Plextor used to be the gold standard in read/write drives - that is until DVD9 came about, and more notably, Blu-Ray. Now, I don't burn Blu-Ray - I just don't have the time, but I burn DVD and DVD9 a lot. I have had this Plaextor drive for about two years and it's still going strong - but that isn't the problem. The problem is that it is only reading disks properly because I flashed it with Benq firmware! Before I flashed it, the drive would hardly read anything, the full capabilities of the drive had been pinched off by Plextor.

Oh and the worthless Plextor suite - just get Nero, it's much better (I don't use Nero either, but the tools are better than what you have to get from Plextor - at an ADDITIONAL COST. I don't think there is one DVD drive manufacturer besides Plextor that charges extra for the tools. What a rip - and very disappointing!

In the past, if you ponyied up the cash for an overpriced Plextor drive, the reward was that you virtually had no coasters. Maybe they improved since then, I haven't really been interested in finding out, but it seems that Lite-On has taken that crown, albeit at a much cheaper price. It's sad to see a company with such a venerable reputation go out in such a demeaning, dishonorable way - kind of like Nikon, still trying to sell cameras at "Nikon Prices", even when they have been surpassed by the likes of Sony because they just couldn't "get it" in the digital arena. I hope Plextor finally "gets it"... nahhh, who am I kidding - I could care less, as long as someone is making reliable drives that prevent coasters.

:P