BENQ DW 1600 review

Media Compatibility Tests

A selection of various Single Layer 2.4x, 4x and 8x +/-, as well as CD\RW media was recorded on to the BENQ DW 1600 to see if the rated speeds where reached using 1Click DVD Copy for our DVD Video and CopyToDVD 3 for our data compilation.

As it is a newer drive, older media should not be a problem for this drive and we would expect it to record to all the tested media correctly.

Here's a list of all the media that was tested in the BENQ DW 1600 with firmware B5G9, the rated recording speeds and dye codes, as well as the speed reached during recording:

***Although this media was recorded by the BenQ, it was not readable in any drive we tested it in. BenQ say their next firmware will address this issue and Ritek based DVD+R D/L will record and play fine.

As you can see from the above table the B5G9 firmware of this drive can recognise almost all DVD+R media at its rated speed during our recording tests, although it must be noted that the Ritek DVD+R D/L was not readable after recording.

The Taiyo Yunden 40x CDR used in these tests where recognised correctly at 40x. BenQ have a goodhistory of quick firmware updates so no doubt a new firmware will be out very shortly to correct this issue and it will recognise and record all media listed at its rated speed.

Another interesting note to point out to our readers from the above table is that the RICOHJPN R01-02 dye used on our printable 4x+R media was not able to be written past its rated speed of 4x, although our Plextor 708 can record to them at 8x and the NEC 2510A can write to them at 6x.

During our tests the BENQ DW 1600 showed very good compatibility with a wide range of CDRW\DVDRW media. The BENQ DW 1600 was also able to read the Verbatim D/L media that we placed in it without any problems, but although our Ritek D/L media was recognised and recorded too, it was not playable in any DVD software or hardware player. BenQ say that this is will be rectified in a later firmware update.