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Aaron W.

Aaron W.

Joined on 11/02/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review
Toshiba 40" 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV
Toshiba 40" 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV

Pros: I've spent a lot of time around high-end LCD TVs, plasmas, and DLPs. This TV is just as vibrant and pretty as any of the others, with just as good a picture. No dead pixels, manages 60hz at 1080p which is more than most cable companies can even provide (usually 60hz, 1080i). Unbeatable for the price. Wait for it to go on sale, and shop around, but you're not losing quality here.

Cons: Sound is middling in quality, but any self-respecting audiophile that would notice has a sound system good enough to make up for it. It's good enough for the news, anyway. Also, the remote needs to be pointed directly at the screen, but you'll get used to that pretty quickly.

Overall Review: I would recommend this TV. There isn't a good reason to spend more for the same size TV with the same specs. Problems like pixel pitch are minor and not noticeable at any distance you're supposed to be watching this TV from. Problems like color/brightness are present with EVERY TV to some degree. You have to calibrate each TV, this one included, for its environment--viewing distance, brightness in the room, and even the types of light bulbs all matter if you're super picky, and if you're not, you won't notice the difference from this TV to a more expensive one.

Most Critical Review

Disappointing wifi. Otherwise a great motherboard

ASUS TUF GAMING B550-PLUS WIFI II AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS TUF GAMING B550-PLUS WIFI II AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Excellent design and feature-rich. Nice details like NVME heatsinks. (Almost) everything works great.

Cons: Either the motherboards wifi drivers are unstable on Windows or the wifi module is faulty for these motherboards. Sometimes you turn on the PC and WiFi doesnt work. And then after hours of troubleshooting and restarts, it might just start working again. The module is not removable so youre out of luck if this happens to you. The warranty process requires shipping out the motherboard for repair, which based on other reviews would not guarantee a fix, and would take you offline for weeks. This is a frustrating issue for a motherboard with wifi in its name.

Overall Review: Great motherboard except for faulty WiFi

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Fast and high capacity. You won't regret the purchase if you're really bent on getting a fast hard drive. Doesn't affect power usage negatively, in my experience.

Cons: You're paying for the increase from a 5400rpm drive here, but I'm not sure there is a noticeable speed increase. If any other aspects of your laptop are lacking, you might want to get a 500gb 5400rpm and use the savings to buy RAM or a nice flash drive for ReadyBoost or something. You'll notice more of a performance difference.

Nippon Labs HDMI-HS-15 15 ft. HDMI 2.0 Male to Male High Speed Cable with Ethernet Channel, Black
Nippon Labs HDMI-HS-15 15 ft. HDMI 2.0 Male to Male High Speed Cable with Ethernet Channel, Black

Pros: Makes it look just as pretty as any other HDMI cable will. The beauty of HDMI is that since it's a digital signal, you're not going to lose quality because of minor deficiencies in the build materials of the cable. What you will save by getting this cable is a LOT of money.

Cons: The cable is a pretty high quality, and as such, it's a little thick. So, it's not as flexible as might be sometimes warranted. This is nitpicking hard, though. Any good cable is thick.

Overall Review: It's a good buy, unless there's another 15' HDMI cable out there for cheaper!

Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g Wireless Broadband Router up to 54 Mbps/ Compatible with Open Source DD-WRT (not pre-load)
Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g Wireless Broadband Router up to 54 Mbps/ Compatible with Open Source DD-WRT (not pre-load)

Pros: I've bought many of these in the past, and I have yet to be disappointed. Wait for it to go on sale (it is about half of the time), and you have a pretty price-competitive router. This is one of the most tried-and-true routers I've ever seen, and while it isn't the newest technology, unless you're trying to go through more than 3 floors or are interested in streaming HD video from another wireless computer on your network without any hiccups, this is fast and strong enough, and you can be sure you're not sacrificing quality of build for mild increases in performance. To note, it's probably even fast and strong enough for what I was just mentioning. I'm going to go home and try.

Cons: Some would call the default firmware a con. It's gone through several revisions since it was originally considered of a low quality, and now it runs really well. If you're looking for a more complete option, search for DD-WRT and read up a bit. It's not as user friendly as the default firmware, but you will probably see acronyms for technical things you'd never heard of. It's a fun learning experience.

Overall Review: Buy it! You won't get dropped connections. Promise :) Also, don't listen to the marketing--this is fast enough for gaming. It's fast enough for multiple users. It's fast enough that I have a heavily-used webserver routed through it, and I still use it for regular surfing traffic. There isn't any latency on either end.

IN WIN BP655 Black Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 200W Power Supply
IN WIN BP655 Black Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 200W Power Supply

Pros: Everything fit nicely. It serves the purpose of a case. My motherboard went right in, as did the back panel that corresponds to the motherboard (which is pretty exceptional in my experience). Front audio/USB ports work and are combined into nice plugs (rather than having the + and - independent, etc). The power supply powers just about anything you should be putting into one of these cases (I estimate that I'm using ~35-40 watts of the "claimed" 200 it provides, and it doesn't smell like ozone yet). It's pretty!

Cons: There's not a lot wrong with this case. One grievance: The front USB ports are a little rigid and hard to plug in to. This is something I've noticed in the past from inexpensive cases, but it's so nominal that I can't really complain.

Overall Review: I used a laptop drive for this, and there aren't any actual slots for it, so I had to jury-rig it a little bit. It feels sturdy in there, regardless. Other reviews have said that you can't fit two full-sized desktop drives in there (which is clear on the manufacturer's website), but you shouldn't want to. If you're interested in things like that, get a mid/full-ATX case. This case is pretty roomy for ITX, so enjoy it :)