Thinkpads Forum

Ok, I just did a little research on this.

Those of you that have a T60 with the DVD Recordable driver can get either a Panasonic or LiteOn model. Previously, I always thought the Panasonics were superior in sound levels and recording speeds. Now, things "may" change. I only say "may change," because I don't have the Panasonic model to compare with.


BUT, let me tell you what I do know. I have the HLDS (Liteon) GSA-4083N which is able to burn DVD-Rs at 8X. That's pretty good for a laptop. I know other laptops have had this capability before, but this is a slim drive. A quick search on eBay reveals the Panasonic burner UJ-842 (not UJ-842B) forsale. The specs listed show max DVD burning speed of 6X.

So, if anyone has a newer slim model Panasonic burner, then please test it out.

First of all, HLDS is LG, or Hitachi-LG, to be precise. Not LiteOn.

As far as I know, the LG drives have higher compatibility with various media than Panasonic drives. The features of the drives should be identical, and I seem to recall that this particular Panasonic model was also listed as 8x DVD burner somewhere on Lenovo's site.

Other than that, it is said that the Panasonic drives have some issues with firmware, in the simple fact that no firmware (or almost none) is made available, and as such, no patched region-free firmware exists for them. All desktop LG drives have such firmware updates, but I'm not sure about their laptop models.

However, I've recently found out that the Panasonic may have some advantage regarding the burning speed of DVD-RAM disks. When burning DVD-RAM, the drives enable "write&verify" by default, which verifies everything written for maximum reliability, but unfortunately cuts the burning speed roughly in half. Apparently, Panasonic drives have the option to turn this feature off, while LG drives don't. Hence, an LG drive claiming that it burns DVD-RAM at, say, 5x, will in reality only reach 2.5x speeds.