BENQ 1640 VS. 1650/1655

OK...My memorex burner has been giving me bad burns lately and seems can't read alot of the DVDs I've been burning. I've had this thing since 2003 and decided to put it to rest. The only thing now is which burner do I replace it with. From the forums, I hear alot of praises when it comes to BenQ. The only thing is I have no idea which one to get. There's the Benq 1640 but I cannot find it anymore but in the form of a Plextor740 and there's also the new BenQ DW1655 with Lightscribe capability. Anyone have these drives? If so how do they compare to one another? Also, they have the BenQ 1655 in OEM and Retail packages, do I really need the software for this drive or can I go ahead and pick these up without the additional software? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

My Benq 1655 oem came with the correct fw and the software just no cables. It has worked very well for me and now is my favorite of all my drives.

 

I just ordered the 1655, and it will be showing up in a couple more days. I'll check back and report my results once I've done a few burns, but I expect that it will be every bit as good, if not better, than my Lite-On 1693S (another drive which I highly recommend. It burns TY and Verbatim +Rs wonderfully.).

 

Yeah, just put an order in for the DW1655 from newegg last night, should get here in 2-3 days...whoo-hoo I'm excited. Also, turned out the memorex burner that I had was still under the extended warranty from Best Buy and I was able to exchange it for the Plextor PX-740A which I understand is a rebadged BenQ 1640. I hope I have as much success with these BenQ drives as the others who have nothing but praise for 'em.

 

I've got 2 benq 1620s, and they are fabulous.
Another 1640,also wanderful with a lot more options using qsuite 2.0.
A benq 1650 being shipped from canada,and I'm expecting the same results with it:
99.9%+ success rate
95% Stand alone compatable rate-after booktyping the plus format.
Life span-well over 3000+ backups on my original 1620 and she's still as strong as the first day I got her.

The 1655: I've got an HP640c lightscribe,and the backups from it totally suck a**. I use it to read and do the lightscribing.If I had to purchase another ls burner,it'd have to be the 1655 benq.

Anybody looking at these drives,definitely check out qsuite 2.0. It'll set the booktype on your backups to dvd-rom,using the plus format.

haza12d: Did that 1655 come with software like Sonic express labeler or nero?

 

I just sold my HP 740i Lightscribe drive to my friend because other than the Lightscribe, the backups even with Verbs come out like crap.

Saugmon:
I haven't received the drive from newegg yet, I'll let you know when I get it either tomorrow or Wednesday.
Also wanted your input on this. I was planning on using the 1655 strictly for Lightscribing purposes and was wondering if this was a waste of a drive. I have an NEC DVD-ROM drive on one PC coupled with a Plextor 740A. On another PC I have a Lite-On DVD ROM along with a Lite-On SOHW 1633S, I was planning on replacing the ROM drive with the 1655 and was wondering if I was just wasting this drive just by using it for Lightscribing.

 

I swapped out my lite-on 167T and put the HP 640c lightscribe in it.Because of all the crc errors on the HP backups,it is a very good reader and ok lightscriber. This saves the wear and tear of ripping off of my benqs. I do on the fly backups also using that combo.

 

Gee, I'm glad I'm not your friend, LOL!!!!!!

Just got my 1650,updated fw/set qsuite 2.0 to booktype. Sweet burner. Quiet and smooth.Same options with qsuite as with my 1640 which is my main reason for it.I threw that 1640 into my single drive pc so I can control the overburning on it.

Just what I expected,another high quality benq drive! Get ya one of these babies creaky! Now to run some scans.

$61 with shipping. That's the most I paid for a burner that didn't come bundled with my pc.

 

@saugmon: Just got my 1655 installed, came with the latest firmware and an OEM copy of Nero. I ran a scan of a TY with it, everything seems to be working fine. Now I'm going to have to figure out something to burn to see how it performs. Have you burned anything with the 1650 yet?

 

Oh Yea!

Sweet!I couln't even hear if it was burning. I backed up chicken little using Ty-g02 shiny inkjet printables and turned out sweet.

I backed up Derailed using sony Yuden000-T02 media. One burned at 8x and another at 4x. I ran PI/PO scans on them by dvdinfopro. It won't give me a score,but I go by PIF total. I haven't uploaded my pic to photobucket yet,but here's my results:

Backup approx 3.5 gbs:

8x- only 120 total pifs.That's almost perfect-no po failures.
4x: 4033 PIFs,wholy moly! WTF! One hellatious spike starting at the 2.8 gb mark and running to the 3.1 gb mark.Over 3000 errors for that spike! No po failures.

So I will burn those yuden's at 8x!

Solidburn is still learning my media,but I am happy that the 8x scans are looking excellent. I'm out of verbatim MCC-004,but they should even scan better at 8x and 12x.

 

@saugmon: Hey, that's awesome! My Benq is super quiet, too. I can't even hear it over my system fans, which is a huge change from my Pioneer DVD-Reader I was using (OEM something-115). That thing was noisy as all get out... Some discs would spin relatively quietly, but the drive was just noisy overall. It's been a good drive, don't get me wrong, but I've always hated how loud it was.

As for your burning, what software are you using? I tried my Nero and it would not set my drive to auto bootyping to DVD-ROM, although Q-Suite shows the drive as defaulting to DVD-ROM for all + type media. So, I'm wondering if Nero will burn to DVD-ROM or not... I'd rather not waste a DVD finding out.

 

Dvd-9 to dvd-5: Rip with dvd shrink/autoburn with nero6.0.0.21b.I leave anydvd disabled until the need arrises. Chicken little had to have anydvd enabled for dvd shrink to rip.

Dvd-5 to dvd-5 or dvd-9 to dvd-9: Dvd decrypter: Mode iso read and write.

Dvd-5 to dvd-5 on the fly, no problem either using nero copy disc.Also use anydvd on the original dvd-5 to blank dvd-5 on the fly.

Dvd shrink will booktype the benq 1620 with that box checked in the backup options. It wouldn't work on the benq 1640. The 1650 may be the same way.

If you have qsuite 2.0,open it up/click the booktype tab:
In the top center-you'll see Current write booktype.The +r/+rw/and +r DL should say dvd-rom. If not,they are not set to booktype.So go to the right,click modify/ok and it should set the current write booktype to dvd-rom. Pretty easy. Just ok after making all those dvd-rom.

Nero oem suite 6.6.0.14 came with this 1650 drive. It has lightscribe v1.4.44.1. I may try that on my hp 640c and see if it is any better than the sure thing labelmaker.

 

@Saugmon: Great, thanks for the info. I actually did a bit of hunting and found out that this drive will do the booktype setting internally regardless of what burning software you use, so for my last disc, I experimented using DVD Decrypter and it worked just great, booktyping to DVD-ROM even though the progress screen didn't call it out. It just happened automatically at the lead-in and/or lead-out parts of the burn (I have no idea which section encodes it as DVD-ROM). Good stuff! I'm VERY impressed with how it handles Verbatims so far, but I'll have to experiment a bit more to see if I like how it works with TYs.

Cheers!

 

I helped another member a few weeks ago that had the benq 1650.His standalone would play his plus backups,but not his 1650 drive.

Someone else posted back the firmware automatically booktyped for that drive,but not on his drive. After he downloaded qsuite 2.0 and set it up,his 1650 had no problem playing it's own booktyped backups.

I use dvdidentifier to make sure mine are set:


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unique Disc Identifier : [DVD+R:YUDEN000-T02-000]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disc & Book Type : [DVD+R] - [DVD-ROM]
Manufacturer Name : [Taiyo Yuden Co. Ltd.]
Manufacturer ID : [YUDEN000]
Media Type ID : [T02]
Product Revision : [Not Specified]
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 ]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@Saugmon: It's entirely possible that they aren't consistent in setting the booktype to DVD-ROM on every drive they ship. I'd certainly recommend checking it, anyway, and then just forgetting about it, since it will never change unless you use that QSuite software or some other form of firmware modifying software that will access it. My drive had the latest (BCDB) firmware, and all + formats were booktyped to DVD-ROM, but there's no way I'd burn a high quality disc without knowing beforehand.

 

Hi,
BenQ f/w BCDB/BCDC (1650/1655) is set to DVD-ROM by default for DVD+R/+RW/+DL. So all drives should have this setting. Any drives set differently have been changed manually by someone along the supply chain.(I'd be tempted to feel such a drive was a return).

 

Got the 1655 A couple of days ago but haven't installed it until today. Came with Nero 6 and QSuite 2.1. I must say that I am very pleased with me new toy. Its very quiet as everyone said it would be. Been burnin' my Verbs at 8x this time and so far everythings awesome!

 

congradulations man,
you are finally moving on to a much better stuff. i highly recommened the benq dq1650. they are pretty awesome. you can order from ncix. i dont think you need to get the retail drive. you can pretty much find the other stuff in this forum or google search.