Joined on 02/10/01
Excellent HTPC CPU
Pros: 65W runs relatively cool Low-profile cooler included (great for ITX) Excellent GPU features, vastly superior to any Intel Graphics (not just performance, but media features)
Cons: FM socket not compatible with AM CPU's Lower wattage would be great Does not underclock well
Overall Review: I built an ITX system around this CPU and am relatively satisfied. Runs cool and stable, but shows 88W-91W at full load measured with a Kill-A-Watt using an ASrock ITX board, 80+ Bronze PSU, 2x2GB DDR3 1600 1.5v and a Samsung 840 SSD. That's around triple the power draw the A350 it replaced used.
Load/Unload Count is excessive
Pros: Most inexpensive 4TB drive. Fast. Quiet*
Cons: Quiet* when not "parking/loading" heads, which it does every 60 seconds. Inbuilt Self-Destruction. 2-year warranty, and you'll probably end up using it.
Overall Review: Like many newer drives (especially Seagate and WD) this drive has an excessive APM configuration of 128. Anything below 250 is generally unacceptable, and most drives, like NAS/RAID drives, are set at 255 (which is disabled APM.) The idea behind APM (advanced power management) is to reduce heat and power usage. But it causes a LOT of wear on a drives heads, especially when set aggressively. A program called HDPARM can be configured to send a config command to your drive(s) at boot up. I recommend 255 for heavy use drives (like torrent seeding/servers) which disabled power management and head parking, and 250 for drives that are used for cold\occasional storage, which will occasionally park the heads after a prolonged period of inactivity. Note that HDPARM does not affect acoustics management or disk "spin-down." This is simply to prevent the drive from self destructing. Most drives are only designed for 250,000 head parks through their lifetime. I was able to rack up 93,000 load/unloads in 8 months on a WD Green drive.
Value is rather ridiculous
Pros: Well built, mostly aluminum, not a fingerprint magnet Excellent screen, keyboard and trackpad Good cooling design and calibration (doesn't get excessively hot or noisy on flat surfaces) Suspiciously inexpensive Speakers are above average, especially for the down-firing variety.
Cons: Lid-raise design isn't very elegant, strange balance on lap RAM NOT UPGRADABLE Only one USB-C and one USB-A available while charging due to USB-C PD occupying a port A bit of bloatware\spyware from Tobii eye tracking to Norton to MSI tools Recovery and WinPE files take up 50GB of the drive between the two recovery partitions and the hidden files on the system partition under C:\RECOVERY MSI tools must remain installed for many custom configurations missing from BIOS, such as battery calibration, screen refresh-rate power saving (disable this and fix at 60hz immediately) and other little tweaks.
Overall Review: This feels like a $1000 laptop in a $550 body. It isn't an HP EliteBook or anything but it's VERY good and well worth the price.
Arrived healthy and functional, 64k hours
Pros: SMART Pass Physically perfect Functionally perfect - quiet and no weird noises 25 power cycles 2400 Load\Unload cycles (very low, drive doesn't appear to have aggressive APM head parking)
Cons: A lot of hours, almost 7 years of continuous use Poor packing (drive was wrapped in a bubble mailer, and placed inside a medium priority mail flat pack)
Overall Review: Great price for what I paid, assuming I get a few years out of it in my DVR. Hitachi drives are among the most reliable I've ever seen (which was the reason for my purchase) and probably the only drive I would consider buying used.
Arrived with back cover peeling off
Pros: Cheap and looks new?
Cons: Hard to say this is new, seems like a shoddy refurb that wasn't assembled properly.
Overall Review: As the previous review mentioned, the camera overheats in under a few minutes just with the app open. Taking pictures or video reduces this to under a minute before closing the app. The phone failed the "pressure test" to determine its IP68 worthiness. The pressure test using the internal pressure sensor to detect internal pressure chances when you squeeze the phone frame. Since the internal pressure doesn't change a bit, there are leaks around the seals. No surprise since the back cover is basically peeling off and unglued from the frame. I'm going to try to return. This is shady. Said it was a new phone.
Almost perfect monitor
Pros: Very good picture, aesthetic design, ergonomics, OSD, integrated camera lens cover, inputs, and value.
Cons: The speakers are terrible. Business audio applications only. They are on par with cheap laptop internal speakers. The webcam is equally disappointing. Saturation and distortion no matter how well lit the room is. Again, on par with a cheap laptop webcam. Loses an egg for the above cheapouts from HP. Could have spent a few dollars toward the BOM making this a great monitor.
Overall Review: Great business monitor, although there will inevitably be applications where people will demand a set of speakers since the internal speakers of this monitor are useless for anything other than dings and beeps. Even voicemail playback are barely legible through these speakers. The webcam is basically on par with what we are used too from webcams so that isn't as big of an issue,