros
- Supports
writing 99min CDs
- Fast &
perfect audio ripping
- Can produce
X-Box & Playstation compatible
disks
- Can read
& write CD-Text
- Disks
are more compatible than "+"
format
- Low cost
drive
- Very cheap
media (as low as 50p each)
- Can read
full 99mins from data CDs
Cons
- Only 2
speed -R, -RW, +RW, dual layered
read performance
- No CD-R
RAW modes
- Slow x2
speed CSS ripping
- Slow Safedisk
2 performance
- Poor quality
media
- High full
seek time
- Slow -RW
(x1) writing
- No Mount
Rainer
We had hoped Pioneer would have included
faster reading and writing speeds
when the A04 was announced but rather
than being a completely new drive
the Pioneer A04 offers only a few
improvements over the A03 drive (which
we reviewed last year). Of these new
improvements UDMA33, vertical mounting,
CD-R burnproof support and increased
DVD-ROM read speeds are the only real
improvements a user will notice.
Although the drive can write 4.7GB
of data onto blank DVD-R's we experienced
problems with certain media when reading
them back. Certain brands of media
would jump/skip on DVD players with
even the best PC DVD-ROMs would having
difficulty reading the disks at certain
points. This is not a problem with
the drive but something which needs
to be looked at when backing up important
data onto cheap DVD-R / DVD-RW media
(especially near the disks maximum
capacity).
One strength the Pioneer drive has
over the rival "plus" recordable
format is the ability to create highly
compatible DVDs - we found that disks
created with this drive worked in
most DVD players and older DVD-ROMs
with their recognition time being
the fastest. This was also the only
DVD writer that could read a full
99mins from non standard CD-R 99min
CDs (its CD features are a little
old but not entirely useless).
The drive was very quiet and problem
free. Pioneer has not improved on
its CD writing ability and it still
lacks a DAO-RAW mode which most drives
have now (to make it a true replacement
for your CD burner). The re-writable
1 speed DVD-RW process is painfully
slow when you have used a drive from
the plus recordable format but thankfully
it only takes 28mins to create a "-R"
disk. Pioneer and other companies
are working on faster DVD writers
that will write at 4 speed DVD-R and
2 speed DVD-RW which we expect to
arrive this autumn though.
This drive currently retails for
£199.00 in the UK and with 2
speed 4.7GB disks only £1.09
each it is hard not to recommend this
drive. For those that want to know
if you can backup their movie collection
and if this drive does the job: yes
it does sort of but you will need
to do a little work yourself as its
not as simple as selecting copy in
Nero and swapping disks like
it is with CDs (find out more in our
forum).
Why use 7 CDs and swap between them
for storing your data when you can
use a Pioneer A04 and burn the whole
lot in 28mins ? DVD writing is affordable
thanks to Pioneer and any prospective
buyer will not be disappointed with
this drive.
We wish to thank
SVP Communications and www.datasafe-media.com
for the donation of this drive. You
can purchase the drive for £199.00
as well as cheap media from: SVP
Communications
  Page
7- Last Updated: 10 August 2002
|
