Reliability and speed are the primary criterions we look for when
hunting for a new CD-ROM drive. Over the past Sony, Asus, Kenwood
have proved themselves to be one of the best produces of optical devices.
A common feature all these CD-ROMs feature is the X rating going up
almost on a continuous basis, and the price seems to drop down in
a similar fashion. Today a considerably good CD-ROM drive could be
obtained for around $40, which is as cheap as some of your desktop
speakers. So the question remains, do we require all this speed? Most
definitely. If your requirements for a CD-ROM is merely to watch movies,
a slower CD-ROM would do, but I'm sure you won't find one in the market
today, since they're so obsolete. However most games that come today
require a certain degree of CD-ROM support in gameplay. So the faster
it is, slower lag you'll notice.
Some of you might consider opting for a newer DVD drive and receive
the benefits of both worlds, nevertheless what you must keep in mind
is that a DVD drive costs significantly more than any DVD drive currently
in the market. Besides no DVD drive today is capable of going beyond
the 32X CD read speed. Currently the world record holder in CD-ROM
drive speed is Kenwood's 72 TrueX drive. They claim that this speed
is equivalent to a 100X conventional CD-ROM drive. I have had my share
of experience with one of these drives, and believe me they are fast.
Ultra high speeds cannot be justified if the drive cannot support
all formats of CD ROMS. The Kenwood drives cannot read most CD-RW's,
and even a lightly scratched ROM might not get recognized in this
drive. Right now, the Kenwood drives aren't the best thing to go for
in my opinion, and the considerably higher cost further adds to this
fact.
What we have in offer to you today is a drive we believe is a really
great alternative to the Kenwood drive; the 56X CD-ROM drive from
Afreey Inc. Best of all even at this high speed, the drive is capable
of reading all CD-ROM formats, and it costs only $37. Now that's value
for money folks. In fact the tiny desktop speakers I use are more
expensive than this. Lovely ain't it.
