Plextor PX-716A – What Is Offered?

This model comes to retail for almost $200, but it is rumored that OEM shipments of the drive have also been spotted. Their origin is a mystery, though.

The package looks surprisingly small. What could be stuffed here, besides the drive proper? Not much, really. Here we’ve got a CD with a software bundle, some screws, a spare jumper and a bracket for emergency extraction of the disc. An interface or an audio cable is not enclosed.

But you do find something more precious – a replaceable black face panel. At last it dawned upon people at Plextor that not all users have white system cases and that some of these users do care about the exterior of their PC, besides its speed and functionality. What’s sad is the lack of blank discs in the package. The number of blanks enclosed with Plextor drives has been constantly diminishing and now it’s zero.

To tell you the truth, there exists another shipment version of this device, in a roomier white-colored box. This box includes the desired IDE cable and one blank DVD+R 8x disc from Plextor (but actually manufactured by Taiyo Yuden). You don’t receive a “free” copy of Nero Burning ROM in either shipment version; you have to do with Plextor DVD Writing Software.

The design of the front panel hasn’t changed since the PX-712A. They have only added the logo that indicates the drive’s ability to burn dual-layer media. A tray eject button, a LED indicator, an emergency-extraction hole are the only things the user will find on the front panel. Ah, and of course here’s the corporate black strip along the bottom of the tray. By the way, this strip isn’t that conspicuous on the black face panel, but looks very unusual nonetheless. At least, the exclusive Plextor style remains. The functionality of the three-color LED indicator is still as wide as to require some explanation:

1. An amber indicator, blinking each 40 milliseconds, denotes the burning of:
   • DVDs at 8x and higher speeds
   • Recordable CDs at 32x and higher speeds
   • CD-RWs at 24x and higher speeds
2. An amber indicator, blinking each 80 milliseconds, denotes the burning of:
   • DVDs at 4-7x speeds
   • CD-Rs at 16-31x speeds
   • CD-RWs at 10-23x speeds
3. An amber indicator, blinking each 150 milliseconds, denotes the burning of:
   • DVDs at less than 4x speed
   • CD-Rs at less than 16x speed
   • CD-RWs at less than 10x speed
4. If the indicator is yellow, it means one of the following: the tray is being ejected, the drive is being initialized, the disc is being read
5. A green indicator denotes the standby mode or the response of the buffer underrun protection technology
6. The alternating switching of the colors (yellow-green-amber) means that a burn strategy created with the help of AutoStrategy technology is currently in use (we’ll talk about it shortly).

That’s informative enough. You only have to find some practical use from the indicator for yourself…