Like the Panasonic LF-D521U, this DVD-RW drive is a generation behind the newest ones on the market. As such it lacks a lot in burning speed – in fact most of the newer models on the market are twice as fast. This isn't just a matter of a couple of minutes shaved off either – while writing at 1x usually takes around an hour to complete a disc, at 2x it's a far more reasonable 30 minutes, and the newer drives simply tear through discs in 15 minutes at 4x.

If you're involved in copying large amounts of data to and from your DVDs, the LG is a slightly better choice than Panasonic's drive. It's around 30% faster when reading data from a disc, and only fractionally slower when writing.

Writing discs with the GMA-4020B produced fairly typical results – writing a DVD-RW at maximum speed (1x) took close to an hour, and a normal DVD-R at 2x was half that at 29 minutes 42 seconds. Both test discs worked without a hitch in our 2x Sony DVD-ROM and Pioneer set-top DVD player.

One advantage of these older drives however is their support for DVD-RAM – many DVD video cameras still use this format to capture video, and RAM also offers 100 times the re-writeability of typical -RW discs. If you have an older-style DVD-RAM camera be wary, as the 4020B only supports 'caseless' discs.

Despite its support for DVD-RAM, the GMA doesn't quite blaze through. If it were $200 cheaper it would be a reasonable buy. But there's one basic fact that's impossible to ignore: given you can get a drive that writes twice as fast for the same price, the LG simply isn't a competitive enough option.