Joined on 06/08/09
Great model for this chipset (4GB)
Pros: Good enough performance for most people's needs. Probably not for the serious-gamer type, but capable enough for most tasks. Choice of VGA, DVI or HDMI (just not Diplayport) Easy install. Windows 8.1 recognized it well enough before installing the software / drivers. 4 GB GB of dedicated RAM (nice find for this chipset.) Good Heatsink, no noisy fan. Would be great in a non-gaming HTPC or for most business-like uses.
Cons: None. It's everything I expected it to be. The marketing literature might over-sell its capabilities though.
Overall Review: I'm using it on a not-gaming PC at 1080P @ 60Hz and it works fine for light graphics and video playback with sound over HDMI. Fits this PC's needs just fine. If I were building a PC for heavier Graphics usage (gaming, graphic design, video editing) I would consider something alot more able for that purpose and expect to spend around $200-300. But this PC and is not for that purpose. The card's specs claim to be capable of 4K resolution but if I were investing in that, I'd be looking to use Displayport as the interface. Great for 1080P over DVI or HDMI though.
Nice sound when it's on...
Pros: Nice looking. Good Sound. Not mega-bass, but sufficient for video. Good for a small room.
Cons: Energy-saving "feature" cannot be turned off. After a short period of silence, the speaker goes into a soft-standby mode and it will come out of it after a few seconds of audio sound passes, waking it from its slumber. NOT OKAY! JBL Store does not reply when I try to contact them about it. They don't seem to care.
I love it.
Pros: Self-contained cable. It works right out of the box.
Cons: None so far.
Overall Review: This drive arrived today so I don't have a history with it. At first I thought it didn't come with a cable but it's under the little triangle door in the corner. It plugged right into my laptop and was immediately recognized as a DVD-RW drive. It comes with some software on a DVD: Power2go 8 E-Green Powerbackup Nero BackItUp I'm just really impressed with this little thing. I'll hardly ever need to use it but it's so small and self-contained that I know it will be ready whenever it's needed for either my laptop or desktop machine.
REALLY Disappointed
Pros: Well-rated product. Not sure why…
Cons: Terribly invasive. I already have a Higher Power (can't use the G-word in a review, apparently. That's okay.) and It is not an antivirus product. See other thoughts...
Overall Review: This product is rated really well in survey after survey of Antivirus products so I bought it. It may be good once I get it configured to actually allow me to use Firefox. I’ve been messing with it all morning and the only time Firefox is able to start up is when Kaspersky is uninstalled. Searching Kaspersky support site is very frustrating, giving me tons of results from years back for old products and what little they have for the current versions doesn’t fix this issue. I don’t want to overstate my tech level but I am no novice. I’ve resolved much bigger issues than this one ought to be. This product should be a no-brainer to get up and running and I’ve spent hours on it. What I have noticed is just how invasive this product is. I bought the plain antivirus product rather than the security “suite” because this whole product category (from all makers) seems to have lost sight of its reason for being and has become bloatware, really. I left Norton for similar reasons. Seriously considering dumping this product (on day 1, after paying for it) and I definitely will not recommend it to anyone. What ever happened to Keep It Simple? Generally, I want an antivirus product to be efficient and quiet. I don’t want it doing anything outside the scope of what I bought it for – antivirus. Just watch what comes in and if something dirty comes along, quarantine it and let me know about it. Otherwise, just leave me and my apps alone. It does not need to put 100 different hooks into the OS or my apps and it should not prevent apps that were there before it came along from running. Avoid the Full system scan. It could take days, even when it says it’s only going to be minutes. It changes its mind, anyway. One minute it says minutes, then hours, then days, then minutes again. I haven’t waited it out. Judging how much time it spends on each file (including signed, known-good software installation cab files from well respected companies,) it will likely be at least a day to get through it. And I already know it won’t find anything. Enough is enough with the Antivirus software “security” racket. I’ll probably wind up using the free Windows Defender, plus paid-for versions of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and also Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit together. Probably superior protection overall, very efficient, and those products are made to focus only on their respective purposes.
Great for converting Audiobooks to MP3
Pros: I got this as the “missing link” needed to easily convert an Audible .AA format audiobook to .mp3 format and it works great at that. I cannot speak to its other features as that is all I intend to use it for. Maybe I’ll explore the other stuff later. Amazing price right now. I wouldn’t have known about this product or what it could do if I didn’t see it in the Newegg sale though. I saw it and its price and wondered what it is. So I did a little searching and… what a find!
Cons: It’s not the most current version. No big deal to me for converting audiobooks but the new 2016 version has new features that may or may not be worth the price of upgrading.
Overall Review: If you want to use it for converting Audible .aa format audiobooks to .mp3, you need to have (1) an Audible account, (2) own the audiobooks in your Audible account that you want to convert, (3) Apple iTunes for Windows, (4) the Audible Download Manager application, (5) This application – Audials Tunebite. Audible Download Manager downloads the .aa file and works as a plugin to iTunes to unlock the DRM for playback and CD burning. Audials Tunebite then provides a virtual CD burner for iTunes to write the output of a “burn to CD” operation to and handles all the rest of the work of turning that output into usable .mp3 file(s). Once you do it once, it all ties together pretty seamlessly and makes the process very smooth. I used to have to spend all day converting a book by burning it to several CD’s through iTunes and then converting all the .wav files and piecing them together, adding track and book information manually… it was a real pain. I learned how to tie it all together from a Youtube video by a guy named Doug Morris – video # TCFV0wnlekw – but Audials application also gives very good instructions on how to do it inside the app.
Good Products. Bad Installer.
Pros: These two products are very good and should be used in addition to, not instead of, a basic Antivirus package.
Cons: The combined-product installer that I downloaded from Newegg DOES NOT WORK for me. It complains that I don't have an Internet connection. I tried temporarily disabling Windows Firewall in case it's being blocked but no change. See Other Thoughts.
Overall Review: Newegg sends product Id's and keys for both products and they can each be downloaded separately from Malwarebytes website. (The free version is the same.) Install each and activate them to the full product using the keys from Newegg. Works great after that.
Absolute silence after the sale
One egg is too many. JBL Store quickly sent me the refurb sound bar that I ordered and then when I don't like it they don't reply to my attempts to contact them. I'm convinced they don't care. Now I seem to be stuck with a bad product. This is not Newegg, it's some third party seller who doesn't care.
Awesome deal. Received quickly.
They had Hitachi (HGST) Ultrastar drives at an unbelievable price so it was hard to pass up. Seller is quick to ship. Mine was sent USPS Priority 2-day and arrived on time. No issues. Good communication from goHardDrive. Very pleased with this transaction.
Great product, price. FAST shipping but...
I ordered this through Newegg and it indicated it was coming from overseas (15 day ship time) but it came from Fremont, CA and arrived in a couple days. Awesome! But they sent it USPS Signature Required. That meant I had to go to the Post Office (twice) and wait in long lines to pick it up since I'm never home in the day. Tracking with delivery confirmation (like Priority Mail Insured) would have been just fine. It would have been delivered to my mailbox and still covered for loss or theft. Something to think about, guys. Excellent experience overall though.