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Features
This drive certainly does not skimp on features.
Let's take a quick look at its most impressive ones.
The NEC ND3500A is the first 16x DVD writer to
feature high speed 48x CD read/write capabilities, doubling as one very fast CD
writer as well.
This drive is a dual format writer capable of
writing to both DVD+R and DVD-R media at the current highest write speed of
16x. We will test these capabilities a bit later in this review.
On top of that, this drive is also one of the
first drives to hit the market with 4x double layer writing capabilities.
We recently looked at Pioneer's model and were able to successfully write at
4x to 2.4x media. We will see how well the NEC handles DL media a bit
later.
The ND3500A also benefits from NEC's "high
resolution writing strategy" which uses advanced laser modulation to boost the
accuracy of the written data. The drive also includes an enhanced version of
NEC's "Active Optimized Power Control" (Active OPC). Active OPC monitors
writing power and reflection of the media in use, calculating the optimum
laser power and adjusting it in real-time.
Installation
Installation, as always, was a breeze and is
properly identified in Device Manager as model "ND-3500AG".
Firmware revision on our sample drive was 2.16
and is currently the most recent official firmware release. All
supported features were correctly identified using Nero InfoTool. Like
all the other drives we have looked at, the NEC ND-3500A does not support
Mount Rainier. DVD-RAM is not supported as well.
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