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Mark L.

Mark L.

Joined on 05/25/09

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review

Good choice if price is right

ASUS RT-N65U Dual-Band Wireless-N750 Gigabit Router IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, IEEE 802.3/3u/3ab manufactured recertified
ASUS RT-N65U Dual-Band Wireless-N750 Gigabit Router IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, IEEE 802.3/3u/3ab manufactured recertified

Pros: I bought my n65u as a refurb for $85. For that price, I'm really digging it. If I wanted to spend more, the n66u would have been a better option. However, the 65u rocks as a middle of the road option. Why do I like this puppy even when others haven't given it much love? Great signal coverage and range. My 65u resides in my basement, but I still get great reception on my second floor. Full strength and speed. It's fast. Wireless is no longer my network bottleneck. Several guest networks can be set up from the same device. Initial checks seems to confirm that the guest nets are indeed isolated from my intranet. Good interface and config options. The 65u comes with some pretty useful parental content filtering options.

Cons: I took away one egg for some initial config problems. I had to factory reset my router before being able to get through the initial config.

Most Critical Review

Not good

2.1-Channel Blu-ray Sound Bar Home Theater System
2.1-Channel Blu-ray Sound Bar Home Theater System

Pros: Looks good. Nice combination of features. Subwoofer put out some good bass.

Cons: Poor quality product. The blue-ray player wouldn't play DVD formats that its specifications claim to support. Terrible interference between ipod and sound system when playing music from ipod. I suspect insufficient shielding somewhere either internally, in the wires, or at the connectors. Sound system high's were not crisp and midrange was muddy.

Overall Review: Look somewhere else if you want a sound system. The concept for the BD8200 was good but the execution was terrible.

Not good

2.1-Channel Blu-ray Sound Bar Home Theater System
2.1-Channel Blu-ray Sound Bar Home Theater System

Pros: Looks good. Wireless internet dongle and associated applications are nice touches. Integrated pretty well with my Samsung LCD TV, but not as well as it should have ... a bit quirky.

Cons: Bottom line, system is not worth the money. My BD8200 arrived with a defective blue-ray player. It would not play ANY of the DVD formats that its user manual claims it supports. Sound quality is ok, but I'd expect better for the money. The highs were not crisp and midrange was muddy. Several quality control issues were apparent. Defective blue-ray player was one. However, other really annoying ones included poor wire/connector shielding and an inability to save wireless network settings. I noticed very audible interference when playing music from the Ipod via the provided dock: click, click, whirl, click, whirl. After disconnecting and then reconnecting the wireless network adapter, I found that my network settings had not been saved. This was very lame.

Overall Review: What is Samsung thinking, selling this low quality, overpriced system. It has completely tarnished Samsung's brand image in my mind. My BD8200 is going back to Newegg. In the end, the defective blue-ray player means that I cannot keep it even if I could overlook all the other issues.

great netbook

ASUS Eee PC 1001PX-EU17-BK Black Intel Atom N450(1.66 GHz) 10.1" WSVGA 1GB Memory 160GB HDD Netbook
ASUS Eee PC 1001PX-EU17-BK Black Intel Atom N450(1.66 GHz) 10.1" WSVGA 1GB Memory 160GB HDD Netbook

Pros: Great little netbook for the price. Atom processor and 1GB RAM provide a really good user experience. Very fun little toy. Super-light weight and small form factor make it a great traveling PC.

Cons: Touchpad button seems a bit flimsy/cheap, but not a big deal.

Avoid board

DFI LP JR 790GX-M3H5 AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
DFI LP JR 790GX-M3H5 AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Good selection of features.

Cons: Had serious problems installing 64-bit OSes. Not sure if this was a BIOS or HW problem. Probably would have been able to troubleshoot this if DFI's tech support answered their emails. Had to RMA the board, which really sucks.

Nice little case for the price

In Win BL641 SFF mATX Slim case with IP-S300FF1-0 H Haswell Ready power supply, 8cm Fan, USB 3.0X2 & USB2.0 x 2, HD audio, Air Filter
In Win BL641 SFF mATX Slim case with IP-S300FF1-0 H Haswell Ready power supply, 8cm Fan, USB 3.0X2 & USB2.0 x 2, HD audio, Air Filter

Pros: Small and quiet. Case layout well planned. The detachable drive frame was a life saver. Power supply is not at all noisy. Not terribly pricey and looks cool. Acceptable supply of cabling and other such ephemera.

Cons: I really liked the case overall, but below are the reasons that I took away one egg. Really wished that this case came with a more substantial power supply. 300W is really the absolute minimum for my build. No documentation provided with case. Very limited documentation on company website. Probably not the case for ones first custom build. Didn't come with any fans. Bummer. Face plate didn't have opening for firewire port even though the underlying metal case had the appropriate opening.

Overall Review: Given small size, requires some creative packing. Zip ties will be your friend. However, one should expect this issue with such a case. My build: AMD PhenomII 2.6 GHz quad core DFI 790GX M3H5 with 4 GB RAM (G.Skill) 1TB West Dig HDD, 360 GB West Dig HDD Samsung DVD/CD Rosewill PCI 1394