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Joshua M.

Joshua M.

Joined on 04/19/05

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Most Favorable Review

Decent Entry Level Keyboard

Corsair Gaming K55 RGB Keyboard, Backlit RGB LED
Corsair Gaming K55 RGB Keyboard, Backlit RGB LED

Pros: This keyboard has some very nice features for its price point. It has 3 zones of selectable back-lighting / illumination. The keys, while not mechanical, all feel very uniform and consistent to type on. The wrist rest is detachable and works well. The media keys, volume control, and macro keys are all nice to have, especially the volume control and macro keys. Also the windows key lockout is a feature I have been in love with on this keyboard and others I have tested, it's a real lifesaver when you are gaming, especially with keyboard intensive games.

Cons: Before I go into the cons section let me note I have tested Corsair's K70 keyboards and some of my notes here are more about comparing it to something that does cost more at the end of the day. This keyboard while nice does have a bit of a cheaper feel compared to other Corsair keyboards I have tested. The switches are not mechanical, and the whole keyboard is plastic. The lighting is in zones and is not per key. The wrist rest is a lot cheaper compared to the wrist rests that come with other Corsair keyboards.

Overall Review: While I had some things to put in cons, it's because I have tested higher end Corsair keyboards, the K55 here is not a bad keyboard at all, in fact I was rather impressed with it once I got it and started using it, the simple fact that, for a non-mechanical keyboard, the key presses felt very uniform was enough to let me know that this unit was built for quality at an entry level price. While I would like to see more options with the lighting I do realize this is not a K70 and does not carry a K70 price tag. Overall my experience with the keyboard so far has been good. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a nice keyboard but doesn't want to spend $$$ on a mechanical unit. It's geared to be an entry gaming / power user keyboard with the lighting, macro keys and extra functions. I am impressed.

Most Critical Review

Simple Router

BELKIN F9K1116 AC 750 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band AC+ Router IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n
BELKIN F9K1116 AC 750 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band AC+ Router IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n

Pros: This is a very simple little router. Sleek styling with very non-invasive status lights. Unit supports media streaming from a USB port, which is a nice feature for a basic router. The USB storage feature actually works pretty well once you get past setting it up. The interface on the unit's dashboard is fairly thorough. The firewall features are easy to understand for a standard user. The unit appears to have been very stable so far, testing for about 3 weeks. The unit comes with a small card on the bottom that contains the unit's default password and some other information. Setup was easy and painless. Some of the included apps may seem useful to some users. The unit has a guest network option that can be used out of the box.

Cons: The unit feels a bit cheap. The ports on the unit are 10/100 not gigabit, so if you have a small network with modern computers and the internal switch on this unit is your backbone it will bottleneck your network. There could use to be some more status lights on the unit ( mostly for the network ports ). There is no option to lay the unit flat, it has to stand on the permanently affixed pedestal. The Ethernet jacks on the back of the unit re-inforce the budget construction factor by only including 4 of the 8 pins found in a normal rj-45 jack ( yes it works because you only need 4, but it seems more like it's an unnecessary cut corner ). The Ethernet cord the unit comes with is as cheap as the ports on the back of the unit. There could be more DDNS provider options, or the option to choose your own. Some things are hard to configure, such as the usb mass storage device when the unit is in AP mode. The wireless connection could be a bit stronger, it's fairly average and for most that is ok, though others may find it to be lack-luster and annoying.

Overall Review: I was a bit more critical of this unit, because I normally enjoy Belkin products, but this one made me feel a bit luke-warm. The lack of gigabit and cheap construction is a real turnoff for me, especially with a unit claims 300 / 433 mbps data rates. Some other reviewers knocked the unit for not having USB 3.0, however, unless the unit has a gigabit connection, there is no point in having USB 3.0 given USB 2.0 can move data at 480mbps which is FASTER than any interface on the unit. This unit is a good little starter router for someone who is looking for something that is easy to setup and just works, however a power user might find the unit rather disappointing.

10/28/2015

Simple, Quick, and Lightweight Adobe Software

Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 2024 for Windows - Download
Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 2024 for Windows - Download

Pros: After installing it was quick and easy to start the software and get into using it. From what I remember with older essentials style Adobe products the UI feels a bit more refined. Both pieces of software have guided modes that let you chose very common actions and edits, then steps you through the process of doing them. I especially liked the guided mode on Premier Elements as it shows you how to do the processes step by step. Photoshop Elements has a lot of presets, effects, and filters as well as some fairly decent options for adjustments, including some auto modes that are good for quick edits. Overall the software was very easy to get into and understand, I was editing RAW photos in under 10 minutes of finishing the install. These are both lighter versions of the main Adobe programs and they lend themselves to quick, easy, and powerful edits and content creation. Premier has some built in music to use with your videos, which is always appreciated. Premiere has multiple presets to render video for various social media and video platforms. The UI has both light and dark modes which is a nice little touch. Another part of this software is the Organizer, it appears that it can be very useful, I look forward to using it more. The mobile Photoshop Elements app, while in beta, was able to offer some quick edits to photos I took with my phone.

Cons: You will need to activate this software with an Adobe Account, which you will also need to sign into to install the software. Some features are not explicitly installed (like raw photo support) and will want to actively connect to the internet and download them. It is a minor inconvenience that some parts of the software are not installed by default, and you have to wait for them to install on the fly (if you don't have an internet connection this could become annoying, say if you are working on a laptop away from Wifi), however that does save some drive space so its not a completely bad thing. The beta mobile app definitely needs more work, initially opening it, some of the text and menus opened in space I could not read or access off screen, hopefully that will change.

Overall Review: I was able to install this software on two of my computers without any trouble, one of them is my desktop and one is my laptop. I also did some messing around to see if it would work without an internet connection and it appeared to work, it did make note that there was no internet access, and I was not able to add extra content without it, however I suspect you only download that stuff once and its installed after that point ( example being RAW photo support or the music in Premiere ). The screenshots I shared, one is is doing some quick video edits, I tried out transitions, music, and some other video effects. I worked with Photoshop Elements quite a bit and in the shared screenshot I used multiple tools, I was really happy with the object removal tool, there are multiple things I removed from the photo before I changed the colors and applied that style to the photo. This is the first Adobe product I am reviewing, and I can say there is quite a lot of things to explore that I hope to use as I work with it more. I was able to install the Beta Photoshop Elements on my iPhone, the UI could use some work, but I was able to do some basic adjustments on some of my photos. I have also included a screen captured video of using one of the guided modes in Premiere Elements. Overall I would recommend this software for those that want to do quick on the fly edits, have access to some powerful tools that are more convenient and quick than that full Adobe products or might want to get their feet wet with Adobe products.

No Frills Performance Memory

Crucial Pro 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5600 (PC5 44800) XMP 3.0 & AMD EXPO Ready Desktop Memory Model CP2K16G56C46U5
Crucial Pro 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5600 (PC5 44800) XMP 3.0 & AMD EXPO Ready Desktop Memory Model CP2K16G56C46U5

Pros: I Installed this DDR5 Ram kit into a new machine I am building while it is on my test bench, this is the first machine I have had that uses DDR5 and I was very happy with the compatibility, stability, and performance of this memory kit. Out of the box it ran at its rated speed of 5600Mhz (2800Mhz in dual channel). During my testing this memory was stable under synthetic, real world, and gaming loads. The memory is compatible with AMD and Intel systems that use DDR5. The physical height of this memory does not look like it would interfere with normal tower coolers, the cooler I am using would have no problems if I had all 4 slots populated with this memory. The memory stayed fairly cool during testing. The physical look of these sticks lends itself to multiple aesthetics, its not to flashy or bulky which is nice for more professional geared builds or those who do not want RGB lighting on their memory. Crucial offers a lifetime warranty with this memory. This kit is a good value for the performance, trading frills for quality.

Cons: No RGB, however that is not much of a con, not everyone likes RGB and I do rather like the matte black look of these ram sticks, which matches the look of the motherboard I am testing them in. In my benchmarking I didnt notice any major gains with Expo enabled or disabled, I only saw about 1000MB/s write speed gains, however that might just be with the platform I am testing, and its not really a con either in my opinion.

Overall Review: I ran this memory in a new build as I was stability testing it for the last week and a half. The memory worked well out of the box and didnt require any tweaking; it just ran at its rated speed. The platform I tested on is running an AMD Ryzen 7700X on a MSI PRO B650-P Wifi motherboard. Aida (as well as the specs) reported the memory chips being made by Micron. Stability testing outside of running some games was done with Memtest, AIDA64 Extreme, and Cinebench all under Windows 10 Pro (except Memtest of course). I didnt seem to notice too many gains with AMD Expo on or off, save for about 1000MB/s write gains with it enabled. Aida benchmark numbers from my tests are below. AMD XMP and Expo profile 2 had faster timings but ran at DDR5 5200 speeds instead of the DDR5 5600 speeds I would see with Expo and XMP profile 1 or with it disabled. Without all the RGB lighting or shiny heat spreaders this memory is offering good performance for cost without all the extra frills. I am very happy with the performance and it has been a very nice first step into platforms that run DDR5. For those that are curious, the machine posted a Cinebench R23 score of 19578. Aida with Expo 1 enabled: DDR5-5600 Read: 58229MB/s Write: 72687MB/s Copy: 57745MB/s Aida with profiles disabled DDR5-5600 Read: 58127MB/s Write: 71909MB/s Copy: 57719MB/s Aida with Expo 2 enabled: DDR5-5200 Read: 57309MB/s Write: 67049MB/s Copy: 56695MB/s

Very Fast, PS5 Compatible SSD

Corsair MP600 PRO LPX M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 4.0 x4, NVMe 1.4 3D Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CSSD-F1000GBMP600PLP, Optimized for PS5
Corsair MP600 PRO LPX M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 4.0 x4, NVMe 1.4 3D Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CSSD-F1000GBMP600PLP, Optimized for PS5

Pros: This SSD comes in a simple box with a lot of padding. Over all it feels and looks well built. It has a lower profile for the heatsink (vs the non LPX version) to make if compatible with the PS5 in which it fits perfectly. It also lends itself to fitting decently into a gaming PC as well. For the PS5 the SSD tested at speeds of 6529.698MB/s read (as pictured ), copying 107.9GB to this drive from console storage took about 1 minute and 14 seconds. Games running on this SSD loaded and ran fas, all on par with the internal storage. For gaming PC performance this drive tested at speeds of 7387.92MB/s Read and 5881.53MB/s write with Crystal Disk Mark and 6.96GB/s read and 5.46GB/s write under ATTO, having picked the peak speeds from a series of benchmarks. PC gaming performance is good with this SSD. The heat sink on this unit is held on with screws (and is removable), its a nice touch if you wanted to use it with a different heat sink such as the ones that come with many modern motherboards. Corsair does appear to have a removal guide for the heatsink on their website and it does appear to state that removing it does not void your warranty as long as you do not damage the components.

Cons: In a gaming PC the heatsink may get in the way on some boards, but its pretty low profile and didnt cause me any issues, but to use a heatsink that comes with a motherboard youd want to remove it. The drive did seem to run a bit faster in gaming PC testing when there was a bit more airflow going over it, this is where you might want the full size version of this unit vs the LPX version since it has a larger heatsink. Remembering that while this model is geared towards the PS5 there is nothing stopping you from using it in a gaming PC. Not really a con, but the drive does appear to have more performance than the PS5 can make use of, but again, not really a con at all.

Overall Review: For this review I tested this SSD in both a PS5 and a Gaming PC as seen in my pictures. Load times on the PS5 were very good when testing with a modern game (Gran Turismo 7). For PC use I tested the drive on a Gigabyte X570 AORUS Elite board with an AMD 5900X CPU, I did notice that using the lower M.2 slot I was seeing slower, but still respectable, speeds. From what I have seen in my testing is this drive has more speed than the PS5 can make use of, but with that being said, that means going to run well, and this units specific target is the PS5 and it does not disappoint. In PC testing the drive actually went a bit beyond the stated speeds on the box in when testing with Crystal Disk Mark, so that is also respectable. Overall a very speedy SSD, and with a 5 year warranty I would recommend this SSD for both PS5 and PC users alike.

Solid Memory with RGB

CORSAIR Vengeance RGB RT 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) AMD Optimized Desktop Memory Model CMN16GX4M2Z3200C16W
CORSAIR Vengeance RGB RT 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) AMD Optimized Desktop Memory Model CMN16GX4M2Z3200C16W

Pros: Good memory timings and stable operation. Installed easily and worked properly with a modern high performance AMD based system. This memory ran at rated speeds and timings once I configured the XMP Profile (or DOCP on some AMD motherboards). Corsair iCue interface for RGB lighting, software is fairly easy to use to do basic effects or layer effects for very unique lighting. The lighting is also vibrant ( see photos ) and the transitions and animations are consistent and smooth. I had no troubles installing the memory, configuring it, and customizing the lighting. The lifetime warranty on this memory is also a major plus.

Cons: This memory does stand a bit higher than the kit I had in my rig prior to testing, it should be fine but do watch which coolers you install if the fan overhangs the memory, but why would you want to block the lighting anyways? I do not have any other cons to list for this memory kit.

Overall Review: I tested this memory for just over a week in my gaming machine. It was solid during long gaming sessions and doing some video editing. I put it through its paces and was very happy with the stability and performance I saw out of it. I am as always happy to see the lifetime warranty on the product, I have rarely had to deal with sending a product back to Corsair, but when I have, they have been easy to work with and I am consistently happy with them and their products. Test machine specs: AMD Ryzen 5900X Gigabyte Aorus X570 Pro Gigabyte Aorus 3070Ti Corsair 1000 Watt PSU Corsair H115i AiO Samsung 980 Pro NVME 1TB Boot Drive Samsung 970 NVME 2TB Storage Drive Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

10/20/2021