Benq - once a +RW/+R only supporter, now goes dual

[PhilipL]

Withdrawn

[ccbadd]

It is good to see that dual writers are now the norm rather than the exception, and basically means an end to the format wars, in the PC market place at least.

I think it is pretty cool that they give you an upgrade path if you want it, but I really think that the single format writers are much better on burn quality. I have yet to see a dual format writer that can write -R better than my Pioneer 105 and I just picked up a Cyberdrive 082D +RW and it write + media perfect. I also have a BTC 1004 and an NEC 1300A. The BTC is crap, but the NEC is a very good dual burner, however, it can't do -R media better than the Pioneer nor can it beat the Cyberdrive at +R media.

[tompika]

Dual-writers are the way to go as solo writers sales fall further, so how long before Philips and HP go the same way?

Come on, Philip, you know exactly that Philips started to produce dual chipsets....

[KDH]

" More to the point, 80% of DVD burners are sold as build-ins with PCs, and with DVD+RW stalwarts Dell and Hewlett-Packard the 800-lb. gorillas in PC sales, 2/3 of all PCs shipped with DVD drives have dedicated DVD+RW burners aboard - that's +RW exclusively, not dual-format burners"

Not my words but those printed in "November 24, 2003 issue of
Consumer Electronics Daily"

~50 million HP and Dell pc's are sold worldwide each year worldwide and are forcast to have half with DVD burners in 2004-thats are big 25 million DVD+RW only drives!

By the way not much more than a year ago Benq were shipping DVD burners that were -RW only drives.......that was before the deal with Philips was announced.

KDH