Eleven 20x/24x CD Burners

Philips CDRW2010

As Philips doesn't yet have a 24x burner, we tested the CDRW2010. This is a 20/10/40 burner with 2 MB of cache, running in CLV mode. It starts a CD-R in 16x for the first ten minutes of CD time, and then moves into 20x if the medium can take it. The Phillips CDRW2010 uses Thermo-Balanced Writing technology, similar to the Plextor Power REC II. This function runs a test of every CD-R inserted, and adjusts the speed and the laser head on the basis of the results. This considerably minimizes writing errors due to poor matching of the write method to the medium.

Like any self-respecting burner, the CDRW2010 has anti-buffer underrun technology. This is Seamless Link, which is actually based on the Just Link, developed by Ricoh. So, in practice, there is no real difference between the two, which use the same controllers. Thermo-Balanced Writing, on the other hand, is nothing like the Ricoh Just Speed, which has its own hardware CD-R specification database. The CDRW2010 comes with Nero Burning Rom 5.5 software, a CD-R and a CD-RW. Note that the Phillips CDRW2010 is the only burner in this test which is not DAO-RAW-compatible.