Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A

There can't be that many PC owners who worry about the speed of their CD-RW drive: as long as it writes discs reliably within 10 minutes or so, they're happy. Some people, however, simply must have the fastest drive available and that's where Plextor comes in.

The new PlexWriter 40/12/40A CD-RW drive is not only quick but crams in a bounty of features designed to make disc-writing as fast and foolproof as possible.

The PlexWriter is an internal IDE drive, which means you'll have to pop the case off your PC and slot it into a free 5.25in drive bay. This may seem like a daunting task for a novice but it's really very straightforward and shouldn't take more than 30 minutes.

Once fitted, Windows XP users can use the drive as-is, thanks to XP's built-in CD-RW support. Everyone else can use the supplied Nero software bundle, which is as good as any.

There are five CD-Rs and a single CD-RW to get you started and, if the drive goes wrong for any reason, Plextor will collect and replace it under its two-year warranty deal.

So with the dull stuff out of the way, what about performance? As indicated by the PlexWriter's name, the drive reads at 40-speed, rewrites (to CD-RW) at 12-speed and writes (to CD-R) at 40 speed. Our tests mostly confirmed this, giving average figures of 32-speed, 12-speed and 30-speed respectively.

Before you think Plextor is fibbing though, we also confirmed that the PlexWriter's speed did peak at 40-speed for reading and writing (to CD-R), which is what the quoted figures for the drive actually mean.

Finally, those features. Not only is the PlexWriter burn-proof but it has 4Mb of memory to prevent buffer underrun, adjusts write-speed based on the quality of the disc it's writing to, alters write-speed mid-write for best results, and even adjusts its burning to ensure that burned audio CDs sound sharp.

/b> £162 (inc. VAT)

Contact: 0870 755 4747
www.plextor.com

Also consider: Yamaha CRW3200
A high-quality CD-RW. £90 *****.