Update Notes: 13-Dec-2000

Sigh, yours truly continues to have bad luck with CD writers. After striking out twice with HP models, earlier this year I decided to get an older 2x2x6 Philips model. I figured that if these things were going to die in one year anyway, I may as well buy the cheapest name-brand possible.

Alas, this one started to behave quirky after 10 months. Well, at least I could get it fixed or replaced under warranty. Oops, I bought this from Challenger and since they've disappeared off that part of the face of the earth that is Thailand, I had to go straight to Philips. Philips said that this model was intended for sale in Taiwan, and therefore as a grey market product, they would not honor the warranty locally. If I wished, I could DHL it to Taiwan where they have magnanimously offered to "take a look at it".

One thing I've learned about CD writers is that once they start acting up, they're very difficult to fix. Inevitably, it makes more sense to just replace them. After thinking it over, I decided NOT to give the drive a vacation in Taiwan. After spending a few thousand Baht for mailing and given that the drive only had two months left on warranty, how much longer could I seriously expect the drive to last if it was not replaced? Thanks, but this sounded more and more like a fools offer.

Needless to say, I am VERY disappointed with Philips. As a buyer, it is impossible for me to tell whether a product is correctly imported or not. In light of this failure to honor a warranty worldwide and the fact that my other foray into Philips hardware (a 40x CD-ROM) also ended with a flaky drive, I will NEVER again buy any Philips products, be it computer, audio or video products. In my mind, Philips has long ceased to be a serious supplier of computer equipment.

By pure coincidence, I was reading the "Watchdog" section of the January 2001 issue of Maximum PC today. Watchdog deals with consumer advocacy issues and orphaned computer products, and in it were a few letters which touched upon a class action suit against Philips for defective CD-R drives (sound familiar?). More details about this lawsuit first appeared in the September 2000 issue of Maximum PC. Or, check this out: http://webm32be.ntx.net/lawsuits/philips/.

So, what now? Actually, I wasn't using the Philips myself. It was being used at a school to duplicate courseware CD's - but I WAS the one who selected it and feel responsible for it. For my own stuff, I've been using a Kodak CD writers (Mitsumi OEM) and so far (knock wood), they've been performing fine. Granted, the number of CD's I personally burn is less than at the school, but then they hardly do Panthip-type volumes either. And in any case, a warranty should be honored REGARDLESS of how much the drive is used.

A friend in Thailand tells me that HP has a limited-time promotion whereby a 9000 series HP CD writer will be given a 3-year warranty instead of 1. Despite having been burned by HP before, I may have no choice ...

Here in the U.S., Plextor CD writers receive excellent reviews and the lower end 8x4x32 model can be had for as little as US$150+. But in Thailand, Plextor has no master dealers and whatever ones you can find are almost certainly hand-carries.

Update Notes: 22-Mar-2000

During the past two years, I've used two Hewlett Packard CD-R/-RW drives: a model 7100i (6-2-2) at work and a model 8100i (24-4-2) at home, both being ATAPI IDE models. At the time I bought my first CD-R drive, I wasn't extremely knowledgeable about such things and decided to play it safe and buy from HP, a company I've had a lot of good experiences with in the past.

Unfortunately, my faith may have been misplaced. During the first year or so of using the 7100i, the drive died twice. The first time, the drive was still in warranty and HP replaced it with a brand new drive (or what looked like a brand new drive). A few months later, the drive died again, but now it was out of warranty and I was out of luck. HP wanted 500 Baht just to take it apart (i.e. not to fix it), but I had had enough.

The 8100i (which is apparently OEM'ed by Sony not HP) lasted longer, but by the time it started acting flaky (i.e. it wouldn't record, read a CD-ROM or play an audio CD), it was 1-1/2 years old and likewise, out of warranty. This one's going to visit HP to see how much the repairs would cost.

Both drives recorded roughly 150 CD's each before they hit the wall. While not a trivial number, I expected a lot more, but it seems like HP's reputation for sturdiness doesn't apply to such devices, at least based on my experiences. What's worse, the warranty period is fairly short - 1 year - a period matched by all other CD-R vendors, HP's superior reputation notwithstanding.

I've since had to buy a replacement for one of the drives. I'd rather not say what my choice was this time (I haven't used it long enough to have any opinion of it), but it too has a 1 year warranty, and was priced less than half that of a new HP model. Given my luck, after a year it wouldn't make much difference what brand I was using. Caveat emptor.