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James B.

James B.

Joined on 10/10/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Great Value

Antec NEW SOLUTION SERIES VSK-4000 Black SGCC steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Antec NEW SOLUTION SERIES VSK-4000 Black SGCC steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Lightweight, Inexpensive, Looks good for it's price. Thumbscrews for the side panels.

Cons: Blue power LED but red disk activity LED was a little odd for me. Only came with 6 metal motherboard standoffs, but included 3 of the old vinyl spearhead type so I was able to mount an ATX motherboard in it(barely.) Not a lot of space for cable management and such with a full size atx motherboard, plugging in the SATA ports was a pain.

Overall Review: I bought this to make a HTPC out of old hardware we had upgraded from. Suits my needs. Good value.

12/18/2013
Most Critical Review

Cheap.

Logitech Wireless Combo MK260 920-002950 Black 8 Hot Keys USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard and Mouse
Logitech Wireless Combo MK260 920-002950 Black 8 Hot Keys USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard and Mouse

Pros: Easy to set up, works properly on my mac. Other wireless keyboards identify as the built in mac keyboard when setting them up at times, but the alt & windows keys are functioning as alt & command(respectively) Keys are pretty responsive.

Cons: Keyboard feels pretty flimsy, keys are semi-low profile, keys are pretty responsive at least. I'm embarassed that the mouse has a Logitech logo on it. I compared it side by side my M305 Logitech Mouse, and it's a piece of garbage. No off switch for battery conservation, stops tracking if you slightly tilt it (like if you were using it on a couch arm or something), no left and right click on the scroll wheel(I use these for FWD/Back in my browser) I bought this for the keyboard, which is acceptable. The Mouse is pretty bad though, but it works.

Overall Review: Kind of wish I had just bought a nicer wireless keyboard because the mouse that came with this is garbage.

Good so far!

OCZ Vertex 2 2.5" 50GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) OCZSSD2-2VTX50G.RF
OCZ Vertex 2 2.5" 50GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) OCZSSD2-2VTX50G.RF

Pros: CHEAP! Scored it for 31.99. 14 second booting on my old Core2Duo I turned in to a HTPC. Had retail packaging and latest firmware installed.

Cons: Too soon to tell, but I did have some weirdness when installing Windows 7. It got to the final step "Completing Installation" and just hung, I had to reboot and install again, and everything seemed good. Also had some weird hanging on one of the windows updates. Will report back if it's anything related to the SSD, might be something with the rest of the old hardware I frankensteined together for this HTPC.

Overall Review: Great for a HTPC! When I decide to watch netflix, I don't want to wait 2 minutes for the box to boot up. I'm getting to a usable desktop in 14 seconds with this guy. I was apprehensive about my purchase at first as others have had theirs arrive DOA, but mine seems to be working fine. Will update if that changes.

12/18/2013

Mac: A+ PC: D

D-Link Wireless-N Home Router (DIR-601), N150
D-Link Wireless-N Home Router (DIR-601), N150

Pros: Easy to configure, the web interface wasn't nearly as bad as some of the other d-link products I own.

Cons: I own a Wireless G D-Link DI-624, and just picked up with Wireless N DIR-601. I set up both of them with DHCP disabled just as a wireless access point, two separate SSIDs. Here are ballpark figures of the Speedtest results from one room over(~10feet & 1 wall from the D-Links) Windows XP - DI-624(G) 17 Down, 4 up. Windows XP - DIR-601(N) 9 Down, 2 up. Windows 7 - DI-624(G) 18down, 4 up. Windows 7 - DIR-601(N) 10 down, 2.5 up OSX - DI-624(G) 17 down, 4.5 up OSX - DIR-601(N) 30 down, 5 up The Mac is a late 2008 Macbook Pro C2Duo 2.4ghz. The WinXP Computer is a home-built C2Duo 3.0ghz with a Belkin wireless card. The Win 7 computer is a home-built C2Duo 3.0ghz with a newer model Belkin wireless card. I'd say stay away from this product unless you're running Macs.

Overall Review: I grabbed this on sale, the newegg comments seemed to be "passable" for a 20$ Purchase marked down from 50$. After receiving it I read some other reviews from other sites, and this thing scored like Garbage. One of the comments on the other site also said that it worked much better with Macintosh computers. I'm not sure if it has to do with the wireless cards in them or what, but I definitely would agree my Mac gets very good results with this product.