Buying CD writer

"By the way, i heard that Plextors are good, but those on the price list, are too expensive."

You heard correctly.  Plextor is the Rolls Royce of CD recorders and readers.  If you can save for another month to get one, do so.

Otherwise, of the brands listed, I'd get Philips.  (Yes, I realise you didn't really list them, but that would be my next choice after Plextor)

PS - If a Plextor 8x4x32 at $99 is too expensive, then just how little were you thinking to spend?

Click "ATAPI & SCSI CD-R(W) Drives" at this link:
http://www.hypermicro.com/store/index.htm
And see the first entry under 'Plextor'.

regards,
magarity

PS - I have ordered hard drives from this mail order vendor before without any problems

I'd stay away from the Samsung.  In fact, I've never been happy with ANY Samsung product at all.  In general, I've found that "Made in Korea" is an indication of low quality.

I've been quite pleased with my HP CD-RW as well as a Yamaha SCSI unit that I have in another system. But everything I've ever heard about the Plextor has been good as well.  

I'd also suggest you avoid the Phillips.  Their tech support for PC products is terrible.

Lite On 12x10x32 Burnproof $77 free shipping.  

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=5&manufactory=1336

I would buy the one on special for $70 at Circuit City or Compusa/Staples.

Why ?
Because in 2 years, you are going to get a  4.7 GB DVD-RAM anyway so unless you plan on burning CD's all day, it is not going to make much difference.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree with Sysexpert, right now CompUSA has some Sonys and others at very good prices.  While they are on sale, I have actually had one fail 115 days into use.  I ended up going back to my HP 8200 series that only does 4X.  There are a lot of good ones out there but to be on the safe side check the warranty.  I was very disturbed to find out Sony is very stick to it on their warranties and at 115 days it was a very expensive paperweight.  I had almost forgot that I had purchased the extended replacemanet warranty(normally I don't but I had forgotten that in this case I did because the price was so low) and at this point I am glad I did.  Look for at least a 1 year warranty, or if you do buy cheap see if the place you buy it from offers a 1-year extension.  That was my saving grace.  I think I spent an extra 10.00 but that beats paying for another 100.00 CD burner. I ended up being able to take it back to CompUSA and they replaced it no questions asked.
http://www.compusa.com/products/category.asp?prodzip=&category_id=454

Also

http://download.mycomputer.com/files/Storage_Backup/Backup/detail.html
List of backup programs including free shareware.

Check reviews in zdnet.com and cnet.com

I hope this helps !

Whoops - scratch that URL - it is for backups !

Note that HPs are usually rebadged models from someone else under HPs name and probably quality assurance.  

Stick with a name brand.  If you've never heard of the name then walk away from it.

Hi,

...and what about the Waitec drive? Its price isn't bad, but is it alse reliable?

I have several Samsung burners, no failures, no problems with the bundled Adaptec software, no buffer underruns or ASPI problems. Other than being inexpensive, 80-100 US$.
Speed...as stated above 8X is fast enough unless  you want to spend double. The 8X4X32 or the 8X8X32 are trouble free for those on a limited budget. Depending on the speed of your computer, you may not get the full performance of a 12X drive and be limited to 8X anyway. More information about your computer would help make this decision...eg. FSB speed, processor, memory, etc. I run these burners on several different platforms.
T

Spend some extra money!!!

I have tryed Philips and HP they are realy S**T (around 10% unreadable results).
I'm very very very pleased with my Plextor so save some more and buy later!!!

Yeah, I had a Philips, and it was a piece of crap.  I just picked up a Sony 12x/8x/32x a few months back, and has worked great, even at 12x write.  The software package that comes with it rules...FAR better than Easy CD Creator.  I'm not sure what they're going for now, but for the performance and software that comes with it, I was pretty impressed and have been quite satisfied.

And believe me...speed will make a difference once you burn something at 12x, and then go back to say, 2x.  Why spend 45 minutes copying something when you can spend 5 minutes doing the same thing...

johnny_35!!

I didn't mention the other burner I have becouse I forgot the branch name, so I have looked for it last evening...
It is an "Aopen" I'm realy satisfied with it and it is a lot cheaper than Plextor.
The last model has the "Best Buy" Award from PC WORLD, but the other models are also very reliable.
(Read info on http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,52524,pg,4,00.asp).

For info about the AOpen drives look at the last part of page http://www.aopen.com/products/optical/ 

GL

Sorry, i couldn't answer before....

np, and thanx for the points given :)