Lite-On not an especially good manufacturer, unfortunately

Sami-FIN · Post by **Sami-FIN** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:19 am

I own a Lite-On LTD-163D DVD-ROM drive.

The drive arrived in a box that was made out of low-quality carbon and had almost no foam inside. The LG 40X CD-RW drive's box was made of a lot better carbon (thicker, sturdier) and the drive was very well kept in place due to good support by foam. Also, LG's manual is very good as are the other CD's that have programs in them.

Lite-On's manual is pathetic and it only had a 2-channel trial version, or something, of a - then - bad DVD software (Power DVD 4.0).

LG's drive's front panel is white and grey. Lite-On drive's front panel is yellow. Apparently, the company didn't even bother to whiten it's DVD-ROM drive's front panel, unfortunately.

Lite-On's drive's front panel doesn't look especially appealing, or something. White - even black - would have been better choices for the color of the front panel. LG's drive's tray sound OK when opening and closing, Lite-On's drive quite bad.

LG's tray's buttons are better in shape (round) and keep much better in place. Lite-On's tray's buttons are more sensitive to the touch, though (a good thing).

Lite-On's drive has white, black and _blue_ plastic inside. LG's drive has only black and white plastic. Also, LG's drive's plastic looks to be of quite high quality. Lite-On's plastic looks of low quality.

Lite-On's unfortunately at least somewhat worse than especially good drive has broken in my of about two years of normal use. It doesn't read any disc that I've tried. The first time that it happened I thought that the drive had broken permanently. However, a few days later I tried the drive and it did read a disc. It has now broken for the second time and I have given up for it, because I seriously doubt that it deserves to be a part of my computer. Sorry.

I'm quite sure that in the future - when it comes to computer parts - I will only buy the best manufacturer's best product. I suggest that other people do it, too.

I don't know what is the best DVD-ROM drive available at the moment. Plextor's top-of-the-line (the only one?) perhaps.

Plextor Premium CD-RW drive (52X, 32X, 52X) is the best CD-RW drive that I know of, an especially, maybe even extremely, good one. A review of it can be found from the website www.HotHardware.com. I suggest the reading of it, for it is a good review.

Sami-FIN

Edit: (I also made some other adjustments than the following.) I removed the certain parts of my message. They were about the color of Lite-On drive's front panel. Even if they were true, they were against good taste. I had no right to use any of them in my message, for which I will be eternally sorry.

Sami-FIN

Second edit: Some adjustments.

Sami-FIN

Third edit: For clarification, all these three edits happened in the past 60 minutes (I think).

Techno Pride · Post by **Techno Pride** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:28 am

I am guessing you haven't seen the newer LG drives.

I have a made in korea 4120B (w/ the round button, sexy strip in front) and a recent china 4167B. Massive difference in build quality.

I have a recent Liteon DVD-ROM drive (Sony 1615 aka Liteon 16P9S) and I find the build quality better than the LG 4167B.

Sami-FIN · Post by **Sami-FIN** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:13 am

[quote="Techno Pride"]I am guessing you haven't seen the newer LG drives.

I have a made in korea 4120B (w/ the round button, sexy strip in front) and a recent china 4167B. Massive difference in build quality.

I have a recent Liteon DVD-ROM drive (Sony 1615 aka Liteon 16P9S) and I find the build quality better than the LG 4167B.[/quote]

You are guessing right. LG and Lite-On - neither of them is an exactly a quality manufacturer. Plextor, for example, is. However, even Plextor has only one good CD-RW drive: the top of the line one - Plextor Premium (52X, 32X, 52X). I'm referring to the one that costs about 80 - 120 dollars. I think that Plextor made another Premium drive after that one, one costs only about 40 dollars. I don't recommend that drive.

I've read about some new Lite-On drive having an average build-quality.

So, the CD-RW drive to buy would be Plextor Plexwrite Premium and the DVD-ROM drive Plextor PX-130A. In this case, there's no point in buying anything other than the best, because money is not an issue (neither of the drives is especially expensive).

Sami-FIN

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 1:49 pm

Is this plextor PR or what? Lite-on DVD writers are crap, but not because they have blue plastic inside, but because their dvd writing quality sucks. Who cares if they use colored plastic inside? I only care about how they perform. Plextor drives you value so highly have been also been piece of crap lately. Premium, yes, a very nice piece of hardware. PX708, 712 and 716 however have seen some massive quality problems at the launch. I wouldn't touch any of these models with a ten feet stick. 755/760 are the first plextor drives that I would probably consider as my next burner. Oh, and lets not forget that px740 and px130 which you mentioned as an example of plextor quality are actually rebadged benqs!

Do your reading, read the tests and please don't confuse members of this board.

dragmor · Post by **dragmor** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:55 pm

I've got a Lite-on DVD rom and a Lite-on DVD Combo drive and have never had any problems with either of them. The burner has never turned out a bad CD, the beige colour is the same as every other drive/computer. Functionally there is nothing wrong with them. But acoustically they are loud as hell.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 3:08 pm

The writing quality of my Lite-On DVD writer are perfectly fine, probably not with POS media though. The noise level of most Lite-On drives are pretty high and that's a good reason to draw attention to products from a specific manufacturer in this forum, external cosmetic features or how a product looks on the inside are irrelevant.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 4:06 pm

JazzJackRabbit wrote:Is this plextor PR or what? Lite-on DVD writers are crap, but not because they have blue plastic inside, but because their dvd writing quality sucks. Who cares if they use colored plastic inside? I only care about how they perform. Plextor drives you value so highly have been also been piece of crap lately. Premium, yes, a very nice piece of hardware. PX708, 712 and 716 however have seen some massive quality problems at the launch. I wouldn't touch any of these models with a ten feet stick. 755/760 are the first plextor drives that I would probably consider as my next burner. Oh, and lets not forget that px740 and px130 which you mentioned as an example of plextor quality are actually rebadged benqs!

Do your reading, read the tests and please don't confuse members of this board.

I'd have to agree with almost everything he said. Imo the only thing premium with plextor is price.

Captain John · Post by **Captain John** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 4:59 pm

Lite On terrible? Not in my experience. I've installed dozens of lite on burners, and worked on hundreds of machines with lite on drives. They are not nearly the worst. In general they are very reliable, although they can be fickle with old firmware on crap media.

Try some bad ones
BTC
Optorite
SONY (I've had more than 50% of the sony DVDRW drives I've dealt with be defective).

Lite on might not be the best, but it aint bad...
-John

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 5:33 pm

I've had experience with one LiteOn drive, and it will be my last. It's an older DVD-ROM model, but it doesn't sound like they've gotten better. I completely agree with the OP about build quality. It's loud, vibrates like a beast, and takes longer to spin up than any other optical drive I've ever seen.

bexx · Post by **bexx** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:35 pm

I used to like plextor drives, back before they even made ide drives they were all about quality.... and over the years they keep making crappier products and putting their name on it to sell it. They still make some real nice drives but they're not like they used to be, before you couldn't compare anything to a nice plextor burner.

Lately I've been buying lite-on drives basically because they're cheap, my last drive was a nec... which actually is a pos... it gives read errors for some reason.. put the same disk in my old liteon drive and it reads fine.. not sure whats up... but anyways...

I think with all burners at this point the 'good' ones are not just a specifc brand but a specific model... each brand has crap and quality drives. Oh yea back to plextor, they still have a few nice drives but they still make you pay for that plextor stamp on the front... for twice the price you definitly arn't getting twice the drive.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:54 pm

Erssa wrote:I'd have to agree with almost everything he said. Imo the only thing premium with plextor is price.

Plextor still has some good models. Plextor Premium is easily the best CDRW on the market. However their DVDRWs are lacking. 755/760 seems like a good come back thoug. It's like bexx said, you gotta look at the specific model, not the brand. For my CDRW I have plextor premium, for DVDRW Benq1640 because I feel those are the best.

Captain John wrote:SONY (I've had more than 50% of the sony DVDRW drives I've dealt with be defective).

You contradict yourself. Most of the sony DVDRWs are actually lite-on rebadges. I can only think of 4 Sony DVD writers that aren't lite-on rebadge. And of those four only two made by Sony itself, the other two are benq rebadges.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:59 pm

JazzJackRabbit wrote:Plextor still has some good models. Plextor Premium is easily the best CDRW on the market. However their DVDRWs are lacking. 755/760 seems like a good come back thoug. It's like bexx said, you gotta look at the specific model, not the brand. For my CDRW I have plextor premium, for DVDRW Benq1640 because I feel those are the best.

I don't see much point for having seperate CD-RWs or more then 1 Optical drive. But I guess this is a matter of preference. Benq1640 is also my favourite, not only because it tops the benchmarks, but it is also very cheap costing around 44 euros here.

Erssa wrote:SONY (I've had more than 50% of the sony DVDRW drives I've dealt with be defective).
You contradict yourself. Most of the sony DVDRWs are actually lite-on rebadges. I can only think of 4 Sony DVD writers that aren't lite-on rebadge. And of those four only two made by Sony itself, the other two are benq rebadges.

I can't take credit for this quote.

But I will say that my Teac DVDRW is rebadged Lite-on and I think it has performed pretty decently.

link1896 · Post by **link1896** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:51 am

Sami-fin, I Suggest your experience is rather biased. Check out the lite-on forum at cdfreaks.com http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=44

If you use current firmware, or the codeguys 3rd party firmware, and decent quality media and scan your burnt disks with kprobe, you will find lite-on's produce great burns, on par with many other brands.

Read the forums for details on kprobe and code guys.

Personally I've used quite a few drives, and find no problems with the linton's burners.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:57 am

Erssa wrote:I can't take credit for this quote.

You're right, I forgot to change the name when I copypasted quote block.

Erssa wrote:I don't see much point for having seperate CD-RWs or more then 1 Optical drive. But I guess this is a matter of preference. Benq1640 is also my favourite, not only because it tops the benchmarks, but it is also very cheap costing around 44 euros here.

If you rarely burn CDs or don't copy copyprotected music and game CDs then you don't need more than one optical drive. However, if you do, you're better off purchasing a separate CD writer for that because most DVD writers can't cope with advanced forms of music/game protection and your copy attempt may fail. The only exception to the rule is Plextor 712/716 drives (don't know about 755/760) but as I already have said in the thread the DVD burn quality on those is very average. So you're essentially buying $100 DVD writer for burning CDs. I'd rather prefer a Plextor Premium or Lite-On 5232 CDRW for burning copyprotected CD media and a separate writer for DVD stuff.

L3thal · Post by **L3thal** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:18 pm

I have drives from both Lite-On and Plextor. My experience with the Lite-On CD-RW drive is that it is loud while burning or accessing and the tray doesn't open or close very smoothly, but it is very fast, and I haven't burnt a coaster yet. On the other hand, the Plextor is quiet, and the tray opens and closes smooth as silk, but I get inconsistent speeds and have burnt several coasters with it, while using decent media(Fuji,Imation).So, I would have to say that there is no perfect drive for everyone, concerning performance, looks, and reliability...there's always a trade-off.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:52 pm

Imation doesn't make any media, it resells other brands, most often CMC/Prodisc which are mostly crap. Fuji makes its own media but it also resells CMC/Prodisc and TY. So it's possible that the media you burned wasn't "decent", relatively speaking of course.

L3thal · Post by **L3thal** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:33 pm

Imation doesn't make any media, it resells other brands, most often CMC/Prodisc which are mostly crap. Fuji makes its own media but it also resells CMC/Prodisc and TY. So it's possible that the media you burned wasn't "decent", relatively speaking of course.

This I know. When purchasing media from Fuji(which is what i mostly use), I usually look for the "made in Japan" label...supposedly these are better quality than the taiwan/china stuff thats out there. Even then its hard to tell if you have a good batch or not. By "decent" I meant that they were probably better than the $2/100 pack of the no-name brand Wal-Mart/ebaY specials. Point is, that not all drives like the same media, even the higher quality stuff, so I guess the trick is to find a brand that works, and stick with it(even then it's hit and miss).

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:37 pm

FujiFilm with "made in Japan" label are all TY, which is the best CDR media there is, you cannot even compare TY media with any other brand, especially unbranded walmart stuff. TY has been there since the beginnig of CD recording and holds most patents on cyanine dye which is used in its CDRs. TY media is also the most compatible (most likely due to the fact that it's so good). Unless you use a really really shitty burner like BTC or you got a really bad batch (happens sometimes) all burns on TY media are excellent quality. I guess it's possible to get a coaster on TY media even using Plextor or LiteOn burner, but either you were doing something abnormal to it, like overburning/overspeeding too much or it has got to be a fluke.

Sami-FIN · Post by **Sami-FIN** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:25 pm

JazzJackRabbit, this isn't Plextor PR - at least, I don't think that it is - but instead this is me telling people to avoid Lite-On's products. At the moment, I don't know of any Lite-On product that is worth buying, meaning that the product is the kind that needs to be bought and no better alternative exists.

Thanks for the sixth complete sentence of your message (the hardware part).

I didn't know about the rebadged BenQ thing. My DVD drive suggestion was a quick one that I did by going to Plextor's website and looking for the company's best DVD-ROM drive. PX-130A was the only DVD-ROM drive I could find. Thanks for the BenQ clarification.

Toshiba SD-M1712, I think, is the DVD-ROM drive I was going to suggest for people to buy, but I don't think it is being made anymore. I also don't think that any store sells it new anymore. I don't know of any good DVD-ROM drive. Sorry.

I have done a lot of reading and read many tests. I won't confuse any member of this board on this board much longer (not after this week). I'm very sorry.

Captain John, sorry, but no thanks. Thanks for the information and/or informations. I won't try any of those manufacturer's drive's, I think. Sorry and thank you.

JazzJackRabbit, thank you _very much_ about your second message's of this topic second complete sentence (about the Plextor Premium).

Link1896, biased? I have never used nor owned a Plextor product nor do I now. I have never worked for Plextor nor do I now. I only own a Lite-On _DVD-ROM_ drive. I apologize.

It's fine by me if all my messages will be deleted from this forum soon.

The original message that I have posted in this thread was meant to warn people about Lite-On's products. My experience with Lite-On is based on one product - the DVD-ROM drive Lite-On LTD-163D (it's the D version, I think) - and I have compared the product to LG's CD-RW drive LG GCE-8400B.

Apparently, my warning has failed and/or it wasn't based on reason, therefore I deeply apologize for any and all inconvenience and any and all other bad things that I have and may have caused with my registration on this forum and posted messages.

Sami-FIN

Edit: I may be sorry, but I still believe that Lite-On is not an especially good, but quite bad manufacturer. I'm very sorry, if I'm wrong, and Lite-On in actuality _is_ an especially good manufacturer. Still, I'm very sorry about all the bad things that I have caused on this forum.

Sami-FIN

Edit: Sorry about breaking my promise about not returning to this forum (or something) after the previous week. I had to return here to at least try to repair at least some of the damage that I had done. Still, I'm sorry.

Sami-FIN