A Closer Look:::...

To be fair to them Plextor have never gone out of their way to set any design standards with their drives. The rectangular fascia with a rectangular tray front is pretty much all they've ever offered so it was no surprise to see the fairly minimalist looks of the PX-708A. That black plastic insert at the bottom of the tray front panel is the Plextor equivalent to eye candy though to give then their due it does kind of work.

Here it is sat on top of the Optorite DD0203 which is my personal DVD-RW drive. Perhaps the most obvious difference is that the Optorite has dual status LEDs while the Plextor uses a single one. Despite the jaded looking colour the Optorite is in fact only a couple of weeks old, it's Plextor who've opted for a lighter shade of beige.

The rear of the drives is also fairly similar so no surprises there. The Plextor seems to have a small vent of some kind but other than that everything is as and where you'd expect.