Joined on 04/17/03
old but cheap technology
Pros: dirt cheap at $18 AR; quiet fan (mine has the four-pin, auto-throttling fan); idles at 30% (50C), which is not audible in a case (even 100% is but a mild whoosh). You can easily alter the fan speed if you wish. Adequate performance for a HTPC; CUDA-enabled.
Cons: small, cheap cooler; PNY rebates usually takes a long time.
Overall Review: as many have said, this is not for serious gaming, but is great for a media server or HTPC.
not bad
Pros: fairly inexpensive for a 15" laptop with an i3 processor (has hyperthreading); better performance than similarly priced laptops with Pentium or Celeron processors; appears new with zero dead pixel; install your own OS, without any bloatware
Cons: not very solid feeling (the back of the LCD lid flexes); the HDD is not accessible through the service door--you have to remove the keyboard and upper cover to get to the HDD; I know it's debranded and the "generic" decal over the hp logo on the back is removable, but hp actually buffed out the hp logo under the sticker so it's ugly with or without the tacky (no pun intended) "global" sticker
Rosewill RHSP-13007 Rotating Power Surge Block
Pros: very affordable (got it for $10 AR) for a 12-outlet surge protector; long cord; rotating blocks; good voltage suppression, assuming the rating is accurate.
Cons: the quality of construction and material seems a little cheap at the suggested price of $35
Overall Review: this appears to be the same model as BELKIN BP112230-08 and Minuteman MMS7120RCT (with the exception of the coax/phone protection) that sell for $35+ at NE
Gigabyte BRIX
Pros: Small footprint; easy installation; absolutely silent (obviously); sips power; ideal for HTPC
Cons: mine died on day 2 (could not into get into bios) and is stuck in the service/developer mode; performance is so-so (was not as snappy as my 2-year old Acer Aspire One notebook which is equipped with Celeron 877 (only 1.4 GHz and no Turbo) - maybe the single-channel memory is the limiting factor; wish the enclosure is made of aluminum instead of cheap-feeling plastic;
Overall Review: installed 8 gig of DDR3 and a 120 GB Zalman SSD in mine
Good construction, but...
Pros: mostly made of aluminum and well-constructed; 2.5" drives fit fairly snugly inside (it would help to lubricate the sides with some silicone for easier removal; requires only one power connector for 2 drives
Cons: it wasn't well documented that the cage only fits the floppy drive slot in the front of a pc case, NOT the regular 3.5" HDD slot, because the spacing of the screw holes on the side is different. I suppose that makes sense because it's meant to be hot-swappable from the front of the case.
Great reader
Pros: small, inexpensive and well made; can read both SD and micro-SD cards; reads my Patriot and Adata UHS-I SDHC cards at 85-95 MB/s sequential and writes at 45-65 MB/s sequential; these speeds are on par with my SIIG USB 3 reader which cost me $25
Cons: gets quite warm during use
Overall Review: People who report that this reader only runs at USB 2.0 speed probably were using slower cards (Class 10 is only certified at 10MB/s)--the reader is obviously limited by the flash card itself. Very few SD cards on the market are rated higher than 90/60 MB/s and they are quite expensive