For many people, the joy of copying CD`s is actually a frustrating waste of time. Volatile CD-RW drives need little excuse to play up and before you know it, you have another ruined CDR to use as a coaster for your cup of coffe!

Ok so maybe they`re nopt that bad. In fact, the unassuming CD - RW drive has brought a great deal of satisfaction to PC users but even the most saintly among us have cursed their unreliablity.

This new CDRWW from phillips attacks one of the main causes of bad burns with its new thermo balanced writing (TBW) technology. A CD - RW uses a laser to write data to dis and because lasers gererate heat, if it does this to quickly or slowly little heat will be generated, thus ruining the buning process.

The phillips CD RW gets around this by testing a disk for optimum write speed before the process begins, which will please those of us accustomed to snapping uncooperative discs in two!

The extra cost Phillips is asking you to shell out is justified by the inclusion of TBW technology and other goodies. The software bundled here includes not just the excellent Adaptec CD creator 4 but also ejay dance 2, if you want a sample the life as a DJ.

The phillips drive reads at 32 speed, writes at 12 speed and rewrites at 8 speed, which is nothing brilliant for this expense. HAving said that, it should take you no longer than five mins to fill upa 74 min CD.

Before you do anything, of course, you have to install it in your PC and this can be daunting, as it involves opening up the case and fiddling about! Once the physical installation is done, windows detects the drive, so potential complications are mercifully few!