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Erik J.

Erik J.

Joined on 02/05/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 12
Most Favorable Review

Perfect replacement for my RTX 2070

GIGABYTE WindForce GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GDDR7 PCI Express 5.0 x8 ATX Graphics Card GV-N506TWF2OC-16GD
GIGABYTE WindForce GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GDDR7 PCI Express 5.0 x8 ATX Graphics Card GV-N506TWF2OC-16GD

Overall Review: I was nervous jumping from a 2070 to a 5060, but it was perfect. It was exactly the same size and shape, everything fit, and it's SO much faster. Doubled the framerate in my games and generates AI images and video in far less than half the time due to the increase of VRAM and AI specific features of the 5000 series

Most Critical Review

Not even useful as a paperweight

IOCrest Active Mini Displayport Male to VGA Female Adapter
IOCrest Active Mini Displayport Male to VGA Female Adapter

Pros: none

Cons: I bought two of these and neither of them work on any device that I have tried them on; Mac Mini, Macbook Pro and Surface Book so far. And apparently I can't return them either.

Overall Review: Oh well, I bought 4 more from 4 different manufacturers. If even 2 of them work I've still saved money over buying the official Apple adapter.

Great for the price

Team Group GX2 2.5" 512GB SATA III 3D NAND TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) T253X2512G0C101
Team Group GX2 2.5" 512GB SATA III 3D NAND TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) T253X2512G0C101

Pros: It's an SSD and it's cheap

Cons: It's not quite as fast as my comparable EVO. Specifically it's nearly identical at sequential reads (most kinds of bulk file reads fall under this) but is a fair bit slower at random and write operations. Details on my machine: -----This drive----- [Read] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 550.728 MB/s [ 525.2 IOPS] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 529.780 MB/s [ 505.2 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16): 192.179 MB/s [ 46918.7 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 26.904 MB/s [ 6568.4 IOPS] [Write] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 488.687 MB/s [ 466.0 IOPS] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 471.429 MB/s [ 449.6 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16): 277.169 MB/s [ 67668.2 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 85.254 MB/s [ 20814.0 IOPS] -----850 EVO 500gb----- [Read] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 547.736 MB/s [ 522.4 IOPS] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 526.622 MB/s [ 502.2 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16): 398.565 MB/s [ 97305.9 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 32.980 MB/s [ 8051.8 IOPS] [Write] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 527.857 MB/s [ 503.4 IOPS] Sequential 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 515.104 MB/s [ 491.2 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16): 349.351 MB/s [ 85290.8 IOPS] Random 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 90.270 MB/s [ 22038.6 IOPS]

Overall Review: It may be a bit slower than a more expensive drive but since it's an SSD it's massively faster than a spinning drive and nearly as cheap. So unless you're looking for the absolute fastest drive out there, this is probably everything you need at a price you can't pass up.

11/26/2019

Great... for the price.

UtechSmart Saturn Saturn 7 Colors Backlit USB Multimedia Gaming Keyboard
UtechSmart Saturn Saturn 7 Colors Backlit USB Multimedia Gaming Keyboard

Pros: Theoretically waterproof, everything works as advertised, backlight is very nice, especially for this price-point. There are also some nice little features that I might use some day but probably won't, like swapping wasd and arrow keys or locking the windows key. Again, the backlight is very nicely done...

Cons: All of the cons fall under one category; the designer thought the backlight was more important than anything else you do with the keyboard. 1. Which do you think you'd do more often, control sound volume or backlight brightness? This keyboard assumes the latter, so made a dial front and center to adjust brightness. Personally I'd prefer that dial to be volume control. 2. The button used to change lighting modes replaces the right-hand start button. Because I'm going to change the backlight mode so often I need it to be easily reachable. Personally I'd rather it be out of the way. 3. Media controls like play/pause and volume are a function key combo. Because I skip tracks less often then I change my backlight? 4. All your carefully crafted backlight modifications will be reset to default if you keyboard is unplugged or your computer turns off. Luckily mine is just 3 keys to get back to the way I like.

Overall Review: Look very closely at the photo of this keyboard before you buy. If you are super into light effects on your keyboard, this is the one. If you aren't annoyed by some odd key placement, this is still a very nice keyboard with a very pretty backlight for a very nice price.

A great router that might be better soon

Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless AC Dual Band Router AC1900, Open Source ready, eSATA/ USB 3.0 Ports
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless AC Dual Band Router AC1900, Open Source ready, eSATA/ USB 3.0 Ports

Pros: The best/fastest router I have ever used. Really I bought this almost more for nostalgia than anything else (I've always been a big WRT54g fan) but was really shocked at the difference it made in my home network. Suddenly devices that were working "ok" before were speedy and top notch. No longer did I have to twist a bit to one side to get my phone to work in bed, I could hold it in my lap and still get excellent signal. My Chromecast went from "occasionally disconnecting and loading videos eventually" to "Perfection".

Cons: The OpenSource claims are currently all bunk. They haven't released the code needed for developers to actually write for it yet, so there's nothing out there besides the factory firmware. Speaking of factory firmware, if you're used to the power of Tomato or DD-WRT, get ready for disappointment. Sure, it's got the basics, and they work well, but it's pretty limited. For example, I have a bunch of kids that all have mobile devices that they should not be using at night, so parental controls are really important to me. Apparently whoever wrote this firmware only has one kid though since each parental controlled device has to have all of the settings set individually. Right, I'm going click each box for each hour during the week that each device is/isn't supposed to be used. And then type in each website they shouldn't go to (no white-list option) for each device as well. Also, no way to set a white-list of parent devices, you have to white-list the kid's devices, so if I miss one, they get open access any time to anywhere. I'd really prefer the other way around.

Overall Review: If you're the kind of person that's looking for a really great router with really great signal strength and really great speed, but you couldn't care less about what firmware it's running. Don't think twice, buy this router. My 5 egg review is for you. If you're a wrt54g fan planning on replacing the firmware on first bootup, give it some time. Consider this a 2-star review. Why not 1 star? It's still really freakin' amazing. I can wait a bit for the features to come. Either through firmware updates or from open-source eventually. And honestly, if they never come, I'll still be happy.

10/17/2014

Almost perfect

Dell M115HD WXGA 1280x800 HDMI USB Inputs w/ 1GB Internal Memory 450 ANSI Lumens Mobile LED Projector
Dell M115HD WXGA 1280x800 HDMI USB Inputs w/ 1GB Internal Memory 450 ANSI Lumens Mobile LED Projector

Pros: Tiny, feature packed, easy to use, surprisingly bright, amazing. My biggest concern before I bought it was the brightness, but in practical use it's plenty. I was showing it off and was able to project a photo onto a wall 20' away with all the lights on, it was dim, but easily doable. Projecting a 5' tall image in a normally lit room is quite pleasant.

Cons: Doesn't have an option for flipping the display even though it is perfect for mounting on the ceiling. I was able to flip the display via Windows though, so it wasn't a major issue for me.

Overall Review: Besides the obvious oversight in the firmware, this thing is amazing, and I think I've sold quite a few more to people that have seen it in use.

10/21/2013