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Howard M.

Howard M.

Joined on 12/27/02

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 21
Most Favorable Review

Great Product!

Hitachi GST Ultrastar A7K1000 HUA721050KLA330 (0A35770) 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive
Hitachi GST Ultrastar A7K1000 HUA721050KLA330 (0A35770) 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Amazingly fast, 32 meg cache, very quiet.

Cons: (no free shipping) :)

Overall Review: Got this hard drive to replace my 500 gig Seagate Barracuda 7200.11. I went through two of them before I gave up with Seagate. This drive is great, very quiet, runs fast, has a 32 meg cache and you don't need to flash the firmware to get it working (grumble grumble Seagate).

12/29/2007
Most Critical Review

Does a decent job but can't justify the price, Still has same flaws from original 2002 release

iRobot Roomba 880 Vacuum Cleaning Robot with AeroForce Performance Cleaning System
iRobot Roomba 880 Vacuum Cleaning Robot with AeroForce Performance Cleaning System

Pros: Slick Looking Easy to set Amazing job picking up dirt, dust and hair virtually maintenance free bin full alert notice lighthouse feature quiet

Cons: scratches easily still a dumb robot and bumps into anything emptying the filter/bin is pretty messy. does not work on black carpet or carpet with black patterns carrying handle seems flimsy.

Overall Review: Let me start out by saying I'm a big fan of Irobot, I even own some stock in them. I bought the original Roomba when it first came out in 2002. I had also owned one of the Discovery Models (4XX series) , I also owned a 5XX model as well as a 6XX model. Obviously they never were good enough to be a replacement for my regular vacuums but they were great for weekly maintenance when I didn't want to vacuum. Also they were a great topic of conversation (back in the early days before they were so wide spread). Unfortunately they never seemed to last and while Irobot had good customer service, after the year warranty you were pretty paying expensive repair bills. The last few models I owned I purchased from BBB or and a big name Warehouse due to their amazing return policies. Now fast forward a bit, in 2013 I started seeing reviews for the Neato vacuums., while I didn't know much about the company I was impressed that they map the room rather then just bumping around like the Roomba. I ended up purchasing a Neato XV-21 and sold my 6XX series Roomba. Over the course of the last 2 years I actually came to really like the Neato, the suction was pretty much on par with the Roomba and it seemed to hit every spot on the carpet. I also liked how you could add new features by doing a firmware upgrade yourself. Now fast forward to a few weeks ago. The Neato was starting to have issues, and when I purchased it, it came with an extra 3 year warranty, of course the company who sold it went out of business so I figured I would look into upgrading to one of the newest generations of robotic vacuums. It came down to the Neato Botvac 85, The Roomba 790 or the Roomba 880. I ended up going with the Roomba 880, because I was intrigued by their claim of maintenance free and the new non-tangle brushes. (I have a Shiba Inu and there is dog hair everywhere). Also there was a Mothers Day sale going on so the price was lower, as well as I had 2 nice credits where I had purchased it, so in the end I only paid about $360 for it. There is no way I would pay over $400 for this product, especially with the puny warranty they come with. Now that I'm done rambling on with the back story let me get to the actual product review. * First of all, the Roomba 880 looks very sleek and cool looking, unfortunately when it comes to a vacuum this isn't always great. In just 1 week there are scratch marks all over the glossy top. * Iadapt technology? - This is my biggest beef, Irobot has had 13 years since the original roomba was released and they still haven't added mapping technology to this thing? As soon as I used this new model for the first time I immediately missed how the Neato rarely bumped into anything. The 880 bumps into everything, I know they list it as a soft touch bumper, but if its so soft why are there already scratch marks on the bumper. This is just a decent robotic vacuum. In my opinion it is not worth the $600+ price tag.

Can't get a hold of support at all

ADATA Ultimate SU800 1TB 3D NAND 2.5 Inch SATA-III Internal Solid State Drive (ASU800SS-1TT-C)
ADATA Ultimate SU800 1TB 3D NAND 2.5 Inch SATA-III Internal Solid State Drive (ASU800SS-1TT-C)

Pros: Fast Drive / Good Price

Cons: You better hope you don't even need support from Adata. Their Migration software that is included doesn't work with Windows 10. Their SSD ToolKit doesn't work with this drive and keeps tossing out errors. They have no phone # to contact them and they don't seem to respond to emails.

Bad Cards

Silicon Power 128GB Elite microSDXC UHS-I/U1 Class 10 Memory Card with Adapter, Speed Up to 75MB/s (SP128GBSTXBU1V20BT)
Silicon Power 128GB Elite microSDXC UHS-I/U1 Class 10 Memory Card with Adapter, Speed Up to 75MB/s (SP128GBSTXBU1V20BT)

Pros: none

Cons: defective

Overall Review: Good price, but bad card. Ordered Two. At least 1 of them kept losing all the photos I was taking on my Samsung S7 Edge. If you email Silicon Power you get a reply email all in Chinese.

Junk! And Horrible Customer Service

Foscam FI9821W V2 1-Pack (White) with Heavy Duty 7-Piece Adjustable Bracket, 9dbi Antenna Booster and 10ft Power Extension
Foscam FI9821W V2 1-Pack (White) with Heavy Duty 7-Piece Adjustable Bracket, 9dbi Antenna Booster and 10ft Power Extension

Pros: Price

Cons: Everything!

Overall Review: Purchased this model through a Groupon deal and it has been nothing but problems. Everyone kept mentioning Foscam fixed all the issues in V1 with V2, but based off my experience they just made it worse. Picture quality is ok as long as there is no light in the room, but as soon as you add light (ie window or room lights) the picture starts flashing weirdly. There is a 5 page thread on their message board regarding this with no response from Foscam. I contacted them multiple times and they wanted me to ship it back (and pay shipping) after complaining it was brand new, they finally paid for shipping. When I finally got my replacement it had the same issue. I contacted Foscam again and they told me I needed to send it back again and specifically mention what the issue is. At this point I ended up returning it to Groupon as it had been a month and I still didn't have a working camera. Don't buy this camera! Foscam used to make good stuff, but they are going down hill quickly.

12/23/2013

Ok IP Camera but not great

Edimax IC-7110W Cloud Wireless-N IP Camera, 1.3 Mpx Lens, 1280x1024 Resolution, Pan & Tilt, Night Vision, H.264, SD card Slot, Plug-n-View, Free EdiView APP for Smartphone
Edimax IC-7110W Cloud Wireless-N IP Camera, 1.3 Mpx Lens, 1280x1024 Resolution, Pan & Tilt, Night Vision, H.264, SD card Slot, Plug-n-View, Free EdiView APP for Smartphone

Pros: Sleek Design Works well once you finally configure it correctly Great Customer Service

Cons: Slow Android App Bizarre range of ports need to be opened for port forwarding

Overall Review: Purchased this camera a few months ago when I was on a search for my first IP camera. Ended up getting this one because it had all the features I wanted and had one of the highest resolutions I've seen on a consumer camera. Sadly I'm not even able to take advantage of the high resolution as according to Edimax "one 1280x1024 camera equals 4.3 640x480 cameras in pixel count. Streaming the max resolution over the Internet is virtually impossible for the average home." The camera gives you the option to view in Mpeg, Mpeg-4 or H.264 but there doesn't seem to be a way to specifically pick which one to use. According to Edimax only IE supports H.264, but since there is no way to specifically select it, I'm not sure its even working. Next their directions for port forwarding say open up ports, 80, 554, 50000-60000. Why in the world does it need 10k port range open, and pretty much every ISP blocks port 80 from being opened so your forced to change the port to something else for that one. Finally their Android App is horrendous. Its very slow to load and somehow if you don't close it correctly you end up with multiple instances of it running. I downloaded IP Cam Viewer Lite for my Android device and its far superior and much faster. I do have to say their Customer Service seems to be decent, the few times I emailed them I had a response back within a few hours.

12/19/2012