Buying a CD Burner...need help

[SW MI Planner]

I think we are breaking down and buying one. Anyone have suggestions?

Best buy has a Memorex (52x24x52) CD-RW on sale and Circuit City has a I/O Magic (52x24x52) CD-RW on sale. Does brand make a difference? I'm being cheap, but don't want a piece of crap. The one at Circuit City has average reviews and comes with music software.

Also, what type of CD's to buy? From what I understand, the CD-RW don't necessarily play on every player?

Any help/advice would be appreciated

 

[NHPlanner]

CD-RW are re-writable, and generally not compatible with regular CD-ROM drives (to the best of my knowledge).

CD-R are writeable once, until they are full, and for the most part will be compatible with regular CD-ROM drives once written.

I'm no expert, but that's my understanding of the two types of drives. I have a CD-R at home and access to one at work....they do the job for me....both for data and music.

 

[Habanero]

I know you should buy the CD-R kind. For some reason my car cd player hates CD-Rs that are burned fast, so any cd I burn I have to burn it at 4x rather than the 16x+ that my cd burner does automatically (internal cd/dvd burner on the Sony Vio).

We had an external HP for our last one and I wouldn't suggest that kind, but I can't tell you about the other two- can they give you a run down of the features on both so you can compare?

 

[Dan]

CD-RW drives are almost commodity items now. Plextor is the brand to get, but it tends to be a bit more expensive than the competition. Teac is known as a good, reliable brand. I've got an MSI DragonWriter, and I'm happy with it.

Make sure that the model you buy has buffer underrun error prevention; it'll redice the number of coasters you end up with.

Save money, and go mail order ... http://www.newegg.com is highly recommended by the geek community, and always has specials on CD.RW drives with free shipping. If you spend more than $50 for a CD-RW drive, including shipping, you've paid too much.

CD-RW discs can't be read in some older CD-ROM drives. They're good for work disks or scratch disks. Use a GOOD, name-brand CD-R for archiving. Seriously, I've had labels of cheapo CD-Rs flake off, making the dsk unreadable. Even then, I usually don't burn discs at more than 16X or 20X with my 52X drive. I find that discs burned slowly tend to be more compatible with a wider range of CD-ROM players.

 

[Repo Man]

I know you should buy the CD-R kind. For some reason my car cd player hates CD-Rs that are burned fast, so any cd I burn I have to burn it at 4x rather than the 16x+ that my cd burner does automatically (internal cd/dvd burner on the Sony Vio).

I had the same problem with my Honda Accord stereo. It got to the point where I gave up and bought a in-dash CD/MP3 player, allowing me to play any burned CD and cds with mp3 files.

"LiteOn" CD Burners provide a nice balance between features and affordability. Yamaha is also good.

I agree with dan on NewEgg, it is awesome. Tiger Direct (www.tigerdirect.com) also has great deals on computer parts.

 

[The Irish One]

Plextor is the brand to get

these are great!

I wouldn't by memorex.