Joined on 02/25/03
Perfect pairing for a 27" iMac
Pros: After having bad luck, twice, with a Samsung SyncMaster at a 350$ pricelevel I gave up on Samsung. I needed a 1920x1200 minimum resolution monitor with a 26" or better diagonal with decent specs and reviews. I ran into Hannspree by accident, assuming it would be low quality at the sub 300$ pricelevel. To my surpise: - The brightness is great. I can leave it at about 60% to match the iMac brightness levels. Very bright. Samsung could not do that. - Colors are vivid. The clownfish background on the iMac and Hann look indistinguishable (except that the iMac has a higher res and therefore smaller pixels, making text crisper. This is not bothersome though, sometimes the iMac is too sharp). - Insanely large diameter at this resolution:28" - Sub 300$ - Fast response time - Easy menu - Works great with mini-display adapter on mac
Cons: - Buttons are hard to read in the evening and awkwardly positioned at bottom of monitor. - The bevel is not overly wide (similar to iMac bevel, the black part surrounding the screen), but still wider than Samsungs and Nec's, making the monitor bulkier - The stand is fixed. Can't tilt, rotate etc.
Overall Review: - Stop plastering windows 7 ready stickers on your products Hannspree. Leaves marks when you peal it off. Also, for 27$ I bought a 3 year no-questions-asked squaretrade warranty on this. Worth doing for a monitor.
Philips re-introduced a flawed design
Pros: It's sonicare technology, so it cleans your teeth very well and can even lighten them a shade.
Cons: The issue is that this type of head was on the original sonicare. Saliva, toothpaste foam and water seeps into the interior of the head. It becomes a nasty smelly mess unless you CONSTANTLY clean it and dry the inside. I am shocked they dared to reintroduce this model as it got severely blasted in the past for this nasty side effect. I was not aware at first this was the old model head. Too late now to return but went with a Flexcare after I got this instead.
Overall Review: It's roughly fifty bucks. For about 25 more you can get a basic sonicare Flexcare or an equally well designed waterpik sensonic. Sensonic replacement heads are cheaper than Phillips. I went with Flexcare as I had a box of spare heads.
For us old timers...
Pros: For people that grew up with PC gaming with the mouse: this opens up the PS3 console to you. You can actually compete with those console junkies that use controllers. There is a tiny lag in movement between mouse and screen but accuracy and speed makes more than up for it. Easy to master, try it for a few hours and you cannot go back to a controller if you prefer mouse play. Supports multiple modes (mouse, browse and games). Better wider mousepad than v1 FragFX.
Cons: Clunky drivers that never worked well with Vista, but I did not need adjustment: its plug and play with the PS3. Does not have the announced turbo shoot, as far as I have tried. Still not great hardware. On my FragFX v1 the cord broke at the mouse housing. Same with my second V1. This V2 has that same flaw, so do not play with tangled cords. Mousepad doed not have FragChuck holder, but on the other hand: those tended to break on V1.
Overall Review: I play once a week, max 4 hrs on CoD4 and CoD5 and consistently rank in 1st , 2nd or 3rd position in online multiplayer. Thanks to FragFX I do not have to be a no-lifer and I can still feel good. People that claimed it was a cheat borrowed it (they were used to controllers) and could not use it better than controller, so that settled that allegation: it's an acquired taste.