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Gerald C.

Gerald C.

Joined on 08/15/02

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review

Eureka!

Scythe SY124010L 40mm Chipset Fan
Scythe SY124010L 40mm Chipset Fan

Pros: Nearly silent

Cons: Comes via USPS

Overall Review: I super-glued this to my mobo's chipset heatsink and it solved my video problem in warm weather (compact Acer). Video Card Stability Test now runs with no blanking out. I have long used super-glue to attach old power-supply fans to CPUs (quiet) and it has never failed. You can easily pop them off with a flat piece of metal.

Gemlike little machine

DELL Desktop Computer 780 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 4GB DDR3 160GB HDD Intel GMA 4500 Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
DELL Desktop Computer 780 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 4GB DDR3 160GB HDD Intel GMA 4500 Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Pros: Tiny, well built, fast E8400 processor, clean, well packed, good support

Cons: No upgrade slots

Overall Review: Had only a few small chips in the paint that I touched up with a majik marker. The DVD drive was unusable but they sent me a new one free. Easy to replace. Does have a DisplayPort. but it doesn't send sound. I use this as a replacement for a cable box with an HD Homerun Prime. Runs Windows Media Center effortlessly. Taking one star off for having to replace the DVD drive.

Nice product

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-955Q (1191) TV Tuner Stick / Hybrid Video Recorder with Remote Control
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-955Q (1191) TV Tuner Stick / Hybrid Video Recorder with Remote Control

Pros: Well made, works with WMC Win7 64 out-of-the-box.

Cons: Analogue requires a fast computer

Overall Review: My only disappointment is my low-end single-core laptop comes nowhere near being able to run analogue. You need 2GHz or a dual-core. HD and QAM run great tho. Also, it look me a day before I realized the antenna goes up, doh! WMC is awful at detecting channels so find yours here http://www.silicondust.com/support/channels/

Near perfect once you set up MCE properly.

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1265 (1196) Hybrid TV Tuner /Video Recorder
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1265 (1196) Hybrid TV Tuner /Video Recorder

Pros: Nice picture, grood price, WinTV is great at detecting QAM channels, remote works almost perfectly with MCE.

Cons: A bit slow switching channels (similar to cable or satellite box), WinTV hangs.

Overall Review: I found WinTV to be unusable because channels would often hang for 5-30 seconds. The good thing is it's great at detecting QAM channels while MCE is horrible at it. This allowed me to go into WinTV and find the actual channels my cable company was using and manually enter them into MCE (Physical channel dot Service ID, be sure to try both QAM64 and QAM256). The remote functions very well with MCE. But Prev Ch actually toggles full-screen. To get the previous channel hit Enter. There doesn't seem to be any way to enter a dot with it tho, so I just removed all the dots from the channels. I should take off one egg for the WinTV hanging problem but very few people will want to use it over MCE (which is fantastic). People with older, 32 bit OS computers without MCE may find WinTV works fine. Athlon II X2 215 2.70GHz, 4GB, Win7 64. Uses about 15% of resources, runs smooth. 70 analogue channels, 10 QAM. Haven't tried OTA.

Style and function

AT&T CL81309 1.9 GHz Digital 3X Handsets Cordless Phone
AT&T CL81309 1.9 GHz Digital 3X Handsets Cordless Phone

Pros: Style, features, price, wall mount, stands on end.

Cons: Earpiece could be louder.

Overall Review: This is functionally the same as the Vtechs (same company now) but is much nicer looking. The buttons work more like a cellphone. I like the wall-mount for the base unit and that the handsets stand on end. They actually shape the earphone recess to fit your thumb! Like all DECT phones, range and clarity are good. It's not real loud but the speakerphone is, works great if you lay it on a hard surface. There is no VM button but you can just add VM to the Directory and put a 1 in front of it so it's always first. Nice bright orange screen, easy to read. The shared Directory is great. Just hit the number key corresponding to the first letter of the person you want to call. Intercom is cool. I bought two sets of these so I can mix and match. We get a free 2nd line with our VOIP so I'm going to put one phone on one base and five on the other. We can call the other line with ***70, which I also put in the Directory. How cool is that?

10/19/2009

Darn nice!

GARMIN 4.3" Navigation with MSN Direct Service
GARMIN 4.3" Navigation with MSN Direct Service

Pros: Price, features, build quality, 6% Bing cash back.

Cons: A little hefty to carry around.

Overall Review: This unit is a bargain because it's selling for less than the 760 which has the less-desirable traffic radio instead of MSN Direct. They are otherwise identical. The 760 was rated a "best buy" by Consumer Reports. This is my first GPS but I think I have it pretty much figured out after a few days. Updating the maps was easy but takes a couple of hours and 5GBs of free disk space on your computer. FM works fine. Haven't tried blue-tooth yet. Some tips: *Press and hold "Back" to get back to the start screen. *Change to QWERTY keyboard. *Hit the green bar and then "Show Map" to see your entire route. *To find rest rooms: Where to?/POI/down arrow/Auto Services/down arrow/Rest area-tourist info. *See the satellites: Press and hold the signal bars (use pinky) These were selling for $700 a year ago and I can see why. They are a quality instrument made in Taiwan and it shows. I really can't argue much with the way it functions.