Sony and NEC join forces

With the prices of DVD-burners dropping almost continuously it’s becoming increasingly difficult for manufacturers to realise a profit on their sales. This has forced various large manufacturers of optical drives to combine their resources and to work together. For example: Samsung and Toshiba have joint ownership of a production plant for optical drives, LG and Hitachi work together and Lite-on is a production partner to a multitude of other companies. The latest joint venture is that of Sony and NEC. Both Sony and NEC can profit from this cooperation as well as lower their production costs substantially. Sony is co-owner of various DVD-drive patents and therefore, unlike other manufacturers, does not have to pay some of the licensing fees associated with the production of DVD-burners and this can benefit NEC greatly. NEC on the other hand develops its own DVD-burner chipsets and is very cost effective in this area thus benefiting Sony. The first product to emerge from the cooperation of Sony and NEC is the Sony AW-G170A, an 18x speed DVD-burner. We put the drive through our extensive testing routine and in the following review will give you an in-depth view of its capabilities.

Specification wise the Sony AW-G170 does not disappoint. Like the latest Samsung and Plextor drives the Sony AW-G170 is capable of burning both DVD+R and DVD-R discs at 18x speed, it can also burn double-layer DVD+R and DVD-R discs at 8x speed, DVD+RW at 8x speed, DVD-RW at 6x speed and DVD-RAM at 12x speed. The drive has a 2MB buffer and makes use of a standard Atapi IDE interface. Inside the drive we find the NEC MC-10041 chipset and this is something we haven’t seen in any other drive as of yet. Neither Lightscribe or Labelfalsh are supported by the AW-G170 but these are features that will hardly be missed by most users. Being able to change the bitsetting or booktype to allow greater compatibility with various DVD players is only available with DVD+R DL discs. Based on the specifications on offer we can safely say that the AW-G170 is superior to any existing drives currently on offer by both Sony and NEC including Sony’s DRU-820A and NEC’s ND-4571.

Sony is targeting system integrators and the retail market with its new product and is therefore selling the drive solely as an OEM-product. The drive itself is available in four colors: Black, Pearl White, White and silver.