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Donald M.

Donald M.

Joined on 08/22/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Great unit

GARMIN 3.5" GPS Navigation With Bluetooth Technology
GARMIN 3.5" GPS Navigation With Bluetooth Technology

Pros: Excellent routing, excellent maps. Interface is good. Most of the things you'd want to do are available, but it can take some time to find them all. I also have a TomTom Go 510, which has more options, but most of those options are not particularly useful, and the TomTom doesn't have nearly as good maps or routing software. The text-to-speech is remarkably good, and the mount is solid.

Cons: Doesn't include a Mapsource DVD. You don't need it, but it can be handy for managing your favorites list.

Overall Review: A stellar performer. Highly recommended.

11/14/2007
Most Critical Review

Dead power supply

HEC 8K 8K01BBA20 Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC (Japanese Steel Metal) Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 200W Power Supply
HEC 8K 8K01BBA20 Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC (Japanese Steel Metal) Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 200W Power Supply

Pros: Nice case, if the power supply hadn't died.

Cons: Power supply died three weeks in.

Overall Review: I don't have the shipping box any more, and my time is worth more than the money I might save returning the case.

Rough around the edges

VID DEV ASUS O!PLAY HDP-R1/3A
VID DEV ASUS O!PLAY HDP-R1/3A

Pros: - Plays a wide variety of content - Very easy connection to Windows shares (need firmware upgrade to access Win7) - Simple setup

Cons: - Support for ripped DVDs/ISOs incomplete; no "main menu" button on remote, some menus just don't work, short hiccup every time it crosses a VOB file boundary. - No user-added folder shortcuts; navigating to your shared folders every time is a pain. - Latest firmware (1.17) sends all audio as LPCM or all audio as RAW, unlike most other devices that send stereo (MP3, WMA, AAC) as LPCM and AC3/DTS as RAW. Very annoying if you intend to use for both movies and music and your receiver can't decode MP3 or WMA.

Overall Review: It's really a good value all in all for handling single video and audio files (non-DVD/BD). It handles such a huge number of formats, and the network support is quite good. The interface is very simple. There's no way to show box art or metadata like the Popcorn Hour can. But it's $99, which makes it an exceptional value. The ripped DVD support is simply inadequate. If they enhance it a bit (like a "menu" button on the remote), it might be acceptable for most DVDs. But in general I wouldn't buy this for playing back ripped complete DVDs or ISOs. I haven't tried ripped BD, but my understanding is that there is no menu support at all; it relies on the largest m2ts file probably being the main movie. That's not going to work on some discs. And the problem with not distinguishing between MP3 and AC3/DTS as far as which codecs to decode internally is just bad. I don't know what they were thinking. Most receivers can handle AC3 and DTS, but very few handle WMA, MP3, and AAC.

Good small case

Athenatech Silver/ Charcoal Steel A100SC.350 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
Athenatech Silver/ Charcoal Steel A100SC.350 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: Small, but generally easy to pull open and work inside. The main drive cage swings out (and can be completely removed) to get access to the motherboard.

Cons: Cable routing can be touchy, as with all small cases. I recommend all SATA, because even round PATA cables take up a lot of space. Because of the swing-out drive cage, a little trial-and-error to figure out best mounting position for optical drive and card reader.