Joined on 11/02/07
Excellent Value
Pros: -Touchscreen is the only way to make Windows 8 make sense. -Nice form factor with just enough ports. .-Feels good to hold. -Looks like a quality item. -Runs smoothly. i3 is sufficient for most non-gaming tasks. -Boots very quickly and resumes from sleep even faster. -Full size LAN port.
Cons: -Shallow keyboard doesn't provide as much feedback as some others, but after a little getting used to my accuracy is more or less unchanged. -Glossy screen produces a lot of glare in certain environments. -The viewing angles can be a bit limited in both directions so sharing the screen with someone may be a bit frustrating. -No 5ghz Wireless N support. -A little on the heavy side for a machine of its size, but it's very manageable and actually adds to the quality feel of the machine.
Overall Review: I bought this for work to replace a Dell D620 that served me well for many years but finally died. It fits my needs perfectly. Great combination of size, power, and price. Battery life is excellent. It may not be as good as some other machines but 5+ hours is more than enough for me. It charges fairly quickly as well. I'm afraid to handle some ultrabooks because they flex a lot, but this unit is solid and very confidence inspiring to hold. The legacy VGA port seems unnecessary. Maybe another USB 3.0 or an esata port would have made more sense. There is indeed a slot to add another memory dimm on the bottom of the machine.
Incredibly Versatile
Pros: Recognized all my devices quickly. Contrary to what someone else said you can customize almost every button as well as the order of and number of things in the lcd menu. The lcd is very good. Its viewable in all light I've encountered. This remote allowed me to keep my AV receiver in the family room. My wife got sick of having to smash buttons on our old universal, and those problems are totally solved. And if for some reason the remote doesn't turn things on right, theres a troubleshooter that has never failed to solve the problem.
Cons: The software is a bit awkward. Once you get the hang of it though its easy to manipulate everything. Mapping buttons can be time consuming because the commands aren't always named what you would think, so you have to spend time deciphering them. It took me about 2 hours to get this totally programmed.
Overall Review: If you're a guy living the wifestyle, do yourself a favor and get one of these. If you have 5 or less devices to control, I can't imagine a better product out there. Just make sure you set the time aside to get this thing working the way you need. I'm so impressed with this that I'm going to buy the bluetooth adapter for the PS3 so I can control that as well and allow the wife to easily get to music and videos on the media server.
Great little case
Pros: Quiet PSU; Great fit/finish at this price point (and even for a more expensive case); If you omit a floppy drive or media card reader, you can mount your hdd in that spot, and use the space where you're supposed to put the hdd to hold a 12cm fan with no modification. Even a low speed fan here lowers system temps significantly!
Cons: Front panel clips are fragile or I'm just a brute, but either way I broke one almost immediately; The combination of an Intel D510MO and a 3.5" hdd mounted under the optical drive meant that my RAM with tall heatspreaders wouldn't fit.
Overall Review: My D510MO fits and runs perfectly in this case. I was incredibly surprised by how well this case fits together. The side panel fits very snug. As others have said, you definitely have to think ahead about how to put everything together (although this is true of all mini-itx boxes I've used). As far as I can tell this case is identical to another case offered by another larger company that sells for more on newegg.
Speedy Gonzalez
Pros: We all know it's fast, so we'll move forward from that. What surprised me was how quiet and how cool this drive runs.
Cons: I didn't get another to run in RIAD 0...
Overall Review: For an OS/application drive, this is the cream of the crop!
Monster
Pros: Even stock, it's fast. Runs cool. With the right board, it overclocks to silly speeds.
Cons: None
Overall Review: If you can, get this chip. It manhandles everything I can throw at it...
Solid All around board
Pros: Excellent board. Overclocks like a monster. Runs cool.
Cons: Despite being on the list of certified memory from gigabyte, I couldn't run 4 sticks of my Corsair Dominator memory on this board. Switch to OCZ platinums and it ran great after that.
Overall Review: You can't get a better board for the price...