Joined on 05/17/04
WEP in Repeater Setup
Pros: Adequate range for single story home with no concrete or metal in walls. No unsightly antennas. Can access internet in the garden 100' away (no walls in between - just a window).
Cons: Must use WEP [in]security to use two of these routers in repeater setup. Weak range around metal reinforced concrete (i.e., our daylight basement). After three interior wood walls and 15 ft, signal drops to 2 bars or so.
Overall Review: I have a two story older home (1000 sq ft each floor). The main router is downstairs in the office. Without another router upstairs, wireless won't reach upstairs. So, we had to string cat-5 through the house to rooms upstairs. I don't like cables cascading down the stairs - hazardous. I purchased a second WNR2000 to serve as wireless repeater upstairs. Good idea, except this router only works as a repeater on WEP or no security - NOT with WPA or WPA2 (although each offers it when used individually). Once the repeater was set up, I got 4+ bars of wireless everywhere in the house. BTW, changing from WPA2 to WEP on our Win7 computers was a nightmare. Changing the same on our smartphones, BD players, iPads and HDTVs - easy as pie.
Solid USB-2
Pros: Easy install. Good USB-3 speeds when it worked. Reliable and fast USB-2.
Cons: USB-3 is occasional rather than typical. Often doesn't recognize USB-3 external HDD until connected via USB-2 cable.
Overall Review: I use this card together with a USB-3 external HDD for video backup purposes - most file transfers are larger than 100MB. As I expected, I had to install driver software with this hardware - the process was pretty easy. The card worked most of the time when I first installed it, but it was temperamental - sometimes great speeds that were almost that of my eSATA-connected ext HDD. Other times, speeds looked more like USB-2. Recently when I connect to the external HDD, Windows fails to see the drive at all via USB-3. I connected the ext HDD using a USB-2 cable to this card and the drive reappeared as a USB-2 drive. Thinking the USB-3 cable was maybe bad, I replaced it with a known good one, but again Windows failed to recognize the drive until I connected via USB-2. I'm disappointed with the poor reliability of the card. I want to simply connect my backup drive and hit the backup button and go, but all too often I find myself troubleshooting rather than doing work with this thing. It's just too temperamental for me.
I Love it EXCEPT
Pros: Pros - Small and light Excellent build quality M.2 NvME C: drive is fast (512GB (476GB usable) INTEL SSDPEKNU512GZ) Accepts an additional 2.5" internal drive Windows 11 pro Lots of USB 3.0 ports Can run 2 HDMI monitors Low power usage (compared to larger desktop computers Quiet running even under load FAST support via email - though I found them less than helpful Great price for a 1-year-old NUC with 8th Gen i5 cpu!
Cons: Cons - 1. USB3 Type-C port is useless for data xfers. Though the manufacturer advertises fast data xfer via Type-C port, this AC50 computer and the one I bought a month later provide ONLY voltage and limited USB2 data xfer for some devices on the Type-C port. 2. Internal 2.5" SSD runs at SATA300 when the SSD I installed is capable of and runs at SATA600 speeds when connected to the Type-A ports. Disappointing. 3. Although support is quick, it's not that helpful for technical issues - and their website offers NOTHING of value for customer tech support ("email us"). 4. The vesa connection hardware feels a little flimsy - I would have liked a connection plate with 4 screw holes instead of only 2 to connect to the back of my monitor.
Overall Review: I absolutely adore this little NUC that replaced my aged 2008 DIY tower. I opened the ATOPNUC AC50 to install a 2.5" SSD for additional storage and noticed top-quality build quality - with replaceable memory. The AC50's fan is quieter than my laptop fan. I was sorely disappointed that the Type-C port does not pass data at the advertised speeds (if at all) - I use it to charge my phone and keyboard. Overall, a decent NUC at a great price - especially if you don't care about USB 3.2 Type-C data xfers. BUY ONE - I don't think you'll be disappointed (with the above caveats).
Fast enough
Pros: Tiny - sticks out about 1/4 inch from my laptop usb port. Fast - usb3.0 speeds. Crystal Diskmark on Win10 laptop shows 130 MB/s seq. read, 70 MB/s seq. write.
Cons: Gets hot during file transfers - that means battery use on my laptop.
Overall Review: At first, I used this on a Lonovo N22 Chromebook. This product got hot when plugged into the port - draining my battery fast (maybe lost 3 hours of battery time). Then I upgraded from the 11" Chromebook to a 14" Windows laptop, plugged this thumb drive in and - cool as a cucumber when not in use. Based on my experience, I would not recommend this product for use on a Lonovo N22 Chromebook. I would definitely recommend it for a Windows 10 laptop.
Still going strong 3 years in
Pros: Fast and reliable.
Cons: None so far.
Overall Review: In 2014, I added this drive to my aging 2008 home-built rig to give it some pep. Boy, did it! During my Win7 days, this improved Windows boot time from 45-60 seconds to under 20 seconds (plus 10 seconds for POST). Win10 upgrade slowed boot time to 35 seconds. Now after Win10 latest update, boot time is again in the 15-20 second range. Because this SSD maxes out my SATA2 bus, I can't get throughput this drive is capable of - bum! My system: Gigabyte EP45-UD3R (socket 775) MB with Intel Q6600 CPU running @ 2.4GHz and 8GB of DDR2 @ 400MHz memory, Gigabyte Radeon HD5670 graphics and two 22" monitors. I have 4 HDDs (12TB) and this SSD in the box - no raid. I've upgraded the box from XP through Win10 since 2008. This box is still going strong almost a decade after building it - though some apps are starting to show the age of this system - particularly graphics and video manipulation apps like Photoshop and Premier that now require some patience (and were significantly improved with the addition of this SSD). BTW, I don't game.
It works - kinda
Pros: cool design, lazer works, instantly connects to laptop
Cons: Trackball moves so easily as to make it unusable - especially when clicking. The entire thing feels flimsy. Doesn't fit comfortably in the hand so that buttons and trackball are easily reached.
Overall Review: I figured this would be a nice addition to a Chromebook. Not so. The trackball moves so easily that I found the cursor flying all over the screen. Squeezing the trigger to "click" causes the trackball to move - making clicking on intended targets next to impossible. I soon found this mouse very uncomfortable - nearly impossible to use. I can not think of a use case for this particular trackball mouse because the trackball is so loose. Even using this with a PP presentation would be impossible because you'd be working too hard to control where the cursor goes on screen when you click or turn on the laser pointer. Don't buy this!!!
Fast delivery. Product arrived in its box in a mailer in perfect condition. I didn't like the product when it arrived but I can't blame that on this seller. They did good. I'll probably buy from them again.