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Philips was one of the creators of the DVD+RW format and consequently one of the format’s most vocal supporters. Not only has Philips pushed the DVD+RW format in the PC market place, but it has also made impressive in-roads into the consumer arena. Philips has seen a lot of success with its DVD+RW based consumer recorders, and as more and more people leave VHS behind, Philips is hoping to increase its customer base.

It’s this inter-compatibility that Philips sees as key to the success of the DVD+RW format. The fact that a user can burn a disc on their PC then play it back in their DVD player, or even record a TV programme on their DVD+RW recorder and then watch it on their notebook is pretty compelling.

Philips believes very strongly that DVD+RW is the right format and to prove this belief has not produced a dual format drive. Unlike the majority of drives in this test, the Philips will only write to DVD+R/RW media, so if you want something that will write DVD-R/RW you better look elsewhere.

If however, you are happy to invest in a single format DVD writer the Philips does have something to offer. The retail kit is pretty comprehensive. Inside the box you’ll find the drive, the manual, installation and software CDs, a blank DVD+R disc, a blank CD-R disc, an audio cable and four mounting screws. Conspicuous by its absence is an IDE cable, so obviously Philips assumes that you’ll have a spare IDE port inside your PC.

The drive itself is quite bland and can’t compete with the stylish design of the Sony. The only attempt made to spice up the appearance is a sliver stripe running along the tray. The front fascia sports a single eject button, a status light and a manual eject hole.

Performance is pretty much middle of the road on all the tests that the Philips could compete in. It did however rise to second place for the 4.5GB mixed files test, but that’s not really enough to call it a fast unit.

The quoted write speeds are four-speed for DVD+R, 2.4-speed for DVD+RW, 16-speed for CD-R and 10-speed for CD-RW. It will also read DVDs at 12-speed and CDs at 40-speed. So, even on paper the Philips seems to be quite unremarkable.

The software bundle is pretty solid with Nero 5.5 making a welcome appearance for burning duties. While a copy of Pinnacle Studio 8SE will take car of DVD authoring if you fancy putting some home movies onto DVD.

The Philips DVD RW4410 is by no means a bad DVD writer, but at a price of £129 it’s just far too expensive. You can buy the LG for almost £15 less and that supports every DVD standard rather than just one.

Verdict

The Philips DVD RW4410 has a tough time competing with today’s multi-format drives. If the price was considerably lower it might be able to make a case for itself, but as it stands, there’s better value, performance and functionality to be had elsewhere.

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