Pioneer DVR-215 Astoria NY

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The DVR-215 is Pioneer's latest internal SATA DVD writer. This is the black version of the DVR-215, but silver and beige models are also available. We've been disappointed by the performance of previous Pioneer burners, but we were impressed by the writing speeds attained by the DVR-215.

It couldn't reach its claimed 20X, but it still performed extremely well when burning single-layer DVDs. It exceeded 11X, making it the fastest internal DVD writer we've seen in this test. It wasn't record-breaking when writing dual-layer DVDs (it couldn't reach its stated 10X), but it was still among the fastest DVD writers we've seen.

Unfortunately, the DVR-215 is noisier than most DVD writers, especially at the beginning and end of each burn. It's an OEM drive, so it doesn't come with any software or accessories, but this is forgivable given its low price.

It's a great DVD writer, but Samsung's SH-S202 is quieter, has comparable performance and costs only £2 more from www.aria.co.uk.

System Specifications

20X DVD-R, 20X DVD+R, 6X DVD-RW, 8X DVD+RW, 10X DVD-R DL, 10X DVD+R DL, 12X DVD-RAM, 40X CD-R, 32X CD-RW, 16X DVD, 40X CD, SATA/150 interface

Author: Alan Lu

Computer Shopper Online