Plextor USA now has several new product pages up:

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/PX-806SA.html
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/PX-850A.html
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/PX-850SA.html
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/PX-Q840U.html
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/px-610u.html

There is also a new Software-Tool called "PlexUtilities":

"Take control of several powerful features of Plextor drives. With the power of PlexUTILITIES for Windows® you now have extra support for your Plextor hardware. PlexUTILITIES allows you to view basic and advance drive information as well as offering high quality audio and multimedia capabilities.
By allowing you to measure and control the burn quality of every disc on a Windows® platform, PlexUTILITIES makes coasters a thing of the past. The distinctive design in PlexUTILITIES allows ease of use for newcomers without compromising on the powerful features that experienced burners demand.
PlexUTILITIES also features:
Viewing Basic and Advanced Drive Information which lists the drive’s hardware, including serial number, firmware version and jumper settings, and shows the capabilities of the drive. Concurrently, it reveals extensive information about the inserted disc— like format, sessions and tracks, manufacturer, and CD TEXT.
Permitting Drive Identification and Control which allows you to control different features of your Plextor drive.
Measure Disc Burning Quality which tests the quality of a written or pressed disc by counting the number of errors, measures the mechanical characteristics of blank media, shows the write quality by checking the jitter rate and the beta value of written media, and measures the quality of the written DVD media by checking the pits and lands for compliance
with the DVD specifications.
Automatic software and firmware updates immediately notifies you of pending updates to your Plextor drive so that you always have the most current applications."

It's nice to see we seem to get almost all scanning features we had with Plextools and original Plextor hardware with these new drives, that is FE/TE, PI/PO, Beta/Jitter and TA tests.

Edit: Link for PX-610u added

If the photos are accurate then those are definitely rebadged Lite-Ons. Now the interesting question is whether these new PlexUtilities will work with genuine Sanyo chipset drives, or whether they're specifically designed to work with these newer MediaTek drives. It will also be interesting to see just how much work they've put into the firmware, and whether they burn better than the actual Lite-Ons they're based on.

more cheap rebadges.... great

I must echo The_Gunslinger's sentiments. I can only hope the new PlexUtilities will work with the older Plextor-original designs. But hey, there are a couple of new 716UFs on ebay!

Since there is a Qflix-enabled drive announced here and available here, could it be the same as the 806SA? The 840U looks like this as well.

Pictures i've seen so far (photoshopped a bit but nevertheless) seem to point to Liteon drives. In contrast the top of the drives you linked to looks very much like the 216/116 Pioneer design.

Also AFAIK anyone can go and get a license of Qflix. So it's not a monopoly that can be taken as a sure indicator.

Boxes and Info for the PX-806SA and PX-106a (18x ROM) @ www.cdbest.net:

http://www.cdbest.net/html/2008-10-0...108d75970.html

There is now an official press release:

"Plextor Announces New Lineup of Optical Drives with PlexUTILITIES Advanced Application & Diagnostic Software"

http://www.plextor.com/english/news/...lities_pr.html

An Infos on what drive the PX-106A will be based? The LiteOn iHDP118? The ASUS E818A?

Any news on what PX-806SA and PX-850SA are based on exactly? Is it at least absolutely sure that both are LITEONs? Since it erases, I guess the PX-850SA can't be anything else but an iHAS322, can it.

I want to know if the LiteOn based drives (iHAS/P322), can be crossflashed to Plextor firmware to use it with the PlexUtilities? Is there a PX-850A/SA firmware?

The most recent firmwares on Plextor homepage are all date sometime in 2007

The firmware onboard will be the "Plextor firmware". The question is if there's only the drive ID changed, the changed drive ID plus mods to work with the new Plexutil or id + plexutil mods + more.

And also: Hello? Plextor? Have you forget to ship 806/850 to Europe???

P.S.: I looked today again and didn't find the erase function listed anywhere. I think somebody somewhere made a mistake (I don't know anymore where I saw that, cdr.cz or something). So 850 has no erase function, which makes it a iHAP122/iHAS122 drive to me as long as someone confirms something else. Possible cases:
- iHAP322/iHAS322 with erase deactivated
- not even LITEON drives at all because of the Pioneer top mentioned above (what happended to that really essential discussion btw.??)

Hope it will be an internal version of PX610U... but if it is just a lite-on rebadged drive without any special thing from Plextor, I prefer buying a lite-on, cheaper and with a better firmware support !

Plextor Europe introduced their 820 models to fill the gap between the 800 and 850 at the end of July. I guess they'll want at least 6 Month between releases.

The english press release i linked to above says:
" ... and includes a powerful utility tool which allows for a safe, secure and easy way to destroy data on CD/DVD media. "

Here are some more detailed pictures of the drive / box / nero infotool screenshots / etc.:

http://detail.zol.com.cn/169/168282/pic.shtml

Hey, you even get a PRINTED manual! Anyway, here is a link to the pdf:

http://www.plextor.com/english/produ...l_EN_FR_SP.pdf

Not bad, a manual! It has been years since i ve seen a manual for DVD burners!

PlexERASE is listed in the PX-850A data sheet you get at http://www.plextor.com/english/products/PX-850A.html.

Any reviews of the 850 drives?

Yeah I see it now. It's on the pdf. Thanks!

Wow hwp! This is the coolest link for a long time now here at the Plex thread.

So, again:

With erase fuction present at least the 820A and 820SA drives cannot be Pioneers and the Pioneer-top remains a mistery. Therefore this is the only possible:
- PX-806SA: definitely iHAS120.
- PX-820A: definitely iHAP322.
- PX-820SA: defintely iHAS322.

hwp, do you agree?

I think you have the numbers wrong AFAIK the following are OEMs for recent Plextor drives.

800A = Nec
810SA = Pioneer (212)
810UF = LG (44)
820A/SA = Nec (720x)
830UF = Pioneer (216?)
850A/SA = Liteon
806A = Liteon

The erasing function has only been mentioned for 850 models I think. I don't remember that for the 806, but I could be wrong.


@Arrow:
Unfortunately no reviews yet. I've yet to see someone reporting he actually bought one.

Are you sure the 830UF is a Pioneer 216 ? I thought it was a Pioneer, because 40x writing cds, but a 216/116 ?

Of course. I meant:

- PX-806SA: definitely iHAS120.
- PX-850A: definitely iHAP322.
- PX-850SA: defintely iHAS322.



Finally a full 18x-plus internals list for everyone to read from me from my (now updated) records:

PLEXTOR PX-760A: original design (SANYO chipset)
PLEXTOR PX-760SA: original design (SANYO chipset)
PLEXTOR PX-800A : Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7170A/SONY AW-G170A/SONY DRU-170C (NEC MC-10041)
PLEXTOR PX-810SA: Pioneer DVR-212 (NEC MC-10042)
PLEXTOR PX-820A : Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200A/SONY DRU-V200A (NEC MC-10043)
PLEXTOR PX-820SA: Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200S/SONY DRU-V200A (NEC MC-10044)
PLEXTOR PX-806SA: LITEON iHAS120 (MEDIATEK MT1869L) NEW!
PLEXTOR PX-850A : LITEON iHAP322 (MEDIATEK MT1868L) NEW!
PLEXTOR PX-850SA: LITEON iHAS322 (MEDIATEK MT1869L) NEW!

The iHAP322 uses a MT 1858L, iHAS322 uses a MT 1859L.