Joined on 05/31/06
Decent SSD and Good Price When On Sale But No S.M.A.R.T. Temperature Reporting
Pros: Good value when on sale Responsive support Works fine with AMD 970 chipset (unlike Samsung 860 EVO)
Cons: Does not report temperature (S.M.A.R.T.)
Overall Review: This is a good value when purchased on sale but be aware that S.M.A.R.T. attribute 194 is reported as 0 (Hard Disk Sentinel) or ? (CrystalDiskInfo.) Team Group support confirmed to me that this SSD does not report temperature. They said it does have a thermal sensor to protect the SSD from temperatures outside operating limits. Why it wouldn't be reported via S.M.A.R.T. seems odd to me. Also, no problems interfacing with AMD 970 chipset like the Samsung EVO 860 that it replaced.
Great price Works Well
Pros: Great price.
Cons: None so far.
Overall Review: Replaced a Sony that had problems opening without a disc in it.. This works fine as a replacement. Didn't use the software that came with it.
Nice Speed Increase
Pros: Upgrade kit is nice for those of us who are putting it in a 3.5" desktop slot. Also the included 2.5" USB enclosure will be handy. Nice little screwdriver too. SSD is much faster than my failing hard drive.
Cons: I docked one egg because the software included and used for transferring did not maintain alignment of the drive. Consequently, I had to use Gparted to perform the alignment after the transfer which added over 200 GB of life writes in accomplishing that.
Overall Review: I was coming from a dual-boot XP-Win7 drive and discovered that it was more pain than it was worth to hang onto XP on an SSD. When you replace a hard drive with an SSD, the best course if practical is a clean install of Win7. I really didn't want the hassle of reloading all my programs at this time so opted for the transfer that turned out to be a pain due to misalignment. Also make sure your BIOS is set to AHCI before an install or transfer. If it's not and you're transferring, you'll need to modify the registry as well. Also, if you are transferring, this is the perfect time to do some house cleaning of your boot drive: best do it before the transfer. I have become somewhat obsessed with lifetime writes but suspect that will diminish over time. It does make sense to supplement what Win7 does in that regard with a few other judicious tweaks.
Long Term Happy Camper
Pros: Sata 6, esata, USB 3, hdmi
Cons: no 1394/Firewire port to connect my camcorder
Overall Review: So why buy this board if I needed firewire? Answer: got it as part of a CPU/MB combo sale at a well-known B&M store last year before they eliminated those promotions. Basically got this MB thrown in for the price of a Phenom II X4 955 CPU. The two work well together and offered a nice step up from my venerable Intel C2D E6400/Foxconn setup. Ten months later, this dual-boot XP/Win7 64 bit system with GT-240 video card has been stable and plenty powerful for my photo, video editing and CAD requirements. Oh yeah, and I happened to have an old PCI Firewire card that makes up for the lack of 1394 on the MB itself. I'm a happy camper for sure!
Great Mouse!
Pros: Great looks, feel and features especially the tilting scroll wheel and page forward/page back buttons. PS2 adapter and USB stand are thoughtful inclusions.
Cons: Nothing re the mouse itself. However, it would have been nice to have the software on a CD rather than having to go to the website. But that's a minor quibble considering that going to the website gets you the latest software.
Overall Review: The tilting feature of the scroll wheel to scroll horizontally doesn't work for all apps but that's likely the fault of the app not the mouse. The scroll wheel has a very smooth feel yet without sacrifice of clear detents. With 2 AA NiMH batteries installed, the mouse has a nice substantial feel to it.
Great But...
Pros: Size, build quality, extensive user network, speed, price. Also like that it doesn't have the overly reflective screen that's so ubiquitous today.
Cons: Small C drive will be very frustrating for less computer savvy users. Shiny surface attracts fingerprints. Small keyboard may turn off some but is no problem for my hunt-and-peck technique.
Overall Review: This is a great little netbook but folks have to realize that it's not a desktop replacement. The C drive at 4GB is miniscule in this day and age and simply doing a full update on WINXP will reduce the space on C drive to well under 1 GB. Add a few programs and it'll be full. Of course, there are ways around this limitation - such as installing all programs to the D drive, tweaking XP for a smaller footprint or installing a larger SSD. But the average PC user who isn't aware of the space limitation and how to get around it will be frustrated. For me, I needed Windows for fieldwork using proprietary software and a form factor as small as possible - previously used a 12" laptop. The software once run on an ipaq but was buggy and is no longer supported. If this unit had been available a few years back, I'd never have bought the 12" laptop.