Like the Ricoh entry, the Pioneer DVRA03 is a versatile unit, and is capable of burning all CD formats with the added advantage of burning DVD-R and -RW discs.The DVR-A03 covers all bases, so it's a shame that it didn't really stack up to the Ricoh DVD+RW in both price and performance in our tests. If speedy CD burning is a requirement the DVR-A03 is clearly not the combination drive of choice with its nominal 8x CD-R and 4x CD-RW burn speeds.The resulting 10-minute PQI burn and 6-minute TGA burn is considerably longer than the Ricoh's results. As for DVD burn speeds, the DVR-A03 suffers a similar fate, with 4GB .vob writes taking over 50 minutes to burn compared to the Ricoh's 20 minute burn. The comparison in rewritable burn speed, regardless of media format, takes the DVRA03 out of the game in terms of raw speed.

Overall, the DVR-A03 can't competewith the high speeds of the Ricoh DVD+RW drive, but the software bundle and multitude of blank media adds value to a drive that offers high compatibility. While this versatility is enough to compensate for its lagging speeds, the $400 price difference compared to the Ricoh model drastically reduces its value for money overall.