I had bought a BenQ DW1650 writer a month back but it was defective. My vendor gave it for servicing but it could not be repaired and he rang me up this evening that he could give an asus dvd-writer as a replacement. He didn’t mentioned the model no. but if it is Asus DRW-1608P (ASUSTeK Computer Inc.) then should I go for it? Thx.
Its a Pioneer DVR-109 OEM. Should be good. Wait for the Optical guru TechHead to reply though.
But the support that you get from Rashi for Asus products does not leave much to write about. If something were to go wrong…
Hi’
asus is good but why don’t u settl for lite on:)
Liteon or any other dvd-writer is not available with him.
How about LG?
Cos liteon is the suckiest DVD burner available on planet earth other than samsungs :P. Get an LG H10A if you can’t get the Benq.
LG H10N is readily available now.
I don’t think that’s an option now but I should have got an LG DVD-writer in the first place. LG has got very support in my city.
Hmm, then wait for Techhead’s advice. He is the optical drive Guru here.
Bought home the Asus DVD-writer about an hour back. Its a DRW-1608P3S model. I’m going to burn a few of my divx movies today and see how it goes. Will be burning them to writex media. Hope they will be no problems playing them on my dvd player. 
Cdfreaks review of this drive (ASUS DRW-1608P3S DVD Burner Review [9/9]) mentioned that it does not support reading from Lead-in and Lead-out which will make it difficult to create perfect copies of CD-Audio.
How does one find out whether a particular drive support lead-in or lead-out?
Burned 4.38 GB of assorted video files on a writex dvd-r at 8X. Took exactly 15 mins for burning and verification. Is the speed ok? Also how does one find out whether a particular drive support lead-in or lead-out?
^That’s fine.With verification, that is.
The 109 is a fine drive,check out tdb.rpc1.org for modded firmwares. Why don’t you ask the vendor to give you the 1608P3? It is based off the Pio 111, with -RAM read and write capability as well. Failing that, the 1608 is a good drive.
Well mine is a 1608P3S model and it reads/write DVD-RAM at 5X.
^Excellent. It is a Pio 111 OEM. Keep it.. awesome drive.
Yup, its a great drive. My only worry is that the cdfreaks review mentioned that one will have some difficulty in creating perfect copies of CD-Audio as it does not support reading from Lead-in and Lead-out (whatever that is?).