An added advantage for an A'vanner is the unit will play MP3's if you are into that kind of thing. Sadly you can't plug it into your car stereo as it only works from a 240 volt plug pack. (12 and 5 volts via a composite plug) The start of a long review by Chris Connolly is reproduced below and gives one a good insight into USB technology. One thing we haven't mentioned is it is USB 2. There are no laptops yet running this new very high speed standard, but you can get a card to use it NOW on your desktop PC. The cards cost $119.00 and are easy to fit giving you four USB outlets. To get it to work you MUST turn off the USB on your motherboard via the Bios settings. Ours came from Harris Technology in Sydney and the RRP is $499.00. You can moan a bit and get the price down further. We didn't even look at the competition (Iomega) as the internet is full of unhappy owners.  Absolutely recommended!

Yamaha CRW-70 Spyder USB 2.0 CD Rewritable

Chris Connolly : 12/11/2001

That wimpy little USB connector is getting a shot in the arm. Get your wallets ready, because USB 2.0 is coming in a big, big way.

If you weren't aware, USB 2.0 is Intel's next generation peripheral I/O standard, which builds off the insanely popular USB 1.1 standard. While USB 1.1 was designed (and has now become the de-facto standard) for low-bandwidth peripherals such as mice, printers, and digital cameras, USB 2.0 takes it a step higher. USB 2.0 increases the available bandwidth of devices from a measly 12 mbps to a mean and nasty 480 mbps, which even surpasses Firewire's 400 mbps.

As USB 2.0 is a bleeding edge technology, the actual USB 2.0 products and adapters are carrying quite a large price tag over Firewire and USB 1.1 devices right now. Amazingly though, consumers don't seem to be mind paying the extra cost for such a premium, just as long as they have it before their friends do. Most of these first USB 2.0 devices are parts that were designed with USB 1.1 in mind, but only a few can actually utilize the extra bandwidth that USB 2.0 offers. At 480 mbps (note, megabits, not megabytes), USB 2.0 offers over 60 MB/s of bandwidth to devices, which is more than enough for external hard drives, camcorders, or in this case, CD-burners.

Yamaha's new CRW-70 "Spyder" CD-Rewritable has been built from the ground up with USB 2.0 in mind. The drive supports 12X CD-Burning, not to mention 8x Re-Write speeds, along with 24x CD-Read. This would simply be impossible with a USB 1.1 connection, as a 24x CD-Read transfers up to 3.6 MB/s, while USB 1.1 can only handle 1.5 MB/s at it's peak. Not to mention, but it's got a pretty darn sleek external appearance.