For those of you waiting on the next generation Pioneer, here is the review:

Review - Pioneer DVR-105 / A05
http://www.dvdwriters.co.uk/reviews/pioneer/dvr105p1.htm

Pros

Supports writing 99min CDs
4 Speed DVD-R Support
2 Speed DVD-RW Support
Supports DAO-RAW mode
Higher DVD read speeds for DVD-ROM & HS media
Lower access times
Can read and write 96 bytes sub-channels
Fast & perfect audio ripping
Can produce X-Box & Playstation compatible disks
Can read & write CD-Text
DVD "-" offers better compatibility with older players
Low cost of ownership

Cons

Has problems reading 99min CDRs (can write them OK)
CD-RW write support is only 8x speed
Slow x2 speed CSS ripping (1.8x)
Still No C2 error read mode
Can not write Safedisk 2.51+ (incorrect EFM encoder)
Slow reading Safedisk CDs
Very poor CD-R read performance
Poor quality media
No defect management for DVD-RWs

Playstation 2

We copied the game "Tekken 4" using a DVD-R disk and it booted successfully on our PAL Playstation 2 (swap trick aided by Action Replay). We also made a backup onto DVD-RW but the Playstation 2 can not read re-writable disks without drive modifications (we are told it does play -RW disks but only on the latest consoles).

X-BOX

The Pioneer A05 can produce X-Box backup DVDs and both DVD-RW and -R disk types produced were recognised and booted by our homebrew modded X-Box. We found that between the -R and the +R disks we tested, the X-Box favoured the -R format and would be the disks every time 1st time. (This is more to do with media as almost all the +R disks currently are rebranded Ricohs).


CONCLUSION

Pioneer has finally delivered on what we and most others wanted most in a DVD writer and that was an increase in DVD recording speeds. There is no disputing that the speed at which new DVD writers record to DVD-Rs at is light years ahead of the 1st generation drives - the A05 only needs 15mins to writes a whole 4.7GB of data.

We were slightly disappointed with the A05's CD writing ability, mainly its CD-R maximum writing speed of 16 X and its relatively slow re-write speed. It's interesting to note that the preliminary product specifications show that Pioneer had faster CD recordable features and higher DVD-ROM read speeds in mind but decided against implementing them.

We were pleased that Pioneer added support for writing in DAO-RAW mode - a useful feature used by Clone-CD for backing up games (in countries that permit it). This addition isn't all that it appears to be as its performance was so bad that it's pretty ineffective - it failed to backup any of our games and took long time to read them!

The A04 was particularly good at reading and writing 99min CD-Rs and was one of the best performers for that specific test - the DVR A05 does not follow its lead unfortunately. It can write to 99mins fine but when it came to reading what it had written it had severe problems (this was verified with disks that the A04 had produced).

One of the major improvements that we noticed with this drive was its random access times for DVDs - they are so much faster than the A04 and you wont be disappointed if you'r used to handling many small files.

The 4X DVD recording is an incredibly nice feature to have but unfortunately we didn't get to test it as 4 speed DVD-R and 2 speed DVD-RW disks are not out here in the UK and this is a PRE-RELEASE unit we have reviewed, but we hope to re-test the DVR-A05 with a full retail version if/when the opportunity arises.

The drive had major problems when reading CDs, whether it was a CD-ROM or CD-R it was incredibly fussy and slow. The access times for CDs was good but the transfer rate was slow for everyday use. This is an area where even the older A04 is better at.

With a price tag of £249.00 we feel that Pioneer may have been beaten at its own game by the likes of Sony, Philips, Panasonic and Sanyo who are all due to release 4 speed DVD writers (Sony have already released the DRU-500A in America) with faster recording speeds and more features. The A05 has its work cut out and our advice is wait and see what the competition offers.