ok guys, the battle between these two titans has just begun. Which drive do you guys recommend for having the highest burn quality on a broad range of media's.

GSA-4163B is very different from DW1620.

1. P-CAV versus CAV

2. Conservative about bitsetting and overspeed writing versus agressive about bitsetting and overspeed writing

3. Hitachi technology versus Philips technology

4. South Korean market oriented versus Taiwanese market oriented

5. Super Multi versus DVD+RW converted to DVD+RW/+R/-R/-RW

6. No PIE/PIF/POF/Jitter scanning versus PIE/PIF/Jitter scanning

In my opinion, trying to compare write quality on GSA-4163B and DW1620 on a "wide range" of DVD media can be very misleading because they write too differently and some drives are actually made not to write well on some media.

which drive has a better built quality?

What's a better built quality?

you know like, some drives are flimsey and some robust like the plextor!!!

I think what swifty7 (and others) are looking for is insights on the mechanical quality of the two drives. mean time between failures would be great, but any other clues to the likelyhood of burning out a motor, gears or belts wearing out and leading to wobble, etc. would be great.

For burning dvds other then dvd ram BenQ is far ahead of LG in writing quality and features, and it's priced better too here in Canada. You can can grab one for about 75 bucks at canadacomputers.com

Prove it by comparing GSA-4163B with DW1620 in identical situations.

GSA-4163B costs under US$80 in the US and it's about that in most other countries. If you mean "far better priced" DW1620, it should be US$50 at most. Of course, the fact you are in Canada does not matter much because it's just a question about "burn quality" and there might be countries where DW1620 is priced more than GSA-4163B.

DVD-RAM itself is a feature about compatible media standard. DW1620 does not have something in place of DVD-RAM, such as PD, MO, FDD, Blu-ray, or whatever else. What DW1620 has which GSA-4163B doesn't have are like Qscan and PIE/PIF/Jitter scanning. What's the point of comparing DVD-RAM with write quality scanning?

I recently bought one from online store for $65, it hasn't arrived yet!
OEM version not retail!!!

In US dollars or Canadian dollars. (Keep in mind there are also people who use Singapore dollars, Hong Kong dollars, Australian dollars, etc., not to mention all the people with Yen, Yuan, Won, Euro, Pound, etc.)

I meant it's far ahead in writing quality excluding dvd ram because it doesn't do dvd ram and from what I know very few people are using dvd ram in north america, the lower price is a bonus. Plus it supports bitsetting on +rw and you can do PIE/PIF/Jitter scanning which is another good feature. Also BenQ offered free upgrades from 1600 model to the 1620 pro which is great, unlike LG that sold the 4120 (same hardware) as 4160, alot of dissapointed customers of 4160 because they never released bitsetting firmware, while it was offered in a older model (4120). Doesn't make sense.

Here are a couple of scans of dvds burned using BenQ1620. Keep in mind these are very cheap (qualitywise and pricewise) media. Which alot of burners have problems burning.

Optodisc media are hardly used by LG DVD writer users. Not a meaningful test for comparison. Optodisc media are hardly good. Princo media can also sometimes generate such low PIF levels. But not always.

As far as I have seen, average writing quality on LG drives has been far better than that of BenQ drives. It's just that there are more BenQ lovers than LG lovers on CDFreaks.

It's pointless to talk about DVD-RAM write quality in BenQ when not one BenQ drive has DVD-RAM. The important thing first of all is that LG does have DVD-RAM while BenQ doesn't. That is media support specification. Whether BenQ has DVD+RW bitsetting or not is entirely another issue. Can you really say a truck that has eight wheels is better than a limousine with four wheels but a lot of luxury components inside? For a truck, more wheels might be more important than luxury seats and bullet-proof windows. Quite many peopl e in South Korea, Japan, and the US seem to use DVD-RAM from what I've seen. It can't be compared to DVD+R/-R users because they are entirely for different purposes. If the fact that more people use DVD+R/-R than DVD-RAM can be used to advertise BenQ drives, the same can be said about DVD+RW bitsetting and PIE/PIF/Jitter scanning. How many people use DVD+RW bitsetting and disc quality scanning? I seriously believe there are more people who have used DVD-RAM than BenQ's quality scanning and DVD+RW bitsetting.

Again, there are places where LG drives are cheaper than BenQ drives, so your saying of "the lower price is a bonus" shouldn't be used to promote BenQ drives on LG forum.

Which was used to sell more BenQ drives of DW1600 in the first place. BenQ announced it long before the actual firmware releases of B7P9 and B7S9. It was marketing more than anything else. LG surely didn't add bitsetting in GSA-4160B but who really had to buy GSA-4160B when everyone was saying GSA-4160B was just the same GSA-4120B with 16x DVD+R added? BenQ works with Philips. Philips is the DVD+RW company and as such has a lot of reasons to promote DVD+RW bitsetting because it's money for them. LG has the opposite reason because LG works with Hitachi. Hitachi receives money from DVD-RAM licensing. What doesn't make sense? As for some irregularities, do what Sony and BenQ do always make sense? Why is that important in discussing which drives are good at writing backup disks?

Post information to help others. Not to help your own beliefs to promote a specific vendor. If you want to compare LG GSA-4163B and BenQ DW1620, do so please, but the purpose should be to help people here, not to prove that you are right in saying BenQ is better.

Exactly, Thankyou. You said it for me. Thankyou.

I tend to agree with KENSHIN. DVD RAM is much more usefull for me than error scanning. Practically I do not care too much about error scanning as I use decent media any way with 4120B which is known to burn this media in very good quality. Low errors do not guarantee anyway long life with cheap media as it is not only the errors that count (raw materials, dye, finish, etc..). DVD RAM is highy usefull to me as I have to backu on a daily basis all my work data files (faxs, office and pst) and DVD RAM allows backing up changes only with highest reliability and error correction capabilities compared to other media types.

BENQ is a very interesting burner, but i prefer DVD RAM 10 times over overspeeding, scanning and RW bitsetting.

US dollars!!

I recently bought the Benq 1620 and in the future I will buy the LG drive, that way I will have the best of both worlds!!!

brand-wise, i'd say BenQ is better. not to diss LG or anything, but just too many bad experiences with LG stuff (includ. home appliances too)

i know its a vague comparison but BenQ really has good customer support service compared to LG. And BenQ is just starting to entering the North American market, we should give it a try as its really doing a good job. (btw, i know benQ is acer, but its under different management)

BenQ is just starting to entering North America and how could you be sure BenQ is better and what about the millions of LG consumers of TV, refrigerator, DVD players, mobile phones, etc. that are just happy with the products and services?

It's not a good comparison. BenQ is almost non-existence in many important markets and is a relatively new creation though Acer group has been in the field for some decades. You just can't compare a South Korean company with a Taiwanese company because their economic structures are nearly the opposite to each other. The more you understand it, you'll realize how pointless it is. That is one of the many reasons why I recommend comparing specific examples from each product run in the same situation. I do have both GSA-5163D (an external version of GSA-4163B) and DW1620 (Nu-tech OEM made by BenQ) and so it is easier for me to compare the two drives run at once in the same PC with identical settings, media batches, etc. Even such tests could be misleading because most posters right here seem to prefer presenting only the parts they want to show as examples just to prove their points, not really to compare the drives objectively.

forgive my bluntness....but who really cares? Both are so cheap you should really have both...I do and think both are great!!!!

these issues of who is better really are meaningless now...prices are so good grab them up!!!!

I can't agree more. The time spent on so pointless arguments can be spent on earning enough money to buy both GSA-4163B and DW1620 unless one earns something like US$2 per hour (like many South Koreans do.)

actually I have a 4120b....but when I get a chance it will be sold for the 4163b

A friend of mine bought a 4160 because the 4120 were sold out, and he doesn't care about bitsetting (in fact he probably doesn't even know what bitsetting is)

I know this might sound stupid and probably this question has been answered before but, since both drives are so identical, if someone really wants bitsetting in his 4160, can't he simply flash it with a 4120 firmware?

Unfortunately, it seems LG firmwares for DVD writers are rather difficult to hack and not many are interested in the work. I don't know whether it's technically possible to flash GSA-4160 with a 4120 firmware. I haven't seen a real GSA-4160B yet.

It all probably proves again LG should have skipped GSA-4120B and GSA-4160B and instead introduced GSA-4163B in early 2004. It would have made LG rethink about overspeeding since there were practically no 16x DVD media on the market.