So you're not too sure which DVD recording format suits your need? You can't make up your mind as to which is best? Don't worry; Sony's DRU-500AX has come to your rescue. This DVD-Dual drive supports DVD-R/-RW and DVD+R/+RW.

This is the first of the DVD-Dual format drives to hit the market, along with its sibling the external DRX-500UL (which has Firewire and USB 2.0 interfaces). It combines the fastest performance of both formats, writing DVD+R and +RW at 2.4-speed, DVD-R at 4-speed, DVD-RW at 2-speed and DVD read at 8-speed. It's no slouch when it comes to CD performance either, with write, rewrite and read speeds of 24, 10 and 32 respectively.

It also stands out from the normal run of drives. The panel that hides the tray is silver and, apart from the LED, emergency eject pin hole and eject button, the front panel is empty. However, the eject button is deeply recessed, which may prevent it being pressed by accident but it also makes it hard to find by touch.

The Sony DRU-500AX is another drive that comes with an impressive box of goodies. You get an IDE cable, mounting screws, two CDs of software, a manual and some informative brochures.

The software supplied lets you do just about any kind of burning and editing you can think of. Veritas RecordNow takes care of burning or copying DVDs and CDs, Veritas Simple Backup is a fully featured backup program, Sonic MyDVD 4.0 helps you to create professional-looking movies (within creativity limits), Arcsoft ShowBiz is a video editing utility, MusicMatch Jukebox 7.1 allows you to compile albums of MP3s and finally there's a copy of Cyberlink PowerDVD.

On the downside, the drive comes with just a single DVD+RW disc, which is a surprise seeing how many formats the drive is capable of recording. Still, for the competitive price you get peace of mind, with all formats but DVD-RAM covered.