Rating: 
Summary: Works great -
Review: - No installation: simply plug into a USB port
- Simple operation: fool-proof
- Included software is just so-so, useable but very limited. You may need to buy a DVD copy/create software so that you can compress more data into a standard 4.7 GB DVD blank or skip bad sectors if needed. - This burner favors DVD+R (8X write) over DVD-R (4X) so buy your media accordingly.
- It will take 15-18 minutes to fill a DVD-R (2hrs of video) at 4X speed and about 8-10 minutes for DVD+R. I had burned roughly 100 DVDs so far and the write time has been very consistent. (Data caching/creation is an entirely different story as it varies greatly depending on data types, compression needs and machine CPU speed.) Just don't see how the previous reviewer created a two-hours home movies DVD in 4 minutes??? That would be 20 MB/sec or 14X write speed. Wow!
Rating:
Summary: Surprisigly BIG, but elegant and competent.
Review: Do you remember external CD-Burners when they first came out, and if you do, you'll understand how I felt after opening of long-awaited package with Plextor DVD-Burner-that thing turned out to be at least twice as large then I expected after alot of research all over the internet, however impressive physical size of that drive doesn't affect drive's performance at all,in fact after having Plextor-708UF for quite some time I have to say if you are looking for fast and powerful DVD-burner Plextor-708UF is an excellent choice for all your burning needs, and after you'll get one don't forget to register the drive and download latest firmware from Plextor's site-you'll be all set and ready to go.
Rating:
Summary: This burner is a superb piece of work!I
Review: I bought this to replace my already ancient 1x dvd burner in my notebook. It burns in the most popular formats (-r and +r) and is very quick about it. While 8x speed media is difficult to find and expensive, plextor has rigged this wonder to burn at 8x on some 4x media. I have been successful at this with Maxwell media rated at 4x. If your on the hunt for a dvd burner that is fast and easily shared among your home network this is the way to go!
Rating:
Summary: No-hassle, reliable DVD-R drive
Review: I did some research into external DVD writers, and everything seemed to point to this drive. I wasn't disappointed - so far, I haven't found anything wrong with it.
Set-up and installation were a snap. The only problem is: I'm going to have to buy real drink coasters now because this drive doesn't make any. Yup, I haven't had any write errors in burning about 25 single-sided DVDs. Speed isn't that important to me, but the Plextor was burning DVDs consistently at 4x, which was plenty fast (I could probably get it to 8x, but the increased speed isn't worth the reliability risk for me). Here are my basic specs: I've been using the drive's Firewire connection to burn video DVDs and back up to data DVDs, using a 1.5 mhz P4 Laptop with Windows XP and 512 mb of RAM.
The wrap-up: This is hands-down the best external DVD writer on the market now, and it's well-priced. I have used its basic functions (single-sided DVD-R and CD-R writing) for 2 months without problems.
Rating:
Summary: Plextor 8x DVD drives
Review: I had the Sony Dru 500 burner, had lots of trouble with un finished disks. Took it back and purchased the New Plextor 8x. Wow, what a difference, No more unfinished burns and I downloaded the firmware update and now my Plextor burns at 8x on any 4x +R disk I use. It's womderful! I went from almost an hour to burn a DVD to 8 minutes. I just purched the Plextor external drive too so now I have both. Both burn at 8x on any DVD+R media.
Rating: 
Summary: poor tech support
Review: I purchased this 708UF due to many good reviews (unbelievable - all gave this 5 stars). I read system requirement and compare different bands and chose this one. I've this less than two weeks and it took 6 hours to copy a DVD. The rate is only 0.01x. I would not expect this to be 8x as advertised but I was expecting at least 4x. I tried different brand of 8x DVD+&- including Sony but the snail speed. I contacted to Plextor tech support and told me to update my USB. I've WinXP with SP2 and the USB2.0 is fully functioned. I tried with different PC but the speed is slower than a snail, 0.01x. I contacted to Microsoft and I've the most recent driver update. This plextor tech support person was unhelpful and unresponsible for their product - contrary to their advertisement. Don't by this product unless you're expert to fix all problems by yourself and you don't need tech support.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent product for MAC and PC
Review: I use the 'Firewire/USB2' version of this DVD-RW and I am absolutely satisfied with the performance and the features of this writer. I use it on both, a Mac (under OS X with firewire) and PC (under Windows XP with USB2) and it works flawless. This is truely 'plug and play' - no installation software is necessary on either operating system. The writing speeds are excellent and I have not burned any 'coasters' so far. It supports all DVD and CD medias and the DVDs (DVD+R DVD+RW DVD-R and DVD-RW) play on all of my DVD players. The picture quality is excellent. The bundled software is very good as well, for Apple (Toast 6.0 lite) and for PC (Roxia software bundle). Also for PC, DVDMAX is included which is a pretty good DVD player (considering the price of this unit is less than 200 dollars, there are hardly any 'DVD player programs' available in the same price range).
This drive comes also with some excellent Plextor tools (e.g. overburning of CDs, error diagnostics, silent mode, and my favorite, drag and drop to disk which makes moving files to and from a DVD very easy). I have been shopping around for a DVD writer for quite a while and I can hightly recommend this unit, especially if you are looking for an external device that works on MAC and PC.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent product, good software, no support needed
Review: I was looking for a way to back up my DVDs here in the harsh desert environment of Kuwait, and I needed a reliable DVD burner to do it. I knew I wouldn't be able to call up tech support or customer service and wait half an hour to talk to a technician, so I did the research and paid extra for the Plextor, and I'm glad I did. After 4 months it has performed just advertised with no glitches. Installation was easy, no additional drivers neccessary for my Dell 1100 laptop. I have burned several "coasters" (bad disks), but have since determined that the problem was that the disks themselves were at fault and not the burner. An added plus is that the "full" version of Roxio Easy CD/DVD creator is included, which includes features like cross fading. Overall an excellent and rugged product and worth the money. Minor gripe with Amazon in that they won't ship this to an APO address, but otherwise a very good deal.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent product, good software, no support needed
Review: I was looking for a way to back up my DVDs here in the harsh desert environment of Kuwait, and I needed a reliable DVD burner to do it. I knew I wouldn't be able to call up tech support or customer service and wait half an hour to talk to a technician, so I did the research and paid extra for the Plextor, and I'm glad I did. After 4 months it has performed just advertised with no glitches. Installation was easy, no additional drivers neccessary for my Dell 1100 laptop. I have burned several "coasters" (bad disks), but have since determined that the problem was that the disks themselves were at fault and not the burner. An added plus is that the "full" version of Roxio Easy CD/DVD creator is included, which includes features like cross fading. Overall an excellent and rugged product and worth the money. Minor gripe with Amazon in that they won't ship this to an APO address, but otherwise a very good deal.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect DVD burner?
Review: I'd pretty much say so. This nifty little unit is relatively inexpensive (I got mine from the local big box at a deep discount) and it does NOT make coasters---that is, it doesn't fail partway through making a disc and leave you with a useless hunk of plasttic. I'll admit that I only buy top quality DVD+R discs, but really that's the only way to go anyway.
The unit hooks right up and the driver installed on Win2K just fine. The provided software is a bit clunky, but serviceable. There's plenty of cheap software if you need it (although I found that I could burn CDs and DVDs just fine with what's provided).
Downsides: the unit I got is silver (I'd prefer a more sedate color) and hums slightly when on. That's it.
Although other manufacturers make DVD drives for less, Plextor has the most highly regarded reputation and this drive shows why. The proof is in the burning. After struggling for years with CD burners and software, with a growing collection of junk discs, I've found a piece of hardware that saves hours of "burning it again". Accept no substitutes.
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