Pros: LMT - Lifetime maps 'n traffic. Traffic is paid for by ads but the ads are not obtrusive. 5" screen size. Easy to use touch screen. Recertified unit already had fairly up to date firmware and maps. Voice software is getting better at pronouncing names of streets and places. No need to set time zone. Lane assist is a great asset. Knows the speed limit on many roads and quietly turns the MPH indicator red if you exceed it.

Cons: No printed instructions or disc included. Mapsource not included, nor any other way to download and work with waypoints and routes. Recertified unit shows registration date from six months ago on Garmin site. The voices downloadable from Garmin are not as well done as voices for Tom Tom. Searching for destinations tends to be sluggish. No control over manual detours. Larger screen does not necessarily mean finer resolution than its smaller brethren. No automatic brightness control.

Overall Review: About the registration date shown on the my.garmin.com dashboard site, Garmin says hang onto your receipt as proof of purchase. Firmware update went smoothly but it was my fault that the map update failed the first time around. You really do need 10GB free space on your C: drive. When it was all done there was less than 70 MB free on the GPS receiver so if you want to download voices, pics, etc. you will probably want to spend another few dollars on a micro-SD card. Default woman's voice (Jill) was not as understandable as Jack, even by my wife. I wish the Nuvi would be more up front about how and why it re-routes around traffic. I do not like its tendency to put you on eight miles of crowded mall-lined secondary roads with out of synch traffic lights on a Saturday afternoon because it found a ten minute delay on the Interstate.

Pros: NewEgg was very graceful about the refund process.

Cons: DOA. Dead On Arrival. I'd make ex-parrot jokes if I had any confidence that this thing ever lived.

Overall Review: Wish I had first seen the comments from another buyer who found that two out of three were no good.

Pros: Seems to work OK without any fiddling.

Cons: Drivers are not 100% compatible with Windows XP.

Overall Review: This monitor was purchased to replace a worn out Dell monitor on an existing Windows XP PC. I don't know why but the INF file for this monitor is not digested well by Windows XP. It works but not without complaints every time you boot.

Pros: These little HP biz machines are generally bullet-proof, and quiet-running too. The 8000 series has a slightly better power supply and more USB ports than the DC7900s which are also popular refurbs. Also lots of legacy equipment capability with two serial ports (great for hams, networking and PC support folks) and a PCI slot in addition to three PCIe slots. Even a parallel port! The 4GB of RAM was supplied on 2 sticks leaving another 2 open for upgrades. The OS is Win7-64 Pro, thanks! The HD is supplied with a Windows recovery partition.

Cons: No recovery media supplied, and I really wish these machines would be supplied with DVD writers. The power cord included looked really dirty and chewed up. Java is pre-installed. It is rarely needed for anything and is a giant security hole, comparable only to Flash in making web browsing a perilous adventure. The relatively ancient Hitachi HD is noisy during seeks and can quite literally sound like a vibrator when doing random I/O intensive things like installing OS updates. If you want to install a drive or card reader in that little 3.5 inch position, you'll want a set of those Compaq panhead screws or something very close. And when I was done putting in all the Microsoft software updates I noticed that IE's "Meet your new browser" tab would not go away. Had to screw with the policy settings via GPEDIT.MSC to get rid of it.

Overall Review: NewEgg's free shipping services never cease to amaze me. I ordered this PC on Saturday and it arrived on the dinner-time UPS truck on Monday. Technically that was less than one day shipping. Then the card reader I ordered moments before the PC wasn't scheduled to arrive (from a warehouse that is 30 miles closer) for another five days but showed up less than a day later. This is another US Micro refurb (my second one so far) with a flimsy keyboard (with giant old-skool [Enter] key) and an optical mouse that actually isn't bad at all. Some light scratches on one side where the prior user must have had it resting in the floor, and where I inevitably will do likewise. No dents. Most of the dust had been blown out and the machine was generally clean. Nothing needed re-seating. There was a stray little piece of plastic floating around inside which didn't look like anything that could have come from the PC itself. The machine feels fairly snappy in spite of the relatively pokey 7 year old (!) Hitachi Ultrastar HD. Yeah, just wait until you try to defrag it. LOLz. Part of the snappiness is the blissful lack of bloatware. It does install Microsoft Security Essentials right away but I consider that a good thing. OpenOffice 4.01 is pre-installed as well as a program called CDBurnerXP, which would do most of what you would want to do with an optical media writer, if you replaced the DVD reader that the machine came with. A package of codecs - Combined Community Codec Pack - is also installed. Win7 comes with most of what you should ever need but this fills in a few holes if you download a lot of videos from various places. Speaking of downloading, 7-Zip is also included which not only handles ZIP files but RAR, etc. An $8 Tek Republic flash reader from NewEgg and a DVD burner from my stockpile will make this a nearly perfect all around machine. If you're thinking of making this into a media center PC, the good news is that it has more than enough horsepower to handle even the highest bitrate videos. The bad news is this PC like many in the HP business line does NOT support audio out of the Displayport connector. If this is crucial I suggest an efficient half-height video card such as the PowerColor HD5450 which after rebates is quite nearly free through NewEgg.

Pros: Inexpensive. Handles everything I've thrown at it.

Cons: Cheap. Flimsy.

Overall Review: There have been many complaints about the bright red LED which is lit all the time. This is correct. This also takes just a moment or two to remedy. The case comes apart without tools and the faceplate comes off just as easily. The LED is on the circuit board. You can put a piece of black tape over the surface mount LED on the bottom side of the circuit board, or you can coat the inside part of the little translucent plastic piece on the faceplate with some nail polish. Easy!

Pros: It works. Supports USB 3.0, audio over HDMI. Company is very responsive.

Cons: High resolution may require more CPU power than some people have available.

Overall Review: First of all, kudos to the company for email response time. I sent them an email on a Sunday morning asking whether this gadget supports HDCP (it does), and the response came just an hour later. My goal was to bring a cheap HTPC video signal to my 1920x1080 flat screen via a single HDMI cable. After reading some USB-HDMI adapter reviews I ascertained that for smooth video I'd be better off with USB 3.0 so I bought an inexpensive USB 3.0 card and this adapter. I have not tested with Blu-Ray disks yet but what I did notice was that using VLC to play full-HD MP4 files on a small PC monitor took around 34-40% of the CPU on an Intel E8400 but playing it full-screen over HDMI took around 90% of the CPU. That is enough CPU demand that just the additional load of moving the mouse cursor would cause some video glitches. According to the manufacturer, this card's driver will utilize video coprocessor cycles if they are available. My motherboard -based video probably was not what they meant. ;-) As it is, it works. But one more straw on the back of my 3 GHz E8400 could very well send me back to the drawing board and looking for a fanless, energy-efficient, low-profile, HDMI/HDCP-capable video card instead of a USB solution. Not taking away any points - I have no real reason to. Just keep your expectations reasonable.