Quick Takes: Tattoo You--Burn Your Own CD Labels

As a group, CD-RW drives tend to do the same thing, albeit at different speeds. Yamaha's $149 CRW-F1 CD burner distinguishes itself however, with DiscT@2 technology, which etches a label onto the unused portions of the disc. Unfortunately, our tests revealed the feature to be rather poorly integrated into the burn process, with the included CD-burning software failing to offer any helpful prompts.

In addition to its kludgy "tattooing" capabilities, the drive can burn CD-Rs at 44X (in our 650MB tests, it took 30 seconds or so longer than 48X test drives). It also burns CD-RWs at a speedy 24X, enabling it to copy 100MB in less than 1 minute. Yamaha.