OEM or Retail

Any thoughs on this?

I have read that some OEM drives dont come with warranty's. Also dont come with cables and stuff.

What does everyone else get?

 

A lot of the time the OEM is just a bare drive .. ie no cables, documentation etc Personally, I usually spend the extra couple bucks and get the retail ... As far as the warranty, same for both

 

most of my drives/burners are OEM, minus the Sony dru-710a that i bought retail long time ago..but, my pioneer and necs and liteons are ALL OEM, yes you are right in assuming that OEM usually comes with a bare drive, no extra software bundled and sometimes with no cables either...but, i have no issues with my OEM drives over my RETAIL bought ones...as long as you know how to properly setup and install the drives w/ the appropriate cables, i personally will take an OEM drive to save a couple of bucks over the retail package. i can do without the software as i usually have already purchased the RETAIL version (ie. nero ultra) and don't need the basic OEM copy of it.~ that's just my 2 cents worth.

 

For swapping drives go with OEM. The previous drive's cables can be reused and the "free software" is a watered down "lite" version of a burning product you didn't want anyway.

 

Well i decided to get the retail Benq DW1640, just been delivered and damn thing doesnt come with a cable. Think i should have just got the OEM.

 

you got the RETAIL benq and it didn't have a cable???? wth??? what DID it come with then??? a pretty box and some software? what's the point of getting retail if it has NO CABLE?

im not ripping on you, i am just curious as to WHAT the retail package comes with if you didn't receive a cable?

 

@kivory666

Yes its true some Retail's dont come with a cable
Its silly cos being a "Retail" should make it a "Kit" and thus come with everthing the customer needs (screws, audio cable, IDE cable, Manual, Software, Blank DVDr, Blank DVDrw and the Drive).

But like i say ive seen them not come with the IDE Cable...

 

Heh, yeh it came in a pretty box




and the contents




Luckily i found a spare IDE 80 cable

OEM all the way

 

Is that a picture of old doc Ty on that box? LOL

My benq 1620 box is just as purdy,but doesn't have doc ty's pic on it. Bummer!

That model is the leading candidate for my next burner.

ricky_13: Congrats on the fine quality benq purchase.You'll have to take the advantage of booktyping on that baby.

Did it come with both black and beige bezels?

 

Nah, it only came with the black bezel. Black and beige were two separate products, i bought the black one. Doesn't really matter for me cos all my drives are hidden behind the cover on my case.

Yer, i've allready taken advantage of booktyping. Plays on both my standalones, and my bro's xbox so im happy.

Who is Doc Ty??

 

thank you for the elaboration ddp~!! i still go by the name you gave me a few months back~

i had a good laugh with that one saugmon, however, even though i do wear glasses; i am of asian decent, SO, that purdy pic of a caucasian guy would definitely NOT be me~ LOL
i think i'm better looking than he is too~ juss FYI~ hehe

well, back to topic, i am actually going to pick up the OEM version of that Benq within the next couple of months after all the nudging by saugmon and the quality of the Benqs, finally gonna see what all the "hoopla" is about~

good day to you all, thanks ddp and saugmon for making my day just THAT much easier, much appreciated~

 

LOL, ole doc ty. I didn't know you were of asian descent.When I need my 3rd brain surgery, I'll look you up.

Both my 1620's came with both beige and black bezels.This new HP tower has the flipdown trays,so the color wouldn't matter anyhow.

99%+ success rate.
1 ligitimate burn coaster this year, and about 5 playback coasters,probably due to a bad disc every once in a while.
But the main reason: 98% stand alone compability rate of my booktyped backups on stand alones/ps2s/and pc drives.3 of my other drives couldn't even come close to those stats.
1 of them even booktyped and the dash format performed well above the booktyped backups,go figure!
I'm still waiting for my main 1620 to die so I can get that 1640.
Rip and burn on the fly: No problemo. These burners are amazing. Cmags, no problemo, but I try to avoid them because of stand alone player issues.

 

 ricky_13 .. Have you updated your firmware yet? My DW1640 was made in July 05 and the firmware was about three revisions behind .. The new firmware improved my scans with Sony (Yuden) media ..

 http://support.benq.com/front/BenqMain.asp?MenuHead=128&ShowType=program&FileURL=service/driverlist.asp&Dataid=18367&downloadclass=Driver&product=3731&langu=null&ops=null&GenMenu=&RootId=undefined

 

I got my original benq 1620,which was sold under the I/O magic 16x brand name last thanksgiving. I just updated the firmware from B7-C9 to B7-W9, so that's about 20 versions newer.I haven't noticed a single difference between the 2 firmwares,burn wise or playback viewing.She burns as sweet as before. These 2 1620s do love those yuden000-T02. Heck,I haven't hardly found anything they didn't like.

 

 Do your 1620s have 'Solid Burn'? That's a pretty cool feature .. It allows the BenQ to adjust to different discs .. I've noticed that after several burns with the same mfg disc, my scans get even better

 

I don't believe so. That's one of the features I had my eye on. I believe Dynabalance or something like that was another feature.

 

Yes, Catfreak, i have updated my firmware.

I probably got a different package to you guys cos i live in Australia. Maybe the US ones are different.

 

 I was told by NewEgg and by BenQ customer's service that the retail package was not yet available in the USofA .. BenQ told me that the Retail package was only being distributed in Europe and Asia, (that means Australia also I guess) The firmware is the same, however ...