DVD burners continue to evolve. For evidence, peruse our latest DVD drives chart, where we welcome nine new feature-packed models.
Though 18X single-layer DVD write speeds are becoming more common (see the Samsung, Plextor, and Sony internal drives), the benefit at this point is minimal, especially considering that no official spec for 18X DVD exists and that the prospects for 18X-branded media are undetermined.
On the other hand, DVD-RAM support is, at long last, nearly ubiquitous; of the units ranked here, only the Plextor PX-760A and the LaCie d2 lack DVD-RAM capability. DVD-RAM can be a handy rewritable format for data backup and video recording. Another trend is the inclusion of LightScribe Direct Labeling--this feature is available on two internal models and three external drives on our chart.