CD Burner Review

Introduction to CD Burners

Now that DVD burners have taken over the market, the pivotal question is whether to buy a CD burner at all -- especially when DVD burners (which can also burn to CDs) have decreased dramatically in price (budget DVD burners cost less than $35). All of the most credible reviewers from past reports, including PC World, PC Magazine and CNet.com, have eschewed reviewing CD-RW drives in favor of boosting coverage of DVD burners. Consumer Reports last updated its report on CD burners in November 2000; too long ago to be of any use. Manufacturers have also scaled back production, reducing once-lengthy product lines to just one or two models.

If you're thinking of upgrading or installing a CD burner, reviews say you should probably install a DVD burner instead. Top-speed DVD burners burn and read both DVDs and CDs, so they give you a lot more flexibility. If you have a digital camcorder, you'll be able to burn your movies on DVDs that will be readable in most home DVD players. DVDs hold much more information than CDs -- 4.7 GB compared to a CD's 700 MB -- so DVDs are more capacious for large data backups. Most DVD burners can burn to double-layer DVDs, which can hold as much as 8 GB of data.

The bottom line is that if you're into burning music as well as movies or need more storage space for backups, you should go for a DVD burner. If you're more interested in making music CDs and smaller backups, or if you have an older computer, a CD writer will do the trick. For more information on DVD drives, see our separate report (DVD burners). Note that the Lite-On combo unit above in ConsumerSearch Fast Answers can play DVDs, but it cannot burn them.