One name that I wasn’t too
familiar with in the media storage market is TEAC. Their
latest offering, the DV-W58GA is a dual-layer drive, and
supports DVD-R/DVD-RW and DVD+R/DVD+RW media.
This is an internal drive,
with an average external appearance. This isn’t a bad thing,
especially with today’s radical new designs some
manufacturers are turning to. The drive is beige in color,
but it’s a little darker than the other drives. It reminds
me a bit of the darker beige color that older computer cases
came in. Most modern computers are a little lighter.
Overall, the drive seems to be a quality built product. This
was the only drive of the bunch to include a headphone jack,
along with an external volume control.
Installation was
straight forward, and I did not encounter any problems
whatsoever. Once installed in the test PC, the overall
appearance of the drive looks ok, but like I said
previous, it’s a little dark. Included in the box are
mounting screws, an audio cable, and the TEAC OE Suite 3
software disc which includes:
Nero Start Smart –
Installer program for the bundled software
Nero Vision Express
– Software for video capturing, authoring, video
editing, and slideshow creation
Nero Express 6 –
CD/DVD mastering software available for data, audio,
and CD/DVD copy
Nero Show Time –
DVD and MPEG-4 player
Nero Back It Up –
PC Backup solution
Nero Tool Kit –
Drive testing applications
Nero Cover Designer
– Create CD and DVD labels for your media
