Sony BWU-300S

This is the third-generation BD burner from Sony, and it's built for speed. The drive can push 6X media to 8X (35.96MBps). Sony says you might start to see blank 6X BD-Rs and BD-R DLs early this year, but the company had to slip us some media pulled from the Japanese market for our testing.

Is the speed increase for real? Yeah, it is, compared to Sony's earlier efforts. The BWU-300S can nearly fill a 50GB BD-R DL faster than previous models could lase a 25GB, rewritable BD-RE. This Sony is on par with the competition when it comes to belting out DVDs, too. It's not exactly a barnburner at ripping DVDs or CDs, however, although its CD burning speed is adequate.

In the retail box, there's a skinnier front panel for the disc tray, should the more attractive default fascia conflict with your case or artistic sensibilities. As for software, you'll get a CyberLink bundle for BD Profile 2.0 playback; BD-AV authoring, editing, and backup; along with a BD-Live-compatible Copy of "Men In Black."

As ever, Sony is on the high side when it comes to price. Online prices should be more palatable than the $399.99 MSRP, but it's still a hefty chunk of change considering how long Blu-ray has been around. Perhaps the financial hit the company reportedly takes every time it sells a PlayStation 3 at a loss (partly in an effort to push Blu-ray adoption, ironically) has to be paid elsewhere. Like here.

What should worry Sony is the fact that a 6X drive from LG, the GWB-H20L, can write BDs nearly twice as fast as this 8X drive (according to test results on page 72 or our October 2008 issue) and retails for $100 less.

by Marty Sems
www.sonystyle.com


Computer Power User January 2009.