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Iomega Super DVDRW16X-U2 review

Evan Gower October 7, 2009

£67

Price when reviewed

Although unable to match the leaders, the Iomega’s lower price still makes it an attractive deal, and it finished fifth in the overall speed table. It coped well with rewritable DVDs, burning our DVD-RW in just over ten minutes and 14 minutes for DVD+RW, while a dual-layer time of 27 minutes puts it among the elite there too.

CD-R speed was excellent, but with its quoted CD-RW speed of 24x it struggled to match its 32x rivals. Single-layer recordable DVD speeds were solid without standing out, but overall it’s a fast drive and a quoted DVD+RW speed of 8x means it will get faster when the media catches up.

Where this drive falls down a little is in its range of features, most notably its lack of support for dual-layer DVD-R discs. Also, DVD+R dual-layer burning won’t go any faster than 4x, which doesn’t give it much scope for improvement.

It does have a headphone socket and volume control, which is quite rare, and the bundled software is comprehensive. Iomega HotBurn Pro and Sonic MyDVD are decent utilities, added to a player and a backup program, and MusicMatch Jukebox is a nice inclusion. It’s certainly one of the better bundles this month.

It doesn’t have the style of the Sony or the performance of the Samsung, but it’s cheaper and makes a respectable alternative if you’re on a tight budget.