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Matthew W.

Matthew W.

Joined on 02/26/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Simple, solid, works

MEElectronics Air-Fi AFS1 Black Wireless Bluetooth Speaker with Speakerphone
MEElectronics Air-Fi AFS1 Black Wireless Bluetooth Speaker with Speakerphone

Pros: It works perfectly for what it is. It's a compact bluetooth speaker, so that's enough. It's pretty solidly built and easily connects to my computers and phones. Sound is good enough for when you need an easy external speaker. Battery life seems fairly solid.

Cons: Sound is a bit muddy, not a ton of bass, etc.. You aren't going to confuse this with a real audio system, but that's not why I bought it and (I hope) not why you want to buy it. I don't like the buttons on the bottom. They work fine, but I think it's a matter of form over function.

12/21/2012

Good product, bad manual.

Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System
Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System

Pros: Picked this up as a daily deal to replace the stock cooler on my i5-2500k. With Prime95 temps were topping out at 75 C with the stock cooler, with the Antec replacement the max I could hit was 50 on the hottest core. I'm certainly not going to complain about a 25 degree drop. Even overclocking to 4.6 GHz (from 3.4 stock), max temps are at a tolerable 71 C, and I could probably cut that down even further by using an additional fan or improving ventilation into the case. Installation wasn't too bad, and the tubing is sturdy enough to route well without kinks. My case did happen to have a perfectly sized place to mount the entire unit, that might be something to check before purchase.

Cons: The manual isn't the worst I've seen, but I'm certainly glad I watched the product overview video.

Linksys E2000-RM Gigabit Advanced Wireless Router IEEE 802.3/3u/3ab, IEEE 802.11a/b/g, IEEE802.11n
Linksys E2000-RM Gigabit Advanced Wireless Router IEEE 802.3/3u/3ab, IEEE 802.11a/b/g, IEEE802.11n

Pros: Biggest pro is price for a good router. My refurb arrived in great condition and appears to have no problems. In my quick testing, I'm getting almost identical SNR and range as the dead WRT-54G it replaced, with a smaller form factor. Stock firmware is more capable than I recall the original 54G firmware to be, and can easily be replaced with third-party.

Cons: Not dual band, just selectable. I'm in a quiet zone so I have no problems with 40 MHz channel width in the 2.4 GHz spectrum, but in the future I may have to sacrifice range by going to 5 GHz only. Not a problem for me, but for some people it might be worth spending a bit more. Lack of external antennas prevents setting up a directional ranged connection or something like that, but it's not something I need.

Almost Exactly What I Expected

Logitech MX 518 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Wired Optical 1800 dpi Gaming Mouse
Logitech MX 518 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Wired Optical 1800 dpi Gaming Mouse

Pros: Very, very smooth operation. It glides and tracks very well. The most comfortable I've ever felt switching to a new mouse (although it wasn't a huge change in design from my last Logitech one). The buttons are great for FPS use, once I installed Uber Options and changed a couple to generics. If I were still playing WoW I would miss not having a couple more. I'm finding more uses for the sensitivity adjustment than I expected.

Cons: Nothing specific.

Overall Review: It was slightly lighter than I expected, but that hasn't turned out to be a bad thing at all. It's also less ugly than the pictures indicated.

A very good purchase

MSI Laptop Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 4GB Memory 320GB HDD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 17.0" Windows Vista Home Premium GT725-074US
MSI Laptop Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 4GB Memory 320GB HDD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 17.0" Windows Vista Home Premium GT725-074US

Pros: Very powerful for the price. It runs Fallout 3 stock on high settings beautifully, minor choppiness on ultra high. Very solid case design. If you press hard there's only a slight flex in the keyboard, and the rest seems is very solid. I'm even growing to accept the style I hated at first. Cooling is pretty much silent, but good enough. Turbo mode goes from 2.4 to 2.77 GHz, and even though I can't really hear the fans CPU temps top out at about 71 C without lifting the laptop or doing anything to cool it. In normal mode they top out about 60 C.

Cons: I will second the complaints about the small arrow keys and right shift key. I've grown used to them, and I was already used to the swapped function and ctrl, so I don't think this is a big downside. The color calibration stock is awful, very cool. If you're going to be doing photography work calibration will be important.

Overall Review: I love this laptop. I consider it lucky that the Gateway 7201 went back up in price, causing me to wait and get the MSI. It's big, it's heavy, and I feel out of place when everyone around me has whipped out a Macbook. But then I remember that this beast blows them out of the water.