You can find it here: http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/267




Feel free to comment the review in this thread.

Firmware P1.4 firmware has been out a little while - why did you use 1.3 for the review?

Because P1.4 was released after the review was finished.

Hi
My you've been busy Jan70. Another excellent review & although I've had the opportunity to crossflash 1 of my 1650s' with the P1.4 f/w. I feel that there's merit in using f/w supplied. In some reviews f/w used on review drive hasn't been available to the general public. Nice one.

Is this basically the same drive as the BenQ DW1650?

Yes.

OK, thanks.

One more great drive. But since I already own a 1648, I got a 1650 instead (of the 1660).
One thing I haven"t been able to answer is:
Why has BenQ done a 1650 which offers no thing more than the 1640.
and now, why has philips done a 1660 which offers no thing more than the 1648???

I've been searching through this forum hoping to
find the difference(s) between the 1640 and the 1650.
I haven't had any luck, and have been hoping that
one of the folks that own both drives and are technically
savy will enlighten us.
Whatever the answer, I've decided I'm going to buy
a DW1650.

The only reason I mention it is because the 1.4 firmware is supposed to address some of the negatives of the conclusions.

It takes time to do a review and thus he did not have a chance to use p1.4 FW. If you guys feel that the review is doing an injustice to the drive because of the older fw used, feel free to post the scans on the newer firmware. I like the scan on 8X +R Ricoh burnt at 16X.

Thanks Jan for your great work, a very comprehensive review. Any1 wanna post this same drive using BenQ FW side by side with Philips FW?? I wanna see which FW is better

I tried one Verbatim DVD+R DL 8x media, to see if the drive was able to burn both layers at 8x with the new firmware. The result is attached below:

As requested, Ricoh DVD+R 8x at 16x:
SB – On
OS - On

Hardware differences:

Chipset:
Philips DVDR1648 - Nexperia PNX 7860E/G/M1
Philips DVDR1660 - Nexperia PNX 7862EL

Ratings:
Philips DVDR1648 – 5V 1.8A – 12V 1.4A
Philips DVDR1660 – 5V 1.6A – 12V 1.8A

The PCB (Printed Circuit Board) also differ on the two models

Someone covered this a little while back. I seem to recall it was the speed of +/+RW writing. A jump from 6X to 8X or something like that. Definately not anything significant. Same thing for the Philips clones.

Jan, the wrong scan is shown for DAXON016S - you have repeated the DAXON.AZ3 scan

Would be interested to see how the DAXON016S burned

Thanks Jack

The right image has been added.

Thanks Jan70 for yet another excellent review. Any information about why the current (ampere) ratings differ, because from what I can see there is no hardware difference (except those mentioned).

BTW, I see you are review coordinator and I have a request; is it possible to implement a divider (a line) between media test results.

Thanks very much for the info.

Jan, I forgot to say thanks for a great review

Nice review, Jan.

I wonder if Philips mentions the SolidBurn and OverSpeed options anywhere in the documentation with this drive.

Reason I ask is that I had just bought a Philips SPD6000 (new LS model). As far as I could tell from the information on this forum, that should have been a BenQ 1655 rebadge. However, there was no mention of SB or OS and the drive was not supported by QSuite 2.1. In the end, my drive turned out to be defective (it produced two coasters out of three burns, then stopped recognizing any media I fed it, so I returned the drive and bought a BenQ 1655 instead). Maybe it was not even a BenQ rebadge at all.
Anyway, I could not find any info about SolidBurn or OverSpeed (or any utility to set it) with the SPD6000, so I wonder if this is the case with the DVDR1660.

Hi,There is some documetation available at http://www.storageupdates.philips.com/en/dvdrw.html
1660 can be crossflashed to Benq 1650 and vice versa. Qsuite will work perfectly with the Benq and with fewer functionality (if it works) with Phillips. In that case it is just a matter of software.

Michael

Hi
If using Philips 1660 or 1668.
SB & OS can be enabled via CD/DVDSpeed when used with ala42s EnableSolidBurn.Reg (see link in my sig).
There are some burning programs around like ImgBurn that also allows setting these features.

So is the Benq 1650 pretty much the same as the Benq 1640? Which means it's an excellent drive? I ask because the Benq 1640 got an Editor's choice award while the Philips DVDR1660/Benq 1650 only got a, "Overall a good drive, that offers some really nice features, making it suitable for both beginners and advanced users”.

Hi
I think that as the 1640 has done so well, folks are reluctant to replace this shining star. Plus it now been around a while so 'can be said to stand the test of time'. With the new kid on the block (1660 or 1650) the potential is greater, of course we'll need good f/w upgrades to realise this. But already with 16x media the 1650 surpasses the 1640.