Check out my NEC ND-2500A review here.

As always - comments welcomed.

As always an excellent review. You have pointed pro and con very clearly.

I will go for the excellent writing.

I have a 165h and a 52327s to use were the NEC 2500a fail.

Yes, your review is indeed excellent, OC-Freak.
Thanks very much for this one.

Actually your tests made me buy the ND-2500A.

Prior to these the BenQ DW800A has been my first choice as all the Nexperia-based +R 8x burners turned out to produce by far the best writing quality (measured on Audiodev hardware by c't magazine) due to their WOPC mechanism.

Now, after having read your review (and with booktype settings not being an issue anymore) I decided in favour of dual format 8x writing, putting my trust in your KProbe results when it comes to writing quality...




regards,
muskrat

An excellent and greatly anticipated review OC. Well done

The drive seems to be great as far as burning quality is concerned. Nice PI/PO averages.

excellent review OC-Freak

/me throws away crappy LiteOn 411S and buys ND2500A

Good review ... respect

looks like i'll be buying a nec soon =]

As always, great job on the review!

Some really nice write quality, I'm impressed.

My XP picked up IMAPI.sys when I connected the drive
Driver Provider: Microsoft

But the driver is slow and would only write CDs at 4x. How do I get it to recognize ATAPI.SYS to get better write sppeds?

Thats some good quality burns!!
Im waiting for Pioneer A07 reviews though

Nice review, OC.

I'm also waiting for the A07, very good review indeed!

I don't know how if it's expensive and complicated to order from Germany since Norway is outside EU but the German webshop Nierle ships to Norway according to their website and they sell some media that would be interesting to see in the tests (such as CMC Mag, Optodisc and Ritek 4x +R).

Nice review, too bad the ND-2500A doesn't support book type changing (or does it?) because then I would be tempted to buy one.

As always, a great review.
Really impressive burn quality, with both CDR and DVDR.
Besides speed, are there any advantages of a 2 zone Z-CLAV over a 3 zone Z-CLAV?
And is that something that can be changed with firmware update?
Right now that appears to be the only thing that is holding me back from getting one.

@jsl: getting things shipped to Norway is a PAIN IN THE ASS, due to our customs..... Nope it do not support bit-setting out of the box - I would have added that under positive if it did.

@hilander: having only 2 zones (one at 6x and one at 8x) gives faster speed and lower write time, but requires higher rotation speed = more heat/noise and maybe lower write quality if the drive manufacturer have not got everything 100% right/correctly calibrated. This is very unlikely to be changed by a firmware upgrade.

Very good review! It was the reason i bought the drive the day after it was posted!
Great write quality just like you wrote.
One thing though...
You posted many many negative stuff that weren't really negative or necesary.Ok it is a bit slower than the 8x plextor/liteon drives, but i don't think that the 32x cdr is a huge minus (compared to 40x liteon).If someone wants superfast cd writing he wouldn't buy an 8x dvdr...
Also we all know that in terms of media compatibility the nec drives are the best (herrie rules).
And for last, few people attempt to copy an original safedisc (or any kind) protected game...
Just observations! My congrats!

In a review it very important to mention what the drive are good at and what it not that good at.

I don't take it negative, but things to consider when I choose to purchase hardware.

The buyer must decide what of the pro and con have importance for him or her.

So, you are telling me that the 32x in cdwriting is a big negative?
There is a difference between negative and plain good.
16x IS slow (negative)... 32x ISN'T ...
And how many other drives are capable to easy copy write protected discs ?

No he aint telling you that. What jbv correctly pointed out is that when reviewing a drive you have to show its pros and cons, so that the reader can decide on which of these positive or negative remarks are important to himself.

So for someone like you (and me ) 40x CD writing aint important when talking about a DVD recorder drive, still for someone else could be, if ie he doesnt have another CD recorder and wants to combine both.

At the end of the day, the end consumer will decide which of the pros and cons pointed out in the review are important to him or not. Its the reviewer's job though to find them and point them out to him

Has anyone seen any other reviews? I was just about to buy the pioneer 106 when I saw this review, but since I will use it to store important data I hesitate to buy it based only on one single positive review.

I owned pioneer a06 before nec2500a and i assure you that nec2500 is superior...

I'm currently researching before I purchase an 8x dvd burner. I've read the review for this and it looks good. The one thing I'd like clarified is: if I want to copy a DVD I made with my home tv panasonic recorder, 4 hours of programming, this recorder will not be able to make a copy? if not any suggestions to an 8x burner that does not have the 90 minute restriction. Or does the 90 minute restriction mean runnning time from a souce that is playing - such as a dvd, vcr tape or television?

The 90 min are only when you burn cdr and have no influence on dvd burning.

You can buy cdr media with 90 min and 99 min, and nd2500 can only burn up to 90 min and can not use 99 min cdr.

Both 90 min and 99 min are over normal value 80 min.

If you dont need to burn over 90 min then no problem for you if you get a nd2500.