Product Reviews

There was never a real contest between HD DVD and Blu-ray for data storage. Very few HD-DVD writers were ever released, and Blu-ray discs can hold more data than HD DVD discs. The BDR-202 is Pioneer's latest Blu-ray writer, but it supports only single-layer 25GB discs and not double-layer 50GB discs. Fortunately, it's also available in black, with a part code of BDR-202 BK.

The BDR-202 was quick at burning rewritable Blu-ray discs, taking only 44 minutes

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and 41 seconds. It took 24 minutes and 50 seconds to burn a write-once Blu-ray disc. That's quick, but LG's GGW-H20L drive (reviewed in What's New, Shopper 243) was even quicker, taking just under 22 minutes.

We had no trouble watching a Blu-ray movie on the BDR-202, although no Blu-ray playback software is included. This is an added expense if you don't already own a copy; PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra costs around £60 online.

We were also disappointed with the BDR-202's speeds when writing DVDs. Although it came close to its claimed 4X for burning dual-layer DVDs, it couldn't match Pioneer's claim of 12X for writing single-layer DVD; it managed only around 7.5X. LG's GGW-H20L fared similarly when filling dual-layer discs, but was quicker at burning single-layer DVDs, reaching 9X.

The BDR-202 is a reasonable choice if you need to regularly re-use rewritable Blu-ray discs, but LG's GGW-H20L is the faster Blu-ray burner overall. Despite coming with bundled software the GGW-H20L is £32 cheaper, making it the better deal.