X-bit labs

LG GSA-4163B DVD±RW Dual Layer Burner Review: New Member in a Successful Family (page 23)

Category: Storage

by Vasily Melnik

[ 04/05/2005 | 10:09 PM ]

Conclusion

The LG GSA-4163 is a good device all around, a worthy substitute to the successful GSA-4160B model. The new model has surpassed its predecessor, though. A few minor defects have been left over since the older drive, but these are not critical and don’t spoil the overall impression from the device.

The quiet and cool operation and the excellent quality of optical discs burning make the GSA-4163 one of the best everyday-use drives of the last generation. You won’t find any advanced features for evaluating the quality of the burned discs here, but the GSA-4163 doesn’t need them. It is intended for those users who simply burn their discs and that’s all. The only disturbing thing is that the manufacturer didn’t correct the problem with writing DVD+RWs at the minimal speed – this defect was spotted back in the previous model.

So, if your goal is to burn discs quickly and well, the GSA-4163 is going to be the best choice for today. Add also the support of the DVD-RAM format, which can be a vitally important feature for some users. To our regret we couldn’t check out all of the new device’s capabilities (particularly, DVD-R DL burning and high DVD rewrite speeds) due to the absence of the appropriate media. But even without that we are absolutely sure about the high potential of the LG GSA-4163.

Here are the good and bad aspects of the device, in brief.

Highs:

• Support of multiple formats
• Excellent DVD burn quality
• Support of DVD-R DL
• Increased speeds for processing DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs
• Excellent CD burn quality
• Very good error correction mechanism
• 100% accuracy of returning C2 errors
• No caching of audio data
• Zero write offset
• Cute design
• Very quiet operation
• Low heat level

Lows:

• Low DVD+RW burn quality at the min speed
• The quality of written dual-layer DVD media isn’t perfect
• Rather high read offset
• High seek time
• Average linear read speed
• Cannot read the Lead-Out zone