Here we go again (finally).

Another review One more old drive left in the review queue on my desk, and I'll be done.

Read our BenQ DW1640 review here: http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/226

You may comment the review and request additional tests in this thread.

My scores for this drive (check my signature):

1: 9 - Very good, but some PIE/PIF spikes when writing DVD+R at 16x and CD-RW writing quality is poor.
2: 9.5 - Close to excellent, the only minor dravback is that the OPC feature seems a bit too sensitive with some media. Excellent overspeeding abilities.
3: 9 - Very good, fastest DVD+R DL writer and overall good CD/DVD-writing speeds.
4: 9- Very good, and seems to be able to read pretty scratched media too.
5: 10 - Excellent! Filled with features, bitsetting, overspeeding, error checking and all the other features in Q-Suite.
6: 8 - About average/good.
7: - skipped
8: 9 - good design, drive is pretty short. Average noise. Working cooling feature.

Overall (not average): 9 - Overall the best drive on the market right now in my opinion.

What little time my 1640 worked i liked it. I bought it mainly for 8X DL burning and it burned great @ 8X DL but faded fast and had to RMA it Oh well i will get another. Thanx for the review OC-Freak

Great review OC!
EDITORS CHOICE...

I see Overburning CD test, but don't see overburning DVDs. Would you be able to do some test and/or confirm some preliminary findings from this thread? thanks.

nice review OCF!!!

Hello!

After long long time finally a complete review, I don´t believe it

Great review, without doubt, but still have some questions:

Ridata G05: 3884 PIF when scanning with a Liteon is far away from "excellent", IMHO

Miflop TYG02: 1435 PIF is a bit to high for that media. Or sells Miflop B-Grade from TY?

Well, I can't agree with you

I rarely have "superduper" good results with TYG02, regardless of brand (these miflop discs seems to be very good in my opinion, the only better ones I've had are plextor branded).

As for RitekG05 - well this media is usually not excellent, but all values are within the allowed...so I'll say it's excellent considering it's ritekG05.

TYG02:

http://apparat.ap.funpic.de/viewtopic.php?t=402

Ok, it´s burned with NEC 3500, but 300 is still high for the TYG02. See often scans with less PIF

Ridata G05:


http://apparat.ap.funpic.de/viewtopic.php?t=171

Still not excellent, but much better that your´s

I agree that the Ritek are not top-quality, but over 4000 PIF looks very high, even for this disc.

4000 PIE or PIF?

4000 max PIF -> unreadable, too many uncorrectible errors...

4000 PIE for a Ritek is slightly off cosidering Ritek noy highest quality but still not too bad...

CoolieCool

@CoolieCool

We are not talking MAX - we are talking total amount for the whole disc.

Personally I'm not taking total values too serious as long as the max and average values are within acceptable values.

You are joking, right?!

Given the size of the disc, the average value can be calculated from the total value and vice versa - they are proportional!

And you care about one value and not the other?

What I care about is: Is the disc within the specs? If it is I will go further and comment the result based on average PIE and PIF.

Notice that a VERY tiny scratch will affect the total count of PIE and PIF errors. But since there ( usually at least ) are fewer PIF errors total the total numbers will increas much more in % than the total number of PIE errors will increase. scratches etc will often be seen as areas filled with PIF errors, like seen on the TYG02 and ritekG05 results in this review - I'm pretty sure there was dust particles or tiny scratches at the place you could se many PIF errors right after each other. I don't think scratches/dust should count against how I comment the results in the reviews - as that has very little to do with how good the writer is.

OC, nice review, as always. How about some Sony media? How do Sony discs burn on the Benq? Moser Baer discs?

Great Review OC-Freak!!

It's impossible to include every media in a review - that will cost too much and take even more time.

Maybe it would be better to replace some of the media types with sony media? What do you think?

Sony media is only available as 8x here - was it 8x you were thinking of?
Moser baer DVD media is about impossible to get here.

For 16x media - all 16x media I could possibly get here is already included in the review. So you can't request additional 16x media tests without providing me with the media first

found Cd freaks review of BenQ 1640, very informative, thorough and unbiased analysis. This review gives a reader the most actual facts about this drive. Thanks CD Freaks for this rewarding review.

Yep, some 8X Sony media, in place of those Optodiscs ought to be fine
Damn.. didn't realise MBI wasn't easily available there. I'll post some scans from MBI media on my (out on loan currently) 1640 soon.

Media provided to me for free (like optodisc) is not going to be replaced by media I have to pay for myself - that is for sure. If Sony did provide me with media, their media would already have been included.

Suggest something else - maybe remove Prodisc 16x DVD+/-R and replacing it with Sony 8x media? j/k

Fair enough, I see your point! Don't worry then, I'll post some Sony and MBI scans meself..was just getting too greedy with *your* tests.

Hi
I would like to agree an excellent review, many thanks OC
My only comment would be to steer clear of BenQ 8X media see here

As i have only just added this drive to my other dvd writers and have not yet had time to test this review gives me something to go on for now..
Nice review btw a lot of people dont realise the time and effort put into getting a review posted..

Umm?

No problems here with BenQ 8x DVD+/-R, see my results in the same thread.

Hi
Just added two more recent scans to same thread, same results. ****

lolzzzz, my apologies...

Aproximately, how many errors are there when the max PIE is 280 and the max PIF is 4?

CoolieCool

Great review, thanks OC-Freak.

BenQ 1640 Supported Media List on BenQ Europe site. (9/9 2005)
Note title; "Guideline for supported DVD+R / DVD-R Media on the DW1640. Please use the latest firmware." (Bolding by me.)