Philips PCRW804: A Great CD-RW for a Great Price
Written: Jul 22 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great price, easy to install
Cons: Could be faster, not SCSI
The Bottom Line: Philips PC 800 Series Internal CDRW is a great drive that can be found for an incredible price.
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| gorocco's Full Review: Philips PC 800 Series Internal CDRW |
When I bought my Dell Dimension 8100 computer, I opted not to get a CD-RW drive with it. Why? I thought I could save $60 and scavenge an old drive from my brother. Then I ran across the Philips PCRW804 Internal IDE 8x/4x/32x CD-RW drive at a fantastic price. Is it a steal or is it a lemon?
What Do You Get?
Open up the box and you get the following:
- Philips PCRW804 Internal IDE 8x/4x/32x CD-RW Drive
- EIDE Interface Connector
- Audio Cable
- Philips CD-R74 disk
- Philips CD-RW74 disk
- Adaptec CD Recording Software
- Instruction and Warranty Manuals
The CD-RW drive itself is 146 x 41.3 x 193.1 mm, excluding the front panel and fits easily into any 5.25 floppy drive bay. The front panel has a gold sheen that looks slick (but it appears odd when matched with the silver and black of my Dell). There is a plastic flip cover over the CD tray. The lower portion of the front panel has a headphones jack, volume control (for the headphones), read and write LEDs, and, on the far right, a nice large open/close button. The unit weighs a light 2.09 lbs. (950 g).
The PCRW804 has a max CD-R writing speed of 8x, CD-RW writing speed of 4x, and reading speed of 32x. The drive is also compatible with several different formats including CD-ROM, CD Bridge multisession, CD-extra, and Video CD. The drive comes with a 2 meg buffer.
Installation: Plug and Play!
Anybody can put one of these drives into their computer. All you need is a Philips head screwdriver and long nose pliers (to change jumper settings that set the drive as the master or slave). Installation was incredibly simple. Put in the drive and startup the Adaptec software CD. There were no drivers to install or settings to play with!
While the PCRW804 can perform all of the duties of a regular CD-ROM drive, I recommend having another drive as a “source” for making copies. The included software can copy the contents of the CD into the hard drive before writing it into the CD-R/RW, but copying CDs will go by much quicker if you cut out the middle man.
Note: The box I got states that the drive is compatible with Windows 95/98/NT. I am using a Pentium 4 1.3 Gz with Windows Me. The drive is fully compatible with Win Me, despite what others may tell you!
The Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.02 and Direct CD software was equally painless to install. It requires a minimum of 12 megs to install the required software.
Philips also offers periodic firmware updates on their web site. These upgrades are supposed to improve the performance of the drive, but I did not notice much difference with firmware version 2.2.
Let’s Burn Some CD-Rs!
The software included is very user friendly and is a snap to use. The Easy CD Creator basic software allows you to create music CDs and data CDs (useful for MP3-CDs) as well as copy CDs. Any novice can quickly get started burning their own CDs by just following the on screen instructions.
Creating a CD (74 min., 650 Mb) with the PCRW804 takes roughly 15 minutes. While this is not too bad, a SCSI CD-RW drive would work much faster. However, it is hard to argue with these results given the price I paid for it.
After a burning CD after CD, the drive has performed remarkably. I have had no problems making MP3-CDs for my TDK Mojo as well as other data CDs. I have not copied music CDs; MP3-CDs let me carry so much more music per disk. “Other” CDs that I copied have worked just as well as their originals. The CD-RW drive has survived countless abuse from the large number of video CDs that I have cloned, all of which came out completely intact.
The price was definitely right!
Best Buy normally sells the Philips PCRW804 for $99.99. When I visited the store, Best Buy was selling it for $69.99 (plus free shipping if you buy it online). On top of that, Philips is offering a $40.00 rebate, which you can access through the link below:
www.rebateshq.com/weblogic/rebateshq/parago/
viewPromotionDetails?bundleId=234837&promoCd=01-37104
Final price: $29.99 (+ sales tax).
Final Thoughts: Great deal or total bust?
The Philips PCRW804 Internal IDE 8x/4x/32x CD-RW drive is definitely a steal. The drive has survived intensive use and continues to perform perfectly each time. If you are looking for a CD-RW drive for an affordable price, look into the Philips PCRW804 Internal IDE 8x/4x/32x CD-RW drive!
If you want to read my review of the Dell Dimension 8100 series, please cut and paste the following link:
http://gorocco.epinions.com/content_30945939076/tk_~CB005.1.7
Recommended:
Yes
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gorocco
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Location: Stony Brook, NY
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