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LITEON SOHW-1673S DVD Burner Review

Company:

LITEON, www.liteonamericas.com

Price:

Average retail price is about $60 US.

Ratings

Price:
Install/Setup:
Usability:
Support:
Average Rating:

Pros:

• Consistent LITEON quality and speed
• Excellent price
• 16x on ±R and 4x on DL

Cons:

• Still no DVD-RAM support from LITEON

Getting Started

An optical drive is an optical drive is an optical drive. As long as it says it has the burn speed rating I want the drive will work. This may be the case if you are just using an optical CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. But when it comes to burning DVDs in any format or even CDs, it does matter what you get and who made it. And nobody does it better than LITEON. Today we take a look at the LITEON SOHW-1673s DVD burner. You get the same dual layer, dual format, fast DVD reader and writer that you always get from LITEON. The real difference between this and any other LITEON drive is the burn speeds. The 1673s sports 16x DVD±R and 4x Dual Layer speeds. Sure you've seen 16x for +R discs, but have you seen this on -R? Not many manufactures have this option yet. LITEON was one of the first. Add in the 4x dual layer speed and you will be hard pressed to find another drive out there. The real difference between this and any other DVD burner out there is simple. LITEON has it all. With their consistent quality and reputation you can't go wrong here.

Click on picture to enlarge image

What does the added speed the 1673s provides really translate to? To you it means obviously a faster burn. With the change from 2.4x to 4x on dual layer, in our test equates to about a 25 minute burn instead of about a 48 minute burn. The 16x -R burn speed takes burn time down to just a few minutes. Adding speed isn't everything though. Quality can become an issue when burning faster. But LITEON has you covered here with features that keep your quality consistently high, but keeps things quiet with the fast speeds. SMART-BURN®, SMART-X®, and VAS® are what we are referring to. SMART-BURN® stands for Smart Monitoring Adapting Recording Technology for BURNing. It avoids Buffer Under Run errors by automatically adjusting writing strategy while running OPC to provide the best burning quality. SMART-X® stands for Smart Monitoring Adjusting Read-speed Technology for eXtraction. It does what is sounds like...basically giving you consistent quality with fast access times. In our tests this consistently means fast reading and fast ripping capabilities. VAS® stands for Vibration Absorber System which makes this drive quiet during usage.

Specifications

Adding It All Up

For this price and with a name like LITEON behind it, you can't go wrong with the LITEON SOHW-1673s DVD burner. This is now my new favorite storage devices.

Because of the excellent quality and super-fast burning speeds at a tremendously low price, we are awarding the LITEON SOHW-1673s DVD burner the UpgradAdvisor.com Recommended Upgrade seal of approval!!!

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