Joined on 12/01/02
Highly Recommended
Pros: No need to install software. Works instantly with MythTV (0.23/0.24). Finds unencrypted channels easily. Only consumes about 30 Mbit of network traffic with both tuners going. Can actually tune more than 2 channels when others are on the same frequency band. (YMMV). Picture and audio quality are fantastic.
Cons: Tuning multiple channels on one tuner caused some hangups in MythTV, so I had to disable that functionality.
Overall Review: Using this with a MythTV back-end running Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit to tune local HD channels from the cable company. I run all of my electronics (including cable line) through surge protection of >1000 joules.
Roll the dice
Pros: Santa brought one to my 2.5 year old. It runs Netflix like a boss - which is his favorite. He loves it. He can turn it on, start Netflix, and plays his favorite shows all by himself. Google Play offers a number of free puzzle games and other educational apps for kids as well. Most other apps run - if it is a 3D game, it will probably lag horribly. The tablet lives in a 7" tablet pillow stand which works perfectly, except it blocks the speaker. I solved that by taping a plastic Gerber Baby Food cap to the back to channel sound back out to the front.
Cons: It seems the MFG quality is hit or miss if you scan the reviews. On mine, the main power jack does not work at all. I verified the wall adapter is functioning. We are forced to charge via the USB, which takes probably 4-5 hours if the unit is OFF. That wouldn't be so bad, but the battery only lasts 2-3 hours with basic use. The sound quality is horrible. Do not try to move apps to the SDcard to free up system memory - they will not run from there. The camera is also junk, but who cares!
Overall Review: All in all i do not regret my purchase. We let our son use the "digital babysitter" about 30-60 minutes per day when we need to keep him occupied. He would much rather use this than watch any movie or programming on the TV - he likes to push the buttons and start/stop his shows randomly, crank up the volume, do puzzles.
Bad bits
Pros: They are listed under the compatible memory table for my mobo. Z170X chipset.
Cons: I've had so many random issues with my new build. Countless hours trying to salvage data from corrupted filesystems. Lost data!!! Corrupted files. Crashing OS. Problem was faulty sata cards? Nope. Bad BIOS? Nope. Bad M2 SSDs? Nope. Bad bits in my DRAM!! BINGO! Man I wish I had run a memory test earlier! My first and last time buying this brand. No amount of down clocking fixes my bad bits.
Overall Review: Don't buy this one.
Amazing home server case
Pros: -Silent 3-pin fans (3 of them!) -Good airflow -Locking cover/power button -8 hot-swap bays -tons of room
Cons: - double the price of most cases (but if you consider the backplane/8-bays + fans - its a freaking steal) - most motherboards only have 6 sata ports (not a con, just keep that in mind) - Backplane uses 2 of the old 4-pin molex power connectors, and most PSU's only provide one cable with these.
Overall Review: Easily the best case I've ever owned, and would buy again. Its hard to find a sharp edge inside, and everything seems of good quality. All of the extra cabling easily goes behind the back cover for the cleanest build you ever made. Inside the locked cover, you can choose to lock out the power button too - perfect for us guys with curious kiddos. My huge tower cpu cooler still clears the cover... there is tons of space here. The only real con is that if you have power hungry drives in your bays, you must have two seperate cables feeding power to the backplane, and most PSU's don't have two cables with those old molex connectors. If you are using "red" type drives for your storage (you should be) it won't be much concern to use just one cable, since these are low power (0.5A apiece). You can safely pull 4 amps in a 20 gage wire your drives won't care about the voltage drop. But expect problems if you feed it using one cable when you filled the bays with cheap desktop 7200 RPM drives. It is 2017. Plesae don't run your server on Windows. Try OMV, Free NAS, Unraid, or Ubuntu server...
TomatoUSB Compatible
Pros: Compatible with TomatoUSB: This means you get rock solid firmware on a proven hardware platform. Wireless speeds are great - streamed encoded HD video content to 4 wireless devices simultaneously without a hiccup. No drops after weeks of use. I found this on sale for under $100 - not here (although I love newegg)
Cons: Original firmware may not be very good. Reports of problems after OEM firmware upgrades. Unit runs warm. OEM firmware is junk.
Overall Review: I replaced a D-**** N600 cloud router after 2 months because it was constantly dropping wireless clients. Finally did some homework looking for tomato compatible routers after my overwhelming success with a previous wirless G Tomato compatible router. That never dropped a connection using it for 7 years... After you buy this router (you should), use the factory html interface to upgrade the router to a compatible TomatoUSB firmware. Set it, then forget it.
Works as intended
Pros: The power rating is good to ensure you do not have internal voltage droop at significant loads. Both ports are wired in parallel.
Cons: Its big. It is relatively expensive for a simple wall adapter - the high power rating demands the premium cost. The amount of current that can be drawn from these probably exceeds the spec for maximum current through most USB cables and connectors - however I do not believe this to be hazardous.
Overall Review: I bought this for my android MK808 TV stick. The stock adapter they come with are under-powered and cause the device to glitch from time to time. This fixes that issue. The adapter is always lit with a blue LED which may be a turn-off to some. Even though the ports appear to be electrically paralleled, they specify different current ratings. This could be due to individual sensing elements (for an OCP feature) or simply different current handling capability due to internal wire guage / trace width.