Keeping everything in mind, i.e. support for all the media at the advertised speeds, producing quality burns, offering fair read times and not costing a bomb, we would like to hand over the Best Performance award to the Plextor PX-716A, the tray loading DVD writer, which costs Rs. 5,761. It doesn't offer very exciting read times, often staying far behind others, but it writes everything and it writes everything well. There's no point in buying a 16X DVD writer if it isn't going to recognize your favorite media at that speed. If you're looking for overall speed, go ahead with the Plextor. The Best Value is for the pocket conscious. That goes to the Lite-On SOHW-1673S which can be yours for just Rs. 3,450. That makes it the cheapest DVD writers money can buy, so if you're really short on green, this is the one for you. The Lite-On offered decent read times, although it took a while to finish ripping an audio CD. It was also the fastest in burning 16X DVD+R media! And it produced the cleanest CDs with 0 C2 errors! The BenQ DW1625 costs Rs. 6400 with a 2 year warranty. All the other drives offer only 1 year warranty. The LG costs Rs. 3499, Samsung costs Rs. 4,600 and the Sony costs Rs. 3900. The LG deserves an honourable mention because of its impressive read speeds and good rewriting performance. It also doesn't cost too much more than the Best Value winning Lite-On. The Sony also deserves a mention due to the price, along with fair performance across all tests other than the 16X DVD-R test, which everyone was bummed by, including the LG.
