"Dell" DVD Burner

Hey all,

First post, so I hope this isn't too "newbie".

I'm new to DVD burning, but fairly experienced at CDR. It's time for a new system, and my company has an employee purchase plan with Dell, which makes it fairly attractive for me to buy a new Dell.

So I'm looking at a new Dell 4600. Fairly beefy in the normals specs, 3GHz, 2 GB RAM, big hard drive, all that. But what I'm wondering is if anybody knows anything about the "Dell" 4X DVD+R.

I'm not looking to mass produce DVDs. I plan to try to learn about DVDR, and probably make some VHS --> DVDs for family and friends. I've already verified my home DVD player will support DVD+R.

So my question is, does anyone know anything about the Dell 4X DVD+R? Or about the Dell software/hardware packages in general regarding DVD? For example who really makes the drive? Is it reliable? Anything about the Movie Studio Plus (the dell software package)?

If I was experienced at DVD burning I'm sure I would opt for a more appropriate model. From my CDR experience, and reading the forum, Plextor drives look nice. But give the convenience and price discount I would get, does anyone see any problems with the Dell DVD writer?

Thanks!
Mike

[holistic]

Don't buy a DELL dude!

If it is the customer support you are after then sure go for it. But remember that will expire.

I don't want to come off as a dell hater ,but after looking at the propriatry nature of their machines over the years I am just put off.
Seems that the questions regarding computer problems that i have gotten over the years from : neighbours, friends, work associates ....... are related to DELL, HP and 'shudder' emachine computers.

Nowdays when someone asks me to fix their computer i ask "Home built or Factory" . When the above names (and others) are mentioned ,I just shake my head and say ....." OK - i will try but it is a lost cause."

Find a "mom & pop" type store in your neighbourhood and have them build it. Granted it will cost more that a comparable (not really comparable - since you will have a better product) factory machine.

Understand this .... a computer is the sum of its parts. If say the CPU failed under warranty, will Dell come to the door and replace it or do you have to ship it at your cost? . A typical "mom&pop" shop will proberly ask you to bring in the box and do it for you in under an hour........just some thing to think over.

][

[Dubber]

'Dell' DVD+R/W burner is.... NEC ND-1100A

here is a link on this site: https://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters.php?DVDnameid=69&Search=Search&list=#comments

[The village idiot]

I would agree with Holistic. If the price reduction is big enough, that might make the difference. You might be better off buying something that has known parts in it, or building it yourself. There are a lot of online places that will build you a machine, then you will actually know what it is built out of.

Maybe something likes these:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=664879&Sku=...6064&CatId=940

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=637728&Sku=...1930&CatId=114

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=637763&Sku=...1940&CatId=114

they were just easy to find so that you have prices to compare. The big thing is that they use off the shelf parts, and you know what the parts are.

[ChrissyBoy]

My DELL DVD burner has been good for 100+ DVD burns so far.

Its my second DELL and it runs 24/7 and has done for 12 month solid. I reboot every other day but other than that its always on.

[Poppa_Meth]

the NEC 1100A is a very good burner. I haven't had any problems at all out of mine. The DELL firmware for it has a problem though evidently. supposedly it has issues rewriting DVD+RW. It just won't do it more than once. I don't use RW disks so I can't confirm it but there is a large number of complaints on it. the NEC firmware works fine though. DELL would be fine if they'd quit screwing with the products they sell.

[DeleriumMDK]

Don't buy a DELL dude!

Understand this .... a computer is the sum of its parts. If say the CPU failed under warranty, will Dell come to the door and replace it or do you have to ship it at your cost? . A typical "mom&pop" shop will proberly ask you to bring in the box and do it for you in under an hour........just some thing to think over.

][

My dads Dell had a problem with the hard drive...they came over and replaced it for him free of charge. This was with the standard 1 year warranty too. AFAIK it covers on site, phone and also if it needs to be shipped to them I THINK they send you a label prepaid for UPS for it. Its one thing to not like Dell cause of their parts or unreasonable prices (on top of the line machines anyways) but their warranty IS good and if you don't know what you're doing is totally worth the money. I only had the free 1 year warranty on mine but even then it came in handy a couple of times. I won't swear by Dell and will probably build my next PC on my own but last year when I was still in the ice age (350 or 400 MHZ PC running win 98 SE, integrated video/audio, 64 MB RAM, 8 GB HDD) the price I got on this refurbished PC wasn't bad at all and its served its purpose. I would never buy new off of Dell, but refurbished prices are worth it IMO, just because of the on-site repairs/replacements in the free 1 year warranty.

[jgcarp]

My Dimension 8250 and it's NEC 1100a have worked well for me. Even better once the firmware was updated. Using RW was a problem before the update but has worked flawlessly since.

Normally, if a part goes bad within the warranty time frame, you will have a replacement installed in your home, which will occur in days not weeks. However, call in tech support isn't what it used to be in my experiences. I'm on my 6th Dell system and thankfully not one part has gone bad. (Friend on mine just received his Dell a week ago and the HD was bad out of the box).

Am I saying go out and buy a Dell without hesitation? No...Definitely take the advice from holstic and the village idiot to heart. Dell systems have their fair share of oem and Dell tooled software/hardware problems as Poppa_Meth eludes to. Upgrading can be an adventure as well.

The media I have used with the burner has been Memorex, Maxell, and Imation, (Both +R and +RW). No problems with any of those yet.

[fairplay]

I have a dell PC too for more than 3 years now and haven't had any problems so far. I bought a three year home extented waranty with it too. But never used it as I got more familiar with my dell and used this kind of forums to even learn more, they also have a very good forum on their site, better than their tech support. I would buy a retail DVD+-R. You can buy NEC 1300A and some other 4x writers for under 120 USD.

Excellent advice everyone, thanks! On the Dell vs Generic topic, I certainly see both sides of the discussion. My first computer was a Gateway, so I learned all about the support and proprietary parts problems. After that I built my next couple myself. I enjoyed that, especially being able to pick the parts I wanted.

But with the price break I'm getting, I can afford a long warranty with in home service. It will just be nice to have one company responsible for the whole system. I got caught in a lot of finger pointing when I built my own. But yeah, I realize Dell support isn't the golden solution either. In fact those Systemax systems really caught my eye. Thanks VI...you managed to really confuse me now

But the NEC information really helped. I don't plan to do much DVDRW, so that's not an issue. Glad to see overall the reviews of this drive are positive. Seems like that and Nero will be a good combination for me. I think down the road I may venture into an external drive, but right now I'm leaning towards the Dell/NEC combination. But I'm going to shop around a little bit at some local stores too, to explore holistic's idea.

Very friendly group of folks here, thanks for all the input!