WHAT'S HOT: DVD-ROM and CD-RW combination drives are all the rage in notebook PCs, but until recently, they weren't a popular option in desktops because of their limited CD-R write speeds. Plextor's PlexCombo 20/10/40-12A is the first drive we've tested to carry a CD-R write speed rating of up to 20X (though LG and Samsung have since released combo drives rated at 32X; look for our reviews of those drives at a later date). The combination drive advantage is clearest for users upgrading a PC with limited expansion room: You need only one drive bay for both a CD burner and DVD-ROM reader. Unlike most drives, which ship standard with mastering and packet-writing software, the PlexCombo ships with two packages: Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5.1 and DirectCD 5.1, and Oak's SimpliCD 1.0. You also get CyberLink's PowerDVD player software, and Plextor's Liquid Player+ for streaming, ripping, and listening to music.

WHAT'S NOT: Priced at $190, the drive costs about $50 to $75 more than buying a high-speed CD-RW drive and a DVD-ROM drive separately.

WHAT ELSE: The PlexCombo's speeds certainly don't match those of the zippy 48X/12X/48X drives that top our current Top 10 CD-RW Drives chart, but they're not bad--in our tests, the shipping Plextor took 4 minutes, 36 seconds to write 650MB of files on the fly. That beat another 20X drive we tested, the former Best Buy Yamaha CRW2200EZ, by 12 seconds. But it's also about 2 minutes slower than the fastest 48X CD-RW drive we've tested, the Pacific Digital Mach 48. The drive's CD-RW performance also lags behind the leaders: It took 1 minute, 37 seconds to write 100MB to CD-RW (31 seconds longer than the leading drives, including Pacific Digital's Mach 48).

UPSHOT: The PlexCombo 20/10/40-12A is a good (but expensive) choice for people who have only one bay available but want to be able to read DVD media as well as write to CD-R and -RW.

SUMMARY

Plextor PlexCombo 20/10/40-12A 20X/10X/40X, IDE, internal, 2MB buffer, buffer underrun protection, Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.1 and DirectCD 5.1, one-year warranty, 11-hour weekday tech support. $190 800/886-3935 www.plextor.com