Well to put it simply, this combo drive from sony is really decent and does what it is supposed to do efficiently and silently. I recently bought a new PC - assembled it myself- and I’m very happy to choose SONY combo drive. it’s speed specs are 48x24x48x16x don’t think its slow just b’cos it doesn’t have a 52x in it; 52x or 48x doesn’t really make much difference.
This drive runs by default at a MAX speed of 40x (read/write CD). If you have a CD capable of higher speeds, you can jus hold the eject button pressed for 5 secs, and the drive goes into turbo mode, giving you max speed of 48x. this seems to be some sort of protection feature.
Be it while writing or reading, the drive is really very silent, even more silent than the LITE-ON LTR (on which I have written a positive review). The tray design is very strong (this is crucial, I have seen CR-ROMs by samsung/acer, whose trays are quite loose - and that isn’t a good indication!) haven’t yet tried reading a DVD from it, but CD-R and CD-RW work just perfectly fine. It took me at the most 5 mins to burn a full 700MB data CD at 40x. (at that time I hadn’t read the manual and didn’t know about the turbo mode). and with 48x, it takes less than 4 mins.
Now you know what I mean by ’’it doesn’t make much difference btn 48x and 52x - even 40x and 48x has so little difference! - maybe this is just b’cos my system config is really good) but yes while reading a CD, make sure you switch to turbo mode if the CD is capable of speeds higher than 40x, it does make a difference while copying files on to the harddisk. It does have on con though, it doesn’t have a seperate indicator for read/write mode.
The LITEON-LTR indicates write mode with red led and green led for reading; the sony has only the green led, indicating that some process is going on with the drive! costwise, the drive is value for money, the dealer gave me the combo dive for just Rs.3600/- and doesn’t matter if the budget brings down the prices even more; I’m happy that I paid for something worth it. But what caught my attention the most is the absolutely silent function of this drive, its simply amazing; you get to hear some noise only when the drive is running @ 48x; that too minimal noise. at par or even better than LITEON-LTR in this aspect. :-)
I definitely recommend this drive, and assure you that you will be happy with it. I hear this one has been recommended by some magazine too. Not sure whether it’s CHIP or DIGIT. It comes with Nero burning rom(nero express) 5.x , InCD, PowerDVD. you get no empty media with it though, go and buy yourselves! 1 ide cable included but surprisingly, no analog audio cable! (anyway you hardly use it!) 1 year warrenty. A good buy!