Joined on 05/10/02
Good printer
Pros: Inexpensive. Reliable(so far).
Cons: Size and weight (compared to inkjets or monochrome lasers).
Overall Review: Great laser printer for the price. I purchased this only because it was the cheapest wireless network printer available and was prepared for the worst. Setup is a bit cumbersome, as you have to scroll through the alphabet using the up/down buttons on the printer to enter the network password, but after the initial setup, you don't have to touch the thing at all. I've have this for about 6 months now and printed about 1500 pages, mostly work documents. No problems, so it gets a thumbs up from me. The status software is showing black toner to be almost gone and the color toners between 1/2 and 1/3, so that's on par for the starter set. It's not the fastest(for a laser), but I don't print more than 50 pages at a time, so it isn't an issue. From my experience with this printer, I recently purchased a HL-3170cdw, which is the same printer but with duplex printing(was on sale, yay newegg!), for my parents to ween them off of inkjets. They don't print much, so it will be the last printer they will ever own. They probably won't even have to replace the toner. I tried printing a photo, but as expected, not so good.
May not charge all devices
Pros: Compact design, multiple ports- Great for travelling(what I purchased this for).
Cons: Power on indicator is overly bright. May not charge all devices.
Overall Review: It does not have the data pins shorted(the 2 center pins on USB A), so it will not charge certain devices that look for this(such as my Palm Treo Pro). I had to modify the charger to make it work. If your device is picky with charging devices, this one won't work for you. The manufacturer could cheaply fix this by not cutting the solder bridges off and leaving them shorted. This would remove a short step(4 cutting operations) and make them more money. Also, I was a bit surprised to see that these appear to be soldered by hand(a bit sloppily)
holding up
Pros: -massive storage -quiet -great customer service from WD -WD reliability
Cons: -price, WD seems to command a premium price these days
Overall Review: Bought 1 of these to expand the storage in my existing Synology DS416j with 2 4tb and 2 3tb drives.(swapping one of the 3's with an 8 gives me a 1TB upgrade, the 2nd 8 will expand my NAS another 5Tb), I only bought one as I am moving towards having dissimilar drives in my NAS(purchasing a larger capacity drive, every 6 months. or at least drives in different lots to ensure I am able to recover with less concerns with 2 drive failures. I purchased in May and it is still holding up with no issues.I was hoping to purchase another WD red 8Tb in Nov to keep the drive stagger. But due to my data requirements(I need more storage) I am purchasing a Seagate Ironwolf to go with this drive. I will be getting a 2nd 8TB WD Red to upgrade and keep my Synology NAS at optimum recover reliability. WD has been my go to HD manufacturer for a few years now. The only failure I had was with a blue drive a couple years ago and their warranty service was excellent!(I have purchased over 20 different WD drives over the years). I am somewhat a WD fanboy due to my experiences with their drives and will continue to purchase WD drives for my NAS. My NAS solution has been growing for over 10 years. I started with Maxtor but moved over to WD after they were bought out. Western Digital has been good to me and I will continue to make WD my first choice if I need a hard drive.
Great value
Pros: Inexpensive
Cons: Sound quality isn't the greatest but what do you expect at this price point?
Overall Review: I just needed some cheap speakers for my laptop(Lenovo T430) so I could hear skype and email notifications better while at home and ordered these. They come in a plain, brown box. I wasn't expecting much at this price point and was pleasantly surprised at the sound quality. It has a tone adjustment roller on the side of the right speaker that slightly adjusts the sound. Don't expect sparkling treble. It has decent build quality. I took them apart and found the bottom "speaker" is a passive radiator. It's worlds better than my laptop speakers. Volume-wise, it isn't going to be enough to party with but, I didn't get these for that purpose. These are refurbs, but the set I received look new.
Good value
Pros: Inexpensive IPS
Cons: Inconsistent color. No displayport.
Overall Review: Bought 3 of these for a triple monitor setup. The stand can be completely removed with a couple screws for a seamless vesa mount. Out of the box, I could not get the settings just right so that the 3 monitors showed colors exactly the same. Over the year, they seem to have "burned in" and I am able to get them nearly exact. There is a very slight variation but is not noticeable during normal use. I wouldn't recommend if you are needing multi-monitor setup for photo use. But if exact color matching isn't critical, these IPS monitors are a great value. If I needed to, I would buy them again. I just wish these had a displayport input.
Great for a road warrior.
Pros: Very portable
Cons: Somewhat fragile Limited brightness range.
Overall Review: Had this for about a year and have used it exclusively to have a dual monitor setup/1080p monitor with my Lenovo T430 while on the road. Its a necessity if you have to code html and your laptop has a 1368x768 resolution. I travel by air about once a month and found the face bezel had cracked by the USB port around 6 months in. This is with careful use and handling in my laptop bag. However, the monitor has worked without issue. The only issue with the case stand is that it takes up a bit of table space when in use which can be hard to position when you have to work on a small table. One thing I wish it had was a greater range of brightness. I find it a bit too bright when using in a dark room. Another great use I found, is setting the monitor to duplicate the desktop. This allows an easy way to share your screen in a small room when a projector isn't available.