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New Low Cost DVD Burners Hit The Streets
SpinnerBait writes "DVD burners, until recently, have been a bit too pricey for the average
consumer that just wants to backup large amounts of data or rescue a failing DVD
movie disc. However, OEMs like AOpen have finally broken the $100 price
point, as this
article and performance analysis at HotHardware reports. Performance,
for this sub $100 DVD burner was respectable as well, burning almost an entire
DVD's worth of data in about 15 minutes. Not too shabby at all... just in time for the holidays."
I'm waiing for the media price to come down. The prices i've seen on the burner is competitive, but the DVD-R media is still alittle pricey for me.
you never lose in ure razorblade shoes......Beck-Hotwax
Especially if they're anything like cheap CD-ROM drives. All my moderately priced drives are still working and some are 5 years old or more. Yet the $30 52x drives usually never made it past one year . . .
I'd only play the waiting game for so long.
If you wait for what's next, and it comes around, then you'll hear people saying to wait for what's next. There will always be newer and better but if one just waits then you'll also be putting off using the thing.
The '+' format seems to do well enough although I've preferred to keep the dash format available too because it is in the "real" DVD standard. The '+' format is kind of a bastard offshoot and only served to pad Sony & HP's profits at the expense of market confusion.
And once the dual layer drives are out, it'll be time to wait for shorter-wavelength burning, or some other must-have feature.
Computing and electronics is always a game of 'enough for now, at a price I can handle.'
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The belief that 'You Gets What You Pays For' is one to live by. I have to wonder how long one of these $100 or sub-$100 burners will last.
The entire attitude of "Just toss it when it fails and get a new one" is a poor excuse. That sort of mindset is exactly why there's such a huge problem with solid waste (much of it old electronics) in the world.
While I like a bargain as much as the proverbial 'Next Guy,' I also expect equipment I buy to last a bare minimum of five years, more if the price is above a couple of hundred. I don't mind paying a bit more for stuff that's better built.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Yes. Don't jump on the bandwagon the day stuff hits the streets, wait until it hits the streets. As in the curb. People are throwing away old systems like mad now.
I just picked up a CLEAN (non smoker) PII 400 with a CDR & a CDRW & a ZIP. 8 gigs, plus loaded with win98 and and a few games. All I had to do was pick up up from a trash pile and wipe the dust off of it. The power supply was dead. It works GREAT now. Yeah, slow but, it was all but free. $15 for a new ATX power supply and I have a PC that people would have once KILLED to have.
Guess what? Load it up with Linux and you've got a damn nice server for next to nothing.
I've got dozens and dozens up more dozens of old PC's this way. Just drive and and scan the rubish heaps, see something, stop and grab it. It's FREE..
Now, when will people start throwing P4's out??