I'm not trying to hawk these drives, just passing along some helpful information. And I hope it's not in violation here, but I just ordered two of the 1650's and they along with the others still show in stock. These drives are now available at ZipZoomFly: 1650- http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=173836 1640- http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=173826 1620- http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=173823 You can get free 5-7 day shipping too.
Great info rcm999! I've got all 3 of those benq models, absolutely phenomenal burners. There'll be a lot of happy campers knowing these scarce benq drives are still available at your links. Free shipping and a low price!!!!!! Not for very long, LOL
I already have a 1655 and although it won't burn Verb DL's above 2.4x without hacking the firmware, I am very happy. I figure why go to the expense of a DL and take a chance on burning too fast, anyway? I also have an NEC 3550A I hooked up in an external case and use it for mobile burning/playing. I've been delighted with both. The two extra 1650s will be a backup and maybe a gift for Christmas next year. Just checked the status and mine still shows processing and the inventory status still shows in stock for all three.
stuff like this is great, it's only blatant spam we don't allow. Anyways, a good excuse for me to paste my Benq DW1650 info for any UK'ers that might read this one - "with the Benq DW1650 being a rare beast now i'm digging up a few Benq threads to shout out to any UK readers that PC World are still selling these drives, but now at £25, so i bought 2 the other day to keep unopened as spare drives. get them while you can i say.."
@Saugmon If you had the choose between the three drives, which one would you pick? I have a 1640 now that has been giving me coasters lately. Bummer, the black 1650 is on backorder =( so...any other drives you recommend other than BenQ, preferably the booktype/bitset right out of the box?
I'm not Sugmon, but personally, I'd go with the 1650. They still show in stock at ZZF. The two I ordered are in the shipping process now.
when my 2 new USB2.0 enclosures turn up i'll be adding my 3rd DW1650 to my burner PC, i may even add my 2 new unopened DW1650's also. there's my answer
@IHoe - very nice indeed... At the moment i'm using one of these cheap & cheerful USB2.0 enclosures for my 120MB MP3 hard drive - ..works a treat and i move it easily and transparently between my Linux laptop and Windows/Linux Burner PC, USB is excellent when you get a decent chipset But for no reason whatsoever i've bought two of these (only wanted one but it was rude to not get another) with a 250GB drive to replace the 120GB enclosure for MP3's to future proof myself a bit (i sure do like my music) - (lots of nice lights and buttons). And to keep myself on topic, these are the Belkin enclosures i swear by for DVD burners (i've had 2 for the longest time, just bought another 2) - - plain, but they just work, and besides, i have so much other PC stuff/home cinema stuff with loads of lights (especially the ultra bright blue LED's i don't mind!)
haza12d: My 1640 is the best of all 4 of my benqs,not much though. I get consistant 97-98 nero quality scores,and very little spiking. It's in my 3rd pc,so she's not burning much anymore. Over at cdfreaks.com,they swear the 1620 is the best. The only think I don't like about my 1650 is that I get huge spikes when running nero's quality test-at about the 2 gb spot. I thought it was the burner,but after testing my Plextor 716A backups with the 1650-I still get that huge spike at 2 gbs. My plextor is unable to use nero's disc quality scan. The Benq 1650 is suppose to booktype right out of the box,but I've helped other 1650 users who had compatability issues.Turned out after using dvdidentifier,their + media was still set at +r instead of dvd-rom. By installing qsuite,that took care of their issue. So not every 1650 will booktype right out of the box,but most of them should. You can see by the pasting of what dvdidentifier tells me is an actually booktyped backup: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unique Disc Identifier : [DVD+R:RITEK-R03-002] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disc & Book Type : [DVD+R] - [DVD-ROM] Manufacturer Name : [Ritek Corp.] Manufacturer ID : [RITEK] Media Type ID : [R03] Product Revision : [002] Blank Disc Capacity : [2,295,104 Sectors = 4.70 GB (4.38 GiB)] Recording Speeds : [1x-2.4x , 4x , 6x-8x] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ DVD Identifier - http://DVD.Identifier.CDfreaks.com ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm curious as to see why you are getting many coasters. I average 1 coaster out of every 400+ burns,and that includes rip + burn on the fly. I burn at 8x on 16x media,4x on crappy media,backup target of 4370 mbs and nero 6 does majority of my burning. The only coasters I get is an occasional re-booting from my backup pc and occasionally running into a bad batch of media. I do burn some cmags and even some crappy prodiscs,but mostly sony,ty,maxell riteks and maxell hitachis.. I haven't had a coaster this year!!!!!!!!! LOL
@saugmon....... I have had only one coaster due to an electrical brown out and shut my computer off! That's it for about 8 month or so. the other time I had a coaster was maybe over a year ago and that was due to my fault for hitting the wrong button and it shut down the burn! stupid me for multi tasking! LOL Anyway.... I only use TYs and maybe some Verbs. I swear by them and won't use any other media EVER. and why should I? It's easy to just order them online and get what you want. Very seldom I have to go to the store and by Verbs. ohhhhh the only other media I have are about 25 spindle pack of Sony +RWs.. they are RICOHJPN.... and that's it. TYs forever. for me!
I had 1 of those brownouts almost 2 yrs ago-ice storm. 2 ft of snow that christmas eve,and a week later that ice storm. Wiped out Mobo,3.5 gigs pc 2700,2 modems,4 powersupplies.. I got lots of black screens and reboots, while trying to backup dvds on my spare pc. ddp helped me get her straightened up. I still get a re-boot once in a blue moon,but very few during the burn stage. 400 backups was what I averaged in a month from all 4 of my pcs. 75 in 12 hrs is my record. OTF'd about a dozen of them.Now I'm down to 2 pcs now. Not much time anymore since the birth of my daughter Kinzie, LOL
@ saugmon Just ordered the Benq 1640 which should arrive in a few days. Just wondering since you have one already, which firmware do you recommend. I believe BSRB is the latest but it looks like many of the previous firmware versions give excellent burns also. What version has worked best for you??
I've got BS0B on my 1640. The gf and her kids have that pc all screwed up-yahoo messenger,aim,etc. I don't burn with it anymore,just keeping it for a replacement if any of my benqs die. You'll need qsuite to booktype for you if desired. Here's the link: qsuite 2.0 and 2.2: http://support.benq.com/front/BenqM...langu=null&ops=null&GenMenu=&RootId=undefined Qsuite also has also has overspeed,so it won't burn 8x media at 12x and 16x,which benq burners will overburn most 8x media. Solidburn is also another sweet program on qsuite.
Saugmon: Thanks for the info. I already have a Benq 1650 so I am already familiar with QSuite etc. I am really sold on Benq and when I saw that ZipZoomFly had a 1640 I couldn't resist the urge...Don't know what firmware will come with the 1640 since they haven't been produced in a while...I presume this may have been on the shelf for a while...anyhow...I will try the BSOB...and work myself up to the latest BSRB... Thanks alot, always appreciate your expert advice...
I updated that 1640 the first day I got it. It burned great,scans were sweet,so I left that BSOB firmware stay. That drive is when I found out that the backups I burned at 2.4x and 4x with MCC-004, Verbatim +16x, had a ton of crc errors. I upped the speed to 8x and 12x and my scans were still 97/98 and no more crc errors. Verbs have to be burned faster with the quality media of verbatim,taiyo yuden,and hitachi. 8x burning with quality media,4x for the crap media.
I noticed the same thing with Verbs on my 1650. However I think I got a bad batch of Verbs some months ago so I haven't used them too much, mainly TY. Am going to Best Buy tomorrow and pick up another batch of Verbs 25 spindle on sale and give them a spin. Did find a 100 spindle of 8X Maxell MIJ (MXL 002) and they burn great, but not as good as my TY. Should be getting my 1640 by FedEX in a couple of days. Can't wait to see how it performs as compared to the 1650. As someone said, "You can't have too many Benq burners or TY media...."
- nice, i unfortunately can only burn MCC004 at 4x on either of my Benq DW1650's (my other two DW1650's are unopened on the floor, keeping them as spares), no biggie re the MCC004 & more importantly no crc errors here. But i won't be rushing to buy any more MCC004 in a hurry
On my 1650, I just normally set QSuite with OS disabled, WOPC enabled, and SB Supported Disk disabled for my Verb MCC04 and yes, Creaky, it does burn around 4X, but the scans are always high 95-98 range. Just wondering will the 1640 firmware handle the MCC04 any differently?
