While Plextor drives tend to offer the best performance speeds, their high prices prohibit most DVD enthusiasts. And for those who are prepared to wait a few months, it doesn't take long for companies such as LG to put out a similar product, only at a much lower price.
This drive should cost around £35 for an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) version – you won't get any software with it, but you can buy a copy of Ahead Nero from Scan for around £2. For your £35 you get some of the highest speeds currently on offer: the LG comes with 10-speed DVD+R DL (double-layer) facilities.
For anyone looking to move more than 4.7GB of data on to a disc, the 8.5GB capacity of DL discs makes them a very hot commodity – and this LG is a further sign that, soon, mainstream drives will work almost as quickly with DL discs as they do with single-layer media. This drive took just over 17-and-a-half minutes to copy 8GB of data, compared with the 19-plus minutes required of drives with eight-speed +R DL.
The DVD+R facilities in LG drives have always been excellent and the H10N was no exception. Single-layer discs required a mere five minutes and 41 seconds to copy data.
DVD-RAM has been a much maligned format for some time, but as a rewriteable format it's quicker and more convenient to use than DVD-RW or DVD+RW. The problem is that its real-world performance has lagged behind rival formats. The LG sees the rewrite speed boosted to 12-speed and, while it still can't compete with the other standards, the 19 minutes needed to copy 3GB of data is considerably faster than the 25-plus minutes required of older drives.
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