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AOpen makes a huge variety of products and has built up a very strong reputation for itself in the PC market. Although AOpen has massive manufacturing capabilities, this particular drive is actually a re-badged NEC ND-2500A. Now this is no bad thing, since I gave the NEC drive a Recommended award when I reviewed it last month.

Since this is based on the NEC drive it has the advantage of being able to write at eight-speed to four-speed DVD-R and DVD+R media. This is particularly useful with the DVD-R media, since eight-speed discs are still pretty thin on the ground.

In the box you’ll find the drive itself, a quick installation guide, an audio cable and some mounting screws. There’s no blank media supplied, but that’s not a huge issue since you’re better off buying a bulk pack from an online retailer anyway. Software wise, you get Nero and InCD for disc burning and packet writing respectively. VideoStudio can perform simple video editing while neoDVD will let you author your masterpiece to DVD. Then finally PowerDVD will let you sit back and watch your movie, or the latest Hollywood offering if you prefer.

The actual specs for the drive are eight-speed DVD-R/+R, four-speed DVD-RW/+RW, 32-speed CD-R and 16-speed CD-RW. But as the graphs often show, high-specs don’t necessarily equate to high-performance.

Thankfully though, the performance of the AOpen was first rate. In the DVD-R tests the DRW8800 grabbed second place in every category, while it took first place in every one of the DVD-RW tests. Things were a bit more up and down when using DVD+R media but with DVD+RW the AOpen grabbed top spot in everything other than the Format test. When writing CD-R discs the DWR8800 was pretty average, but in the two CD-RW tests it managed first and second place.

All things considered, the AOpen DRW8800 exhibited the best all-round performance and you’d be happy with this drive no matter what kind of media or what kind of writing you do. With this kind of solid performance you’d expect the AOpen to be expensive, but it’s not. In fact this is the cheapest drive on test, despite the fact that it’s a retail unit. With a street price of £69.99 the AOpen DRW8800 is an absolute bargain.

Verdict

The AOpen is a superb drive offering excellent performance at an unbelievable price. If you don’t need the DVD-RAM functionality offered by the LG, this is the drive to go for.

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