There were no problems with the burning/reading of the test medium – both drives never slow down, producing clear and smooth graphs. So we can get right to the quality of the disc. Here’s another surprise for you: the burn quality has degenerated much since the older model. The rate of PI errors and failures has grown up considerably. The disc produced by the Plextor PX-716A is still almost perfect – few other drives available can work with rewritable media like that. But the results have got worse in comparison with the PX-712A. That’s not quite right.

TA Test for the DVD+RW 4x disc burned by Plextor PX-716A


 

Despite the somewhat higher error rate, the jitter is very good. It goes up a little on the outermost tracks, but is good overall. So, the new model produces DVD+RW discs of a very high quality at 4x speed.

Summarizing the performance of the Plextor PX-716A with DVD media, I should say the new model is a worthy successor to the previous hit, the PX-712A, and produces DVD discs of an astonishing quality. The burn strategy for dual-layer discs and the burning of rewritable DVD+RW discs at the minimal speed needs some improvement, but even here the drive is very good, although not perfect (I would really want to see it deliver superb performance in any mode with any type of the medium). Unfortunately, I can’t yet evaluate the drive’s performance at rewriting discs at the maximum speeds it supports due to the absence of such media in shops. But as soon as they appear on the market, we will test them, too.