Test Report

Pretty, but Pretty Flawed Too / Report November 19, 2005
Problems:

First: the label on the drive indicates a DRX-710UL, but Windows shows DRU-710A. Even the Flash utility shows DRU-710, and anyone that's flashed a MoBo with the wrong version of firmware understands the need to be precisly accurate when dealing with such things. I finally realized the cause of the confusion (the guts are DRU-710) but because of Sony's laziness and/or incompetence I had to chew up valuable time trying to figure out if a DVD-Writer problem was due to what turned out to be an irrelevant hardware designator.

Second, after installing all of the updates (up to and including BYX5) the drive still takes 10 minutes to write a DVD. The media is not the problem: other drives are writing on the same media (ridata 16x) consistently at 16X.

The 2 stars are because:

1. It seems to reliably burn DVD Data disks, albeit slowly

2. It's purty

There's no excuse for a company the size of Sony to create products with these types of flaws.



Solid Product and the BIOS has been updated., December 12, 2004

Paul (review below) did such a fine job that I only have a little bit to add. First I want to add that my initial experiences with this DVD burner have surpassed all of my expectations. The Nero software they provide is excellent; the DVD burner is pleasure to use. And FAST too.

I want to mention that Sony has two updated BIOS releases that takes DVD-R writing speeds from 8x to 12x. There are other advances also. And the BIOS update is so easy to do.

(...)

There are two updates. One update (says it is for the 710A but the DRX-710UL has a 710A inside so it applies here) updates media compatibility and improves writing speeds. That update is named 710A_BYX2.EXE.

The second update is for us users that connect to the computer with a USB cable. That update is FWUPDATE.EXE and it resolves some issues with WinXP SP2 communications on the USB interface.

I have now done both updates on my burner. I ran FWUPDATE.EXE first, rebooted and then with the USB interface issues all updated, I ran 710A_BYX2.EXE.

The 710A_BYX2.EXE update paused for what seemed like a minute or two at the 100% progress mark, but just be patient and eventually you should get the "inquiry" message followed by the "update was completed successfully" message and an invitation to reboot.

Upon reboot after the 710A_ByX2.EXE update, WinXP saw my DVD Burner as a new device (again).

All in all, it is pretty slick. But, of course, proceed at your own risk after printing out and carefully following the provided (on the web-site) instructions for each BIOS.


I've been burning with Fuji (Taiyo Yuden) 8x DVD +R and -R as well as ProDisc 8X DVD-R and it simply couldn't be easier.


Dual Layer, Dual Enjoyment., November 4, 2004
Reviewer: Paul Gelfand (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

I purchased this product about a week ago, since I was looking for an external DVD burner to hook up to my laptop (IBM T-30 w/pcmcia firewire card) in order to consolidate a lot of cd's that I had lying around.
Out of the Box:
The first thing I noticed was the size of the burner, which is actually pretty big compared to everything else on my desk, but with the verticle stand, it's not a problem. The drive itself looks like a high quality product, Sony even went the extra step of giving it a gloss finish.
Included in the box is a USB cable, and a Firewire cable with a 4 pin connector on one side, and a 6 pin on the other (the back of the drive has both a 6 pin firewire connector, and a 4 pin, so if you only have one type on your computer, you can just flip the cable around). Btw, Sony calls the firewire cable an "i.LINK" cable for some reason. Also included is a packet with the warranty, and seperate packet for the manuals and software CD.



On the software CD:
Nero Burning Rom 6-SE
InCD 4
Nero Vision Express 2
Nero BackItUp
Nero Showtime



Installation:
The drive is purely plug and play, there are no drivers on the CD at all. Connect it by either the firewire or USB cable and it recognizes it very quickly. After the drive showed up in my computer, I popped in the software CD and installed the Nero software suite. I'm very happy that they included Nero, considering it's one of the best CD/DVD burning programs out there.



Performance:
I went out and bought a generic brand of 4x DVD-R's to test the drive out, put in Kill Bill Vol 2, and started burning. Even at 4x, the entire process took 15 minutes. I was anxious to try out the Dual Layer feature, so I went out and bought a pack of DVD+R DL's. These things are not cheap, each one retailing around $10 a disc. After deciding on what to back up, I went to burn it. It took a bit of time, since it's burning at 2.4x, but it went flawlessly. I was a bit nervous, since I would've been annoyed (to say the least) at coastering a $10 disc.





In conclusion, I am extremely satisfied with this product. I can't find a reason not to give it less than 5 stars. It's easy to setup, it's easy to use, and it performs like a dream.

Sony DRX710UL

Sony's newest Double Layer DVD recorder brings a whole new level of performance to DVD burning. Single layer DVD+R discs can now be burned at up to 16X speed, burning an entire disc in about 5 minutes. Double Layer DVD+R DL discs can also be burned with the DRX-710UL, giving you up to 4 hours of MPEG-2 video or up to 8.5 GB of data storage space on a single disc. The DRX-710UL burns standard 4.7 GB DVD+R and +RW discs and CD-R/RW discs. Sony has packed all this technology into an easy to install retail upgrade solution kit for your Windows 2000 or XP PC with award winning Nero software suite. VAIO accessories get you up and running quickly and easily.

From J&R Music and Computer World
Sony DRX-710UL External Dual-Layer DVD+RW Drive - This external DVD recorder lets you burn data & video to Dual-Layer DVD+R & +RW media. This gives you up to 8.5GB of storage on just one side! Leaving room for printed labels, or marking with a Sharpie on the other. It also records to nearly every other DVD & CD media type available! Up to 2.4x Dual-Layer DVD+R & DVD+RW Up to 16x Single-Layer DVD+R Up to 4x Single-Layer DVD+RW Up to 8x DVD-R Up to 4x DVD-RW Up to 48x CD-R Up to 24x CD-RW Up to 48x CD-ROM Up to 16x DVD-ROM Buffer Underrun Protection Includes: USB cable, FireWire cable (6-pin to 6-pin & 6-pin to 4-pin), Software CD, User's Guide, Warranty Card, Nero Burning ROM 6 SE, Nero Express 6, Nero VisionExpress 2 (VCD/SVCD & DVD Authoring), InCD 4, Nero ShowTime, Nero BackItUp, Nero MediaPlayer / Wave Editor, Nero Cover Designer, and Nero Toolkit

Sony DRX710UL

Sony DRX710UL

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