We've seen the
first wave of Blu-ray burners receive their
appropriate testing, and while most were deemed satisfactory, all demanded a mighty (and most likely unworthy) pricetag for such sluggish write speeds. Plextor's
PX-B900A sports the same ultraslow 2x write speeds for both single and dual-layer BD-R / BD-RE discs, but offered decent burning speeds for the "other formats." PC World was most impressed with this particular drive's ease of installation -- something
other drives haven't exactly provided -- and the fleshed-out bundle of software that comes packed in. Reviewers were thoroughly pleased with the inclusion of Blu-ray
movie playback software, as well as the video editing / authoring and packet writing programs. While they were none too pleased with the
$999 price, they did feel that the cost was
somewhat more justified thanks to the smattering of great software that came along with it, and crowned it "a solid value" if you just can't wait another day to pick up an internal
Blu-ray burner.
posted Nov 28th 2006 5:12AM
This one is the best. I like it more than the SONY, LG and Panasonic drives...
I'm a Plextor fanboy after figuring out how to get the SATA burners to burn on XP MCE. (Firmware 1.05 on the US sites fixes this). All my last four drives have been plextors. Heavy pricetag, but solid drives with immense quality feel
Info about the other 12 Blu-ray drives:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=2615
DVD drives used to cost around that when they were first introduced into the market so whats the big deal? Its a new technology wait a year and prices will drop and write speeds will increase.
$999? Yikes...
How much were DVD burners in their prime?
About the same, and I know CD burners were up there too at one point.
Regardless of the justification, $999 is still a lot to pay for a drive, though Plextor is a respected brand. The good news is that it's list. I expect the retail price to quickly drop. I do not agree that it will take a year for prices to go down. Blu-ray Internal ATA BD-RE Drives are now selling for $749 at retail - but I would rather strike a bargain on the Plextor with its awesome collection of software.
yaaaaaaaay now we can burn those iso images from ps3 games backup the entire pc ... does it come with linux drivers?
If Sony wants Blu-Ray to take off, they need to spend less time worrying about which studios are subscribing to them and more time getting the price of these burners down to the sub $500 price. As more people pick these up, everything else will flow from there.
Single-write blanks are $15-$20 (25GB) and $30 (50GB), and people are complaining that the burner costs a grand?