cover
Daniel S.

Daniel S.

Joined on 07/16/04

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review

Great sound, lousy interface. But at least there is one.

Creative ZEN STONE PLUS Black 2GB MP3 Player
Creative ZEN STONE PLUS Black 2GB MP3 Player

Pros: This player weighs next to nothing and sounds fantastic. The ear buds are nothing to write home about but get the job done. Great battery life and a fast charge. You get more storage and a graphic interface at a better price than the leading small mp3 player.

Cons: The interface lags horribly. Sometimes you'll have to wait 5 seconds for the player to react to a button press. You have to hold down the power / pause button to turn the thing on and there's no cue that this is working. The interface seems buggy at times, with the same button press doing different things, but that might be the lag.

Overall Review: Really good value, especially with the rebate. Don't forget to mail it in. I did. It was dumb.

12/21/2007
Most Critical Review

Finicky board, performs well under ideal conditions

ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: price, can run AGP and PCI-E, supposedly upgradeable to socket 940

Cons: terrible board layout, limited bios and poor overclocking capability, (ASRock-provided flashing utility killed my first board, I had to RMA), quirky boot issues,

Overall Review: Now that I've finally got this board up and running, it performs pretty well. My first board died on a bad bios flash with the ASRock util. The new board doesn't always recognize my HDD as a proper boot device and will hang with an error message, but always boots normally after a manual reset. Changing boot devices / order doesn't help this. Floppy and IDE connections are in stupid locations & require winding cable through your case. Early bios versions have AGP issues, but I've upgraded to PCI-E and that runs like a charm. I'm hesitant to update the bios after my last experience.

Solid machine, annoying quirks

SAMSUNG ATIV Book 6 - 15.6" - Intel Core i7-3635QM - AMD Radeon HD 8770M - 8GB Memory DDR3 1600 - - Windows 8 64-Bit  ()
SAMSUNG ATIV Book 6 - 15.6" - Intel Core i7-3635QM - AMD Radeon HD 8770M - 8GB Memory DDR3 1600 - - Windows 8 64-Bit ()

Pros: Fast, beautiful screen, touchpad configuration is intuitive and natural, chiclet keys feel great.

Cons: Stupid crapware and settings rendering OS a bit unstable, HDD is relatively slow, battery life is low

Overall Review: It took me two weeks to figure out why the wifi was dying on my machine. After uninstalling reams of programs, updating drivers, removing intel drivers, I finally figured out that the Samsung power-saving settings were getting stuck somehow and turning the wifi off within 5-10 seconds of turning the computer on. I changed all the power management settings to leave the wifi on, and now it's fine.

Sweet.

XFX GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Support Graphics Card PVT70GUDF7
XFX GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Support Graphics Card PVT70GUDF7

Pros: This card is amazing. It takes everything I throw at it and gobbles it up - BF2 at 1024x768, max settings; CoD2 at 1280x1024, max settings.

Cons: Pricey, but much better than the GTX version in terms of cost to performance ratio.

Overall Review: I absolutely love this card.

VrooooooooooOOM!

APEVIA CF12S Cooling Fan
APEVIA CF12S Cooling Fan

Pros: Fan moves a good deal of air and keeps your junk cool.

Cons: Is that a plane flying overhead? No? It's just your fan.

Overall Review: Get a fan controller.

PQI Really Impressed Me

PQI TURBO 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model PQI3200-1024DAH
PQI TURBO 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model PQI3200-1024DAH

Comments: I ordered 2 packs of this RAM since it came with a decent rebate; unfortunately, I didn't realize that there was a one-per-customer limit on the rebate. When I sent the two rebates in, PQI contacted me via email and asked for a different address to send the second rebate to, so they hooked me up with both rebates. Furthermore, I had the rebates within 2-3 weeks of sending them in, even though they asked for 6-8. The RAM itself is fine, it overclocks pretty easily - I have this at 2.5-3-3-10, 210mhz with absolutely no problems (A64 3800+, ASRock Dual SATAII mobo).

11/20/2005