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Gregory J.

Gregory J.

Joined on 03/26/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 3
Most Favorable Review

Good if you know what you're getting into

Antec New Solution NSK3480 Black/ Silver 0.8mm cold-rolled steel construction Micro ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 380W Power Supply
Antec New Solution NSK3480 Black/ Silver 0.8mm cold-rolled steel construction Micro ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 380W Power Supply

Pros: Nice looking case. Well built, as you would expect from Antec. Location of vents make it placing it on carpet no problem. Power supply has ample power cables, and the case provides many tie-downs for them.

Cons: No PC speaker for hearing motherboard error codes. Because of its size, it is not the easiest case to work in. There's no great location for a hard drive: It's difficult to connect both a hard drive and an optical drive in the upper chamber, but in the lower chamber, a hard drive will block one of your expansion slots.

Overall Review: If you go in aware of its limitations, this is a quality case.

Great value at $180

SAMSUNG 22" WSXGA+ LCD Monitor 2 ms D-Sub, DVI 2232BW+
SAMSUNG 22" WSXGA+ LCD Monitor 2 ms D-Sub, DVI 2232BW+

Pros: A whole lot of bang for the buck. No dead pixels on mine. Display can be configured to letterbox, rather than stretch, 4:3 resolutions -- a must-have feature, as far as I'm concerned. Comes with a DVI cable, unlike some other 22" displays in this price range. Very nice looking, the black frame is elegant.

Cons: The base is every bit as cheap as the other reviewers are saying, and awkward to assemble. I have a solid desk, though, so I am not experiencing the wobbling. The $180 price I mentioned above is after a $50 mail-in rebate...

Overall Review: Viewing angle is reasonable, but nothing spectacular. I still can't get over how blazingly fast Newegg's free shipping is.

Fantastic what $350 gets you

Acer Aspire One AOA110-1626 Onyx Black Intel Atom N270(1.60 GHz) 8.9" WSVGA 1GB Memory 16GB SSD Netbook
Acer Aspire One AOA110-1626 Onyx Black Intel Atom N270(1.60 GHz) 8.9" WSVGA 1GB Memory 16GB SSD Netbook

Pros: * Best keyboard layout of the netbooks. For something so small, a pleasure to type on. * Form factor and weight is absolutely fantastic. Great for commuters. * 16GB SSD. Not great performance under heavy activity, but okay, and certainly acceptable for a $350 laptop. * Screen is very bright and clear. * Has a definite "cool" factor to it. I get asked about it almost every time I break it out on the train.

Cons: * 3-cell battery means only around two hours of use on the road. This is easily the biggest drawback of the machine. The 6-cell replacement is bulkier, hard to find, and costs over $100. * Minor gripe: The case is a fingerprint magnet. * Trackpad is small and a little awkward. Nothing you can't get used to. * Screen brightness cannot be adjusted much below 50%. This is due to a conservative table in the BIOS that works around a screen flicker bug on some systems. A future BIOS revision is supposed to fix this. * No bluetooth.

Overall Review: * Installed Ubuntu 8.10 on it. A few well-documented hiccups and workarounds are described on the Ubuntu wiki page. * When first unpacked, in Linpus, audio was only coming out one channel. I feared a hardward problem. Newegg, as usual, was great, giving me an RMA super fast. Turns out it was just a software issue. * Comes with a reasonable cover to protect it from scratches in your backpack. * You'll get a thrill seeing just how small the box it comes in is.

11/21/2008