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For this review, I chose a more simplistic "every day user" approach; trying to simulate real world every day use into some of the tests below. </p> <p align="left">I started off with an old favorite, SiSoft Sandra, and benched my Sony DRU-710A for a quick comparison. Here's Sony's Bench below using the "Saw" DVD: </p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/liteon/7big.jpg"><img src="atruereview/liteon/7.jpg" alt="LiteOn Dual Layer SOHW-1673S" border="0" width="350" height="338"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font> </p> <p>Here is the LiteOn's benchmarks using the same DVD for reference. As you can see, the LiteOn is slightly faster than the comparable Sony. <p> A quick burn with a 7,505mb test file showed nearly identical burn times though, with the SOHW-1673S a scant 21 seconds faster on the fly, burning Double Layer DVD+R at 4X respectively. <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/liteon/8big.jpg"><img src="atruereview/liteon/8.jpg" alt="LiteOn Dual Layer SOHW-1673S" border="0" width="350" height="338"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font> <div align="left"> <p align="left">The graph below shows a quick features reference. I was a little taken a back at the fact that the drive did not include Mount Rainer support, although it is a somewhat outdated technology as DVD burning support reigns. For the price, these features are quite on the money and definitely an excellent value in a Dual Layer DVD drive. </p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/liteon/9big.jpg"><img src="atruereview/liteon/9.jpg" alt="LiteOn Dual Layer SOHW-1673S" border="0" width="250" height="312"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font> </p> <p align="left">Continuing with the dual layer burning, the SOHW-1673S burned my 7,505mb test file in 51:00 minutes at 4X DVD+R. Not bad for nearly 8gigs of data, and as stated above - 21 seconds faster than the Sony DRU-710A. Unfortunately, the media LiteOn had sent was not the greatest. In fact, the 16X media burned at 2X media speeds. I had to purchase some Ritek 16X media which burned great.</p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/liteon/10big.jpg"><img src="atruereview/liteon/10.jpg" alt="LiteOn Dual Layer SOHW-1673S" border="0" width="350" height="269"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font></p> <p align="left"></a> <a href="liteon/">Next up is real world DVD burning action at 16X. The SOHW-1673S burned my 4,464mb DVD files at 16X in 6 minutes and 28 seconds. Of course, this was using the Ritek media, not the generic provided with the kit. That media took about 46 minutes.</p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/liteon/11big.jpg"><img src="atruereview/liteon/11.jpg" alt="LiteOn Dual Layer SOHW-1673S" border="0" width="350" height="171"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font></p> <p align="left">Finally, my DVD read tests. Using a near 1/2gb of test file, the read test on a 16X DVD+R never even reached 3x read speeds. The average seek time however was around 80.7ms, which isn't bad by any means. </p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/liteon/12big.jpg"><img src="atruereview/liteon/12.jpg" alt="LiteOn Dual Layer SOHW-1673S" border="0" width="350" height="258"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font></p> <p align="left"><b>Conclusion</b>:</p> <p align="left"> LiteOn's SOHW-1673S has a great design. It lives up to it's promises of being one of the fastest drives available. At this price point, it is one of the best values on the market. <br> <br> <b>Pros:</b> </p> <ul> <li>Excellent quality</li> <li>Classic design</li> <li>Excellent compatibility</li> <li>Easy installation</li> <li>Excellent features</li> </ul> <b>Cons:</b> <ul> <li>Slower read times</li> </ul> <p><b>Rating:</b></p> <table width="227" border="0"> <tr> <td width="105">Overall:</td> <td width="183">Very Good</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Performance:</td> <td>Very Good</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Installation: </td> <td>Excellent</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Price: </td> <td>Excellent</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Packaging:</td> <td>Excellent</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Compatibility: </td> <td>Excellent</td> </tr> </table> <p>(Ratings Possible: Terrible, Very Bad, Bad, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent)</p> <p align="left"><a href="atruereview/liteon/index.php"></a> <a href="liteon/index.php">Previous (Introduction & Features)</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div id="footer" class="clr"> <div class="rk-1"> <div class="rk-2"> <div id="the-footer">  </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </body> </html>