NEC ND-3500A Dual Layer DVD?RW Writer (16x/4x/16x DVD+RW, 16x/4x/16x DVD-RW, 4x DVD+R DL, 48x/24x/48x CD-RW)

• Reviewed by: Bobob

  Strengths: it does everything

  Weaknesses: it comes with no software

  Overall: I'm very happy with this drive. Once I finally found software capable of accessing it I burned a bunch of DVDs and CDs with no problems at a very fast rate. This is a steal!

• Reviewed by: MattNis

  Strengths: Low Price. 16x DVD+-R, 4x DL. Availability of hacked Firmware

  Weaknesses: None

  Overall: This is very reliable and very fast for a very low price. It's one of the few drives that has a lot of hacked firmwares available on the net that let you burn dvds reliably at higher than rated speed. I have been able to burn PowerMatrix 8x DVD-R disks very reliably at 16x with no coasters. This drive is so simple to install and use that there is no reason to pay a higher price for any other drive.

• Reviewed by: cincyreds

  Strengths: Inexpensive. Burns virtually all media types. Fast.

  Weaknesses: A bit noisy sometimes. Only one green LED is not too informative about what's going on with the drive.

  Overall: Overall, I'm very very happy with the performance of this drive. It burns ALL media types (DVD +/- R/RW, DL, etc).Drive can sometimes be a little noisy when spinning up, but that's very minor.My biggest (but still minor) complaint is that the drive has only a single green LED to indicate its status. Would be nice to see a separate light to indicate if there's a disc in the drive or not, as well as an LED that turns different colors when it is reading and when it is writing. My old drive had a separate power/disc light, then another light that would turn blue when the drive is reading and turn red when the drive was writing.With this drive, if the drive is reading or writing you only see a green light. When it's not doing anything the LED stays unlit even if there is a disc in the drive.The reading and burning speeds seem accurate. No problem achieving max speeds with any media I've used so far (Memorex 4x DVD-R, DVD+RW, Ritek 4x and 8x DVD-R and Memorex CD-R).I don't know how they can offer such a high performing drive for such a great price.If you're looking for high performance and low price, scoop up one of these babys - you won't be disappointed.

• Reviewed by: rcarpen

  Strengths: Cheap price.

  Weaknesses: Reliability.

  Overall: Bought the unit to augment my Plextor 708 to get "Dual Layer" support. NEC unit failed after very little use. Can't recommend this to anyone.

• Reviewed by: klemets

  Strengths: Very quiet, fast

  Weaknesses: Incompatible with Digital Matrix media

  Overall: Overall I am happy with this drive, but it doesn't seem to write properly to Digital Matrix brand DVD-Rs. The discs won't play on my Pioneer DVD player, or on my old DVD burner, a Sony DRU-500A. However, the discs still play on my Panasonic and Toshiba DVD players.Recently, I have switched to Ritek G05 8x DVD-R discs, and they play fine on all my DVD players. However, I did have to update the firmware on the NEC drive to make it recognize the Ritek's as 8x.I understand that it is difficult to find a drive that is compatible with all media. Some of the cheaper brands only work well on certain drives. I bought the DM discs because they were compatible with my old Sony burner. It might be asking for too much that the same brand would also be compatible with this NEC burner. With the right 8x speed DVD-R media, the drive works like a charm, although I haven't tested 16x or dual-layered media yet.My drive came bundled with Nero Express 6.0. The included software differs from one vendor to the other. I think the cheapest vendors include Roxio. Shop around if you prefer Nero. For just another buck or two, you might be able to get it with the Nero Express bundle.