Music I could rip a CD, and the program helpfully and automatically filled in the album and track titles, but the default form was oddly WMA at 96kbps. Like Ashampoo Burning Studio, CyberLink also offers a desktop gadget for drag-and-drop burning. The app adds entries to the AutoPlay dialog that pops up whenever you insert media that it can perform operations on. Hovering your mouse cursor over any of these displays relevant choices in the lower section of the app's borderless gray window. Interface Power2Go's user interface is the class of the bunch: It's both clear and attractive, with seven large icons across the top to get you to each of the program's main functions: Data, Music, Video, Photo, System Recovery, Copy, and Utilities. Thanfully, it didn't try to install browser toolbars and other piggybanking software, as most other apps in this category do. After the long download, setup took 5 minutes on my test machine, a 3.4GHz quad-core with 4GB RAM and a Lite-On iHAS422 burner. For comparison, NCH Express Burn ($49.99, 3 stars, $59.95) is less than a single megabyte, while Ashampoo Burning Studio ($49.99, 4 stars) weighs in at 180MB.

Setup Getting Power2Go's installer involves a larger download than most competitors, at 442MB.

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