Hey,

I heard about this new philips being really good, what is the mfg date that it came out and like what version will i find it in, i want to try and get one in my box.

And they do read CDR right?

Yeah thats true. i have just bourght one of ebay.
here some information on it:
Ebay item

I can tell you the date when i get it!

the seller has tested it on:

Ritek branded DVD-R
Bulkpaq branded DVD-R
Cheapo noname DVD-R
Discplanet CDR
TDK CDR
Cheapo noname CDR

I then e-mailed him about DVD+R and apparently that works as well
(he had to check)

From my experience the new phillips drives have been very poor at reading DVD-R so i hate them. They read worse than Thomsons.

When i say new i mean since xmas, so forgive me if there is an even newer drive.

the new philips is really good, there appears to be 3 versions - the old crappy one, a new crappy one and the 2004 new one that is great. the new crappy one really struggles when it comes to reading burnt dvd media and refuses to read cdrs at all. the 2004 is great though - even better than a samsung.