cover
John S.

John S.

Joined on 06/04/01

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 9
Most Favorable Review

I really like this form factor, size of an ATX power supply with the desktop 8th gen Intel CPU of your choosing

ASRock DESKMINI 310W Intel Socket LGA1151 Intel H310 Mini / Booksize Barebone System
ASRock DESKMINI 310W Intel Socket LGA1151 Intel H310 Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: Small form factor, uses desktop CPU (higher performance), fits retail box heatsink/fan, M.2 NVMe slot, room to mount two 2.5" SATA drives, and wireless kit with bluetooth included.

Cons: 802.11AC wireless is only 1x1, including a 2x2 card (9560ngw) would be preferred; wifi antenna wires could be a tad longer to reduce cable strain, they just barely fit around the boxed heatsink and fan included with the i3-8100; mounting one of the 2.5" SATA drives requires unscrewing the motherboard from the backplane, the other does not and they should both work that way.

Overall Review: I recommend this product, the cons are suggestions to make a good product better. It's definitely one of my favorite tech purchases for 2018. "This review for ASRock review rebate program."

Most Critical Review

Large Capacity, Slow Performance

CORSAIR Voyager 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model CMFUSB2.0-16GB
CORSAIR Voyager 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model CMFUSB2.0-16GB

Pros: One of the least expensive 16GB USB flash drives available (assuming Corsair comes through with the rebate).

Cons: Slow write performance, 4.18 MB/s copying 14 GB of data. The data consisted of mostly 1 GB files with a few 100k or smaller files

Overall Review: I have not yet tried the utility "SD-CARD Organization" as suggested in the asktheramguy forum, but it may be worth the effort. At the same time, Corsair should be shipping these drives already optimized. Read performance is acceptable although not exceptional by any means.

Grab one or two on sale, they work great for routers, cable modems, voip adatpers, cordless phones, etc.

APC Back-UPS BGE90M 125 VA 75 Watts 3 Outlets 2-USB Charging Ports UPS
APC Back-UPS BGE90M 125 VA 75 Watts 3 Outlets 2-USB Charging Ports UPS

Pros: Doesn't make noise until the battery is very low. Has two USB ports, hoping to put a raspberry pi zero on one port.

Cons: The green LED built into the power button on top is VERY bright in a dark room.

Overall Review: Bought four at $19 each, all four worked out of the box with no issues. Had brownouts of several hours followed by a 2.5 hour outage and the BGE90M kept me online and able to work while a nearby power transformer was replaced.

Works suprisingly well!

IOGEAR GUC2025H USB 2.0 to HDMI External Video Card
IOGEAR GUC2025H USB 2.0 to HDMI External Video Card

Pros: Picked it up for 35 with a free HDMI cable. Installed in windows 7 without using the driver CD, just had windows search it's online database for the driver and it has worked great streaming video to a 720p HDTV. Audio quality is good, would purchase again if needed another.

Cons: Blue LED bar on the top is very bright, but I turn it upside down to mitigate this issue.

Overall Review: Video was stuttering at first due to high CPU usage of McAfee virus scan on a friend's laptop. Uninstalled that CPU hog and installed the free Microsoft Security Essentials. Configured the background scanner to limit CPU usage to 10% and there hasn't been any issues even if the scanner kicks in while using the IOGEAR USB to HDMI adapter.

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F1-3200PHU2-2GBNS
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F1-3200PHU2-2GBNS

Pros: Reliable, Fast, and worthwhile upgrade to any DDR(1) motherboard. Runs CAS 2 @ 333 MHz or CAS 2.5 @ 400 MHz perfectly stable on ASUS A7N8X nforce2 platform.

Cons: None, other than heat spreader issue (read below), these modules work great!

Overall Review: I purchased a set of these open box a couple years ago. The heat spreader on one of the modules was installed slightly off center preventing it from fitting into the memory slot, most likely why they were returned. I removed the retaining clips, centered it properly, reinstalled the clips and they've been trouble free ever since.

BlueAnt SUPERTOOTH LIGHT Bluetooth Handsfree Speakerphone White
BlueAnt SUPERTOOTH LIGHT Bluetooth Handsfree Speakerphone White

Pros: Good clarity when conversing over the phone while driving, volume is plenty loud, excellent battery life, great value for the price.

Cons: I purchased this as a gift and the recipient's bluetooth output on their phone must be a bit weaker requiring them to keep their phone in close proximity to the unit (i.e. the phone placed on the passenger's seat is far enough away to cause interference).

Overall Review: I've owned the black version of this product for a year now without the sensitivity issue mentioned above.