ASUS DRW-24B1ST DVD-Burner Review

All DVD-burners are the same, right? So what makes one better than the next. It's rare these days to hear about an optical drive, with all the other components that are getting faster, greener, and cheaper. Today, Benchmark Reviews is taking a look at ASUS's most recent addition to the optical drive market, the ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x DVD+/-RW. Many of us may have recently been contemplating an upgrade to our old drives. After a few years of wear and tear, optical drives can give out. Also, with recent upgrades in motherboards, you might find yourself without an IDE channel, necessitating the purchase of a newer SATA model drive. Benchmark Reviews will test the ASUS DRW-24B1ST against other optical drives with USB, IDE, and SATA connectors to find out just exactly what ASUS has in store with it's newest DVD-Burner.

ASUS introduced the DRW-24B1ST with another drive, the DRW-24B1LT. The two drives are nearly identical, the only difference being the lightscribe feature on the DRW-24B1LT version. I've never really experimented with lightscribe, which allows you to turn your disc over after you have written the information to it and write a label to the top. It sounds like an interesting feature, but it doesn't really make a difference as far as actual drive performance is concerned.

The ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x DVD burner makes its debut as a "greener" drive. This is a point that much of the computer hardware industry is moving toward these days. Energy saving is a top priority, and anything that will help keep the technology in your home from adversely affecting the environment is a good thing as well. To give you an idea of how much energy the new drive is saving, as well its affect on carbon emissions, ASUS has included a small program called E-Green. In addition, the DRW-241ST comes bundled with NERO 8 and a program by ASUS called E-Hammer, which will effectively destroy a DVD for you. We will get into this in more detail further on down the line.

About ASUS

ASUS, a technology-oriented company with a global staff of more than ten thousand and blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is renowned for high-quality products and cutting-edge innovation. As a leading company in the new digital era, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.

ASUS has an unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, a fact borne out by its corporate slogan-"Inspiring Innovation - Persistent Perfection"-and the numerous media, industry and governmental accolades it receives every year. In 2008, ASUS won 3,056 awards-receiving over 8 awards on average every day. The company's revenue for the same year was 8.1 billion U.S. dollars, and it topped the IT Hardware Category of the annual league table of Taiwan's Top 10 Global Brands with a brand value of 1.324 billion U.S. dollars. ASUS also ranks among the top 10 IT companies in Business Week's "InfoTech 100", and has been on the listing for 11 consecutive years.

Inspired by the diverse needs of consumers in all areas and phases of life, ASUS' foremost mission is to deliver truly innovative solutions that in turn inspire consumers to reach for greater heights of productivity and fun. By leveraging its intimate understanding of the requirements of today's digital home, digital office and digital person, ASUS has the honor of claiming many world's firsts-such as the introduction of the groundbreaking Eee PCTM, the ingenious use of renewable materials like leather and bamboo in notebooks and the incorporation of its proprietary power-saving Super Hybrid Engine technology into its notebooks and motherboards. By pioneering many new innovations, trends and technologies that have had a genuine impact on its customers' lives and the Earth at large, ASUS hopes to garner mindshare as well as market share.

To succeed in the ultra-competitive IT industry, ASUS focuses on speed-to-market, cost and service. That is why every ASUS employee strives to master the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" in order to fulfill the "Persistent Perfection" promise of the brand. Guided by these precepts, ASUS has developed a strong advantage in product design, technology, quality and value/cost. These advantages in turn constitute ASUS' formula for success-allowing marketing to communicate these strengths to win our consumers' hearts.

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