Plextor today announces 2 new DVD-ReWriter drives; the company’s first portable DVD recorder drive, the PX-608U and the internal PX-755A Premium drive. Reflecting the consumer trend for highly portable and stylish units, the PX-608U comes in an attractive silver design and is one of the slimmest and lightest drives on the market – now laptop users can choose Plextor. The Premium PX-755A comes with a comprehensive package of high-end features to give the professional user full recording control.
Plextor PX-608U
As well as extending Plextor’s optical product line of internal and external DVD writers, the PX-608U complements Plextor’s latest range of stylish, silver portable hard disk drives. The high performance PX-608U is not only compact, measuring just 22.2 mm thick, but it offers double layer DVD+/- writing, multi-format DVD-RAM capability and high-speed USB 2.0 data transfer. It is capable of the following DVD speeds: 4x DVD+/-R DL; 8x DVD+/-R; 8x DVD+RW; 6x DVD-RW and 5x DVD-RAM.
Plextor PX-755A
The PX-755A, which can burn a single layer disc in about 6 minutes (and DL in about 14 minutes), is capable of the following DVD speeds: 16x DVD+/-R write; 10x DVD+R DL; 6x DVD-R DL ; 8x DVD+RW; 6x DVD-RW; 16x DVD-ROM.
These drives are from the Plextor Europe web site, and the press release is from yesterday. I think that we will see these drives in the States after the holidays. At any rate, it gives us a glimpse into what we can expect from optical drives in the next year, before Blu-Ray and HD-DVD dominate the landscape. The 608U is a USB portable drive, suitable for notebook users looking to “upgrade” from a combo drive. It is notable for DVD-RAM support (which is unusual for a Plextor drive). The 755A is a filler drive, as the 18x 760A is having quality problems and is delayed. It does stand out for 10x DVD+R DL burning, which should speed up the burn times on these large capacity discs. Just when we all thought that optical drives had maxed out, it’s great to see some more innovation. I can’t wait to hear about what the manufacturers are going to do to top this!