Customer Reviews

AmazonBasics 700MB 52x CD-R (50-Pack Spindle)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was hoping for Taiyo Yudens, but unfortunately, Amazon's CD-Rs are rebranded Plasmons, according to Nero InfoTool. They're not the worst CDR brand out there, about lower middle of the pack. Plasmons are also rebranded by other manufacturers and sold as the following; Samsung 48X, MediaMac 52X, Davio 52X, Dynex 52X, etc.. Didn't get any coasters during a few of my test burns. However, if you're looking to archive important data, then you might want to use a higher quality brand.

The price is ok; Newegg sells a 50-pack of Verbatim CDRs for $16.99 with free shipping. Obviously Verbatims are much higher quality, and so I've deducted 1 star from the rating. For Plasmon branded CDRs, I'd rather pay 25-30% less, say in the neighborhood of $10-12 (based on Amazon's asking price of $15.10).

I'll preface this by stating that I'm not a super-tech-saavy user. I won't be able to wow you with a bunch of technical facts and figures. I can tell you, however, how this product worked for me, your typical end-user.

First, I'll comment on the "frustration-free packaging". It's about as simple as CD-ROM packing comes, but isn't remarkably different from 50- or 100-packs from other manufacturers. A nice, sturdy shell surrounds the CDs positioned on a center spindle. If you want each of your discs to have individual cases, you'll have to buy them separately. This actually saves a great deal of space and makes the overall packing very compact. The shell is, mercifully, easy to open.

As for the discs themselves, they're about as plain-Jane as they come. I only use them for making audio discs, NOT for data storage. As far as accuracy of storage, I did note one disc that had some "spotty" audio quality, which was disappointing. When re-ripped, the next disc was just fine. Honestly, I'm unsure if the problem was the CD-ROM or my hardware. In any case, I figured you should know.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with this product. The price-point is nice, while not extraordinary. One star was removed for the "spotty" disc, but I would definately buy this set again if I need CD-ROMs in bulk.

Good CD's, they work great, all burned just fine, we have not had a problem. They can burn a full 700 MB CD in 90 seconds, and they have a 1 year Amazon warranty! Why take chances, buy these for a no risk purchase. IF you shop here you already know about Amazon's GREAT customer service & shipping with NO sales tax! I Know of what i speak! I live in TN (the tithe state!) we pay 9.85% tax on EVERYTHING food medicine, you name it, so purchasing through Amazon is a way of life for me & my family!

BTW: The tops of the CD's look real shiney just like the bottoms, kinda cool, I think...

CD-R's have really dropped into the realm of commodity. In the past several years, I haven't had a single CD-R burn fail on any media I've ever tried. Burners just work and don't seem to care what kind of media you throw at them.

These Amazon Basics are no exception. They are Basic - not gold standard archival CD's, they are basic everyday use CD's. And they deliver that function very well, thank you very much.

They are the standard size, 700Mb or 80 minutes of CD music, CD-R's. That means you can record music, data, or MP3's on them one time. The discs are a very nice shiny silver (brighter than most) with black Amazon and CD-R logos. The surface requires a black permanent marker, just like most other CDs.

Burn speed - a 1.2 hour audio CD burned in roughly 2 minutes. Is that 52X as claimed? Oh its somewhere north of 24X, and certainly plenty fast. The good news, no failures when running the burner at maximum speed. At this kind of speed, I don't really care if its 40x or 52x or 80x - 2 minutes to burn a CD is well within the time I'm willing to wait for a burn. 40 minutes burned in under a minute, including finalizing the disc.

To me, if one or two CD's burn without failure, all 50 will burn fine. The track record on CD blanks is just so good, I see no real reason to test a ton more discs. I used iTunes directly to burn audio CD's through this optical drive, Samsung SH-S223Q/BEBS Internal Half Height Supermulti SATA 22X Lightscribe DVD-Writable Drive. No coasters. There is no reason to believe that Nero, or Roxio, or Windows would burn any differently - they all use more or less the same methods for writing to blanks.

These are NOT CD-R Audios for use in Audio CD recorders (if you need those, you probably already figured that out).

A word about packaging, since Amazon is making a really big splash about 'Frustration Free Packaging.' A spindle of 50 arrived in a nice neat cardboard box. The packaging was easy to open, except for destroying the packing slip while opening. The spindle is a 'cake box' type, and it seals up very nicely. The outer shrink wrap is clear plastic. The CD-R you see in the picture is a paper wrapper around the discs inside. Fortunately the CD-R words are printed large and in dark black ink on a silver background on each disc, and the cake box is crystal clear. If this hadn't been the case, it would be extremely difficult to identify which discs are inside. So yes it is relatively frustration free. The entire box is recyclable, they did not use any plastic air pillows or stuffing.

I like these. I shop based on price and brand names. I tend to stick with brand names, just because I use so few CD-R's, going ultra cheap isn't necessary (by that I mean 100 packs of totally generic, spindleless blanks in shrink wrap). My experience with the AmazonBasics dual layer DVD's and these CD's gives me a vote of confidence that there's a new brand name in town to consider.

Reviewing a CD-R is not that complicated. Either they work or they don't. These seem to work fine. I would recommend them for making a mix CD or for sharing pictures with friends. Of the 10 I attempted to burn, I had a 90% success rate. Great product for the price.

Great quality product. Great price. In general I love Amazon Frustration Free packaging. These CD-Rs are just as high quality if not better than other products by other vendors. I would not hesitate to buy these in the future. It is great to not have to sacrifice quality to save money.

Also have been able to use without getting error messages and having to throw away perfectly good discs--unlike some big name brands where it seems as much as 10%-20% have to get tossed out.

The name may be basic but the product is solid and reliable for the casual user.

The media burned multiple CD's without an Issue (or a coaster, which was a pleasant surprise) using Window Media Player and the built in Windows Burning Utility. The CD labeling is simple and not overbearing and yes..., basic. The spindle construction is solid and easy to open.

Price is better than other low end CD-R media.

Frustration free packaging is nice and saves having to battle the standard shrink wrapping.

What more can you say, they do the same job for a fraction of the cost of most recognized "Brand" name media distributors if you are a casual user.

If you are looking to archive mission critical data you may want to spring for the high end media but for the casual users (and non critical applications) these are more than acceptable.

I have been a user (not always a happy one) of Memorex media in the past, the amazon basic line is cheaper than the Memorex and (so far) has been more reliable. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

While I mostly use off-site storage for backups, I keep CD's around for drivers and other miscellaneous programs. When these disks came in, it was time to update my pile of misc. software. Reviewing CD's isn't easy. Either the disk works, or it doesn't. In this case the disks worked fine. I burned 10 CD's worth of data and had not a single glitch.

Now, lets talk about this new "Frustration Free" packaging. Sometimes when you get something from Amazon it comes sealed up so tight you need a sledgehammer and crowbar (or at least a sharp knife) to get your product out. The new Frustration Free packaging was a breeze. The CD spindle was sandwiched between two fitted cardboard "shelves". The top one slid right out of the box and lo and behold, there sat my disks.

Overall a good product at a good price. I like the new packaging. Hopefully we'll see more things packaged this way in the near future.

I will qualify my remarks by admitting that I am no expert on the "nuances", good or bad, of CD-Rs. What I do know is that I sometimes need to burn CDs as well as store pictures, etc. Other than that, I can attest to these being very competitively priced and of good quality. What I've burned so far has been completely without problem. Highly recommended.

We take a huge number of photos of our 7 grandkids (and I am talking hundreds). I bought these so we could burn the photos on them and then give them out to the parents and other family members. They have always worked great for me. No waste. Would buy again. Because I am using these only to store photos on an alternative media format, I cannot say how these would work with music, video, etc. I would also note that some of our family members have been viewing the photos burned to these disks on computers and on TV thru their DVD players. None have reported any problems.