I currently have a Pioneer DVR-104. I've had it since June of 2002 and have loved it. It runs like a champ and can burn pretty cheap media at 2x, DVD-R only of course. When my current supply of DVD-R's runs out (I have 19 left right now and they'll be gone by next Wednesday) I am getting a new burner. I've been looking and researching over the past few weeks and have really narrowed it down to 2 burners. The Pioneer DVR-106d and the Lite On 811s.
The DVR-106d does 4x burning of both DVD+r and DVD-R. From past experience I know the Pioneer's have the ability to burn generic media very well and the burned disc's work in my dvd player and friends dvd players. At a price of $116 (several vendors on Pricewatch seem to have this price) it is a very good burner and doesn't cost much at all.
On the other hand there is the Lite On 811s. It features 8x burning of DVD+R and 4x of DVD-R. Of course that depends on what media you use. The great thing about Lite On drives is that the firmware makers there come out with updates to support new media all the time. The Pioneer firmware team rarely makes updates. Also, the new 8x DVD+r and 8x DVD-R burners are just around the corner and are rebadged 811s's with new updated firmware. 8x burning burns an entire disc in around 7.5 minutes. The cost is a bit more, closer to $150 but right now Monarch has it for $139 + $4 shipping. If I get this burner, which has a slight edge over the Pioneer, I get to sell my DVR-104 and 52x Lite On CD Burner because the 811s features 40x CD burning as well.
The only other burner I'd consider would be a Ricoh or it's rebadge Optorite. The reason that those are nice is that they feature HD burn which can put 1.4GB of data on a regular 700MB CD-R. As I said before I'm leaning toward the 811s because of the future 8x DVD-R support that it will have, but the Pioneer is great in it's own as well, except for max of 16x CD burning which is just too slow for me nowadays.
