Joined on 03/24/07
Great Cost Effective Mount
Pros: Great Mount. Easy To Install. All hardware needed was included. Allows easy movement to view from numerous angles.
Cons: None - it just works!
Overall Review: I used this to mount a 19" flat panel in the bedroom of my travel trailer. I was concerned that the mount might swing while driving, but after a lot of driving - some on pretty rough roads - the mount holds solidly in place. It provides great flexibility for viewing with both the swing arm and adjustable tilt. No complaints and it was a great price!
Decent Case But Far From Perfect
Pros: * Easy to open (two zippers). * Being neoprene makes for a very light weight case. * Handy inner pocket to store a USB cable or cleaning cloth (you wouldn't want anything much thicker or it will be pressing against the screen). * Inexpensive if you get it on a Shell Shocker deal (about $10).
Cons: * Too big for third generation Kindle (originally Kindle 3 and now called Kindle Keyboard). Product description doesn't clarify this & doesn't give dimensions. The Kindle 3 sits inside loosely for storage. Unfortunately the case is too big to have the Kindle 3 inside while reading & it moves around while carrying it. * The "4 point mounting system to secure kindle" is just four small elastic straps in each corner. Useless for Kindle 3 but the larger Kindle models may be held in place by these corner bands. * The book light is HORRIBLE quality. The clip broke within minutes of trying to use it. * The book light is not made for a Kindle. It works with a regular paper book, but it does not attach to a Kindle. * $20 is pretty high for such a simple case - may be worthwhile at a lower price though.
Overall Review: * The description did not include dimensions: 8.8" x 6.3" x 0.98" Exterior / 7.8" x 5.5" x 0.7" Interior. * You can easily find better LED book lights of similar style for $3-$5. * Don't let the book light convince you to purchase the case. * The cover will protect against scratching when the Kindle is inside, but being soft and thin it doesn't do much to protect against impact. Don't bank on this case protecting your Kindle from screen breakage in a backpack, briefcase, purse, etc.
Flaky Device, Cannot Process An RMA Replacement And Can Be Tough To Setup
Pros: The actual TP-LINK RE650 / AC2600 range extender is a decent device. Once setup it provides wide area, stable wireless coverage. As others have noted, make sure you load the latest firmware update from the TP-LINK website first thing to ensure everything is stable and performing optimally. I have heard many noting the brightness of the LEDs, but they can be turned off using a button on the device as well as set to turn off/on using a schedule accessible in the App or via the web admin console. While fairly large, the range extender is more attractive than most network devices with four antennas to allow some direction of the wireless signal. You will definitely get substantially greater range of your wireless network signal using this device.
Cons: Once the range extender is setup on your network, you then need to decide whether to connect devices to the range extender or your router. The range extender is not like an Access Point which has your devices seamlessly jump from one AP to another as signal strength changes. If you have ever used wireless at large facilities such as colleges, stadiums or shopping centers you have used access points and may not have even realized it. With the range extender you manually change which 'network' you are connected to for the best signal strength. This is no issue for devices in fixed locations such as set top streaming devices, IP cameras and some computers - just choose the router or range extender based on which has the strongest signal. If you have devices that move around like tablets, smartphones or laptops you may need to regularly change whether you are connected to your primary router or the range extender depending where you physically are. If you are using security beyond WPA encryption on your network be ready for a bit of work to get the extender working. I use WPA encryption but also use MAC address filtering. This type of filtering is available on almost all consumer routers and limits wireless network access to devices you specify. In most cases MAC filtering is pretty easy to setup requiring little more than entering the MAC address of wireless devices in a router filtering table. Unfortunately, adding this range extender to a network with MAC filtering enabled is a much more complex process than I ever expected. Under the hood, the range extender has a number of network adapters to handle the extension of your wireless network. If you already have a multi-band router, this will be familiar but goes a bit further than you may be used to. Two are used to handle incoming 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wireless connections from your router (MAC addresses not visible), two - 2.4Ghz / 5Ghz - that your wireless devices connect into (wireless MAC addresses in range extender web admin console), one for the range extender ethernet port (MAC address on rear of range extender) and one used for the web admin console (MAC likely visible via your router once connected to your network). To use MAC filtering you need to have all six of these in your router's filtering table - with two of them no where that you can easily find. Now it gets even trickier. Each device that you want to use on the range extender requires an 'alias' MAC address in your router's MAC filtering table. The alias has the first three sets of MAC numbers replaced with the same six characters from the not-visble range extender MACs and the rest of the MAC remains the same. Once these are in the router MAC table you can connect your wireless devices to the range extender with MAC filtering in place. In summary - to get MAC filtering working with the range extender you have to: 1) Turn off MAC filtering on your router. 2) Connect the range extender to both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz (pretty easy). 3) Go through multiple sources and calculations to determine all six MAC addresses in use by the range extender (fairly complex). 4) Enter all six MAC addresses into the MAC filtering table on your router (easy). 5) Add MAC alias for all wireless devices that will connect to the range extender (moderately complex). 6) Turn on Mac filtering on your router. I spent over a month working with TP-LINK support to learn this information. It took quite a bit of back and forth before they could even find everything needed with them initially blaming my network or router before realizing they needed to bring their development team into the loop. To their credit they kept working with me and were very willing to help but this common networking feature went beyond the support team's knowledge despite working with top tier techs and there were no FAQs or other tech documents to help. TP-LINK is expecting quite a high amount of technical ability to get this consumer level device working. To give you an idea of their expectations, here is what I was given to figure out the two MAC addresses that are not visible using the MACs I could see: "The first characters you can see is A4, and the binary of A4 is 1010 0100. And the MAC connect to the front end router will change the 7th character from 0 to 1, so we get the binary 1010 0110, and the hexadecimal of 1010 0110 is A6. And about the 4th characters 20, the binary of 20 is 0010 0000, the rule will change the first three binary XXX to 000. So we get 0000 0000 also the hexadecimal of 0000 0000 is 00. Now we get Mac addresses A6:xx:xx:00:xx:xx & A6:xx:xx:00:xx:xx." While techies may understand how to do this, it is definitely not average consumer friendly. Even if you can figure out binary/hexadecimal conversions this would not even be needed if the web admin console simply showed you what you needed to know. There are no FAQs or other info that the support team could point me to that detail all of the MACs in use nor
Overall Review: The journey I went on with this device has been a bit long and meandering but wanted to share much of it as I feel this can be of value for others. For reference, I am an IT professional that regularly manages and configures enterprise and consumer networking devices. I note this to clarify that I have a knowledge of networking devices beyond the average consumer that would probably be considering this device. Out of the box, this range extender had issues where it would power off semi-randomly. When it would stay on I could not get it to work with MAC address filtering enabled on my router. It took almost two months to get TP-LINK support to figure out how to configure MAC filtering (more detail below) and they would not provide an RMA number for the power issue until that MAC filtering was working. Once the MAC filtering issue was resolved, their RMA system would not allow me to process the return with an issue they acknowledge is for most customers. All in all a very frustrating experience for something that looks like it would be a great and simple way to extend a wireless network. This device failed out of the box and the RMA process didn't work due to a known issue. The support team took months to provide me the information needed to setup a fairly common security feature. When the extender works it does what you expect, but it can be a rough road to get functional and if you need support help it will likely eat much more of your time than is sensible. Just due to the support and RMA issues I would not recommend using this extender. I feel that this is a device that required WAY too much effort for the benefit.
Great Device, Poor Cooler Master Customer Service
Pros: Great cooler, dropped my CPU temp about 20%. Easy install. Can add a second fan if your CPU needs it (mine did not).
Cons: Make sure you have a decent amount of space above your CPU as this is a tall cooler. Tech Support/Customer Service does their best not to own the issue.
Overall Review: At about six months I had problems where the fan started spinning around 350-450 RPM (originally about 800-1000 RPM). There was virtually no dust on the fan, but I cleaned it anyway with no change in performance. My ASUS motherboard, like many newer boards, has issues with a slow CPU fan speed. Also, the CPU temp started climbing to higher than it was with the old cooler. As my CPU runs hot, I use numerous tools to stay on top of the temperature so I had seen the slowing of the fan and temperature increase over a couple weeks and decided it had reached the point where I needed to contact Cooler Master. My initial message was as brief as possible, but included detail of the issue and troubleshooting performed as well as a receipt copy and my address. It took 7 messages over 9 days to get them to finally acknowledge the issue and offer a replacement. I have sent them all requested info 4 days ago and still have no update. While wading through the process to get a replacement fan, the current one slowed down so much that I had to put my original cooler back on. While the old cooler runs hotter than the Cooler Master when the fan works, the temp had increased so much that I either had to do this or not use the system. I have several Cooler Master products and not experienced any issues in the past. Unfortunately this experience has definitely soured me on their products. The true test of any organization is not when there are no problems, but what they do when an issue occurs. Cooler Master has dropped the ball with what should have been a simple issue and likely lost me as a customer because of it.
Great Features, But Pretty Flaky
Pros: * Great featureset. * The camera has an exceptional range of motion for the PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom). * I found the image quality to be very solid. * The IR (night mode) is very good and has much better range than most other IP cameras in this price range. * The number of preset views you can configure are great. * You can set the camera to do a 'sweep' either horizontally or vertically. * Easy to switch the camera view if you have to mount the camera 'upside down.'
Cons: * Despite rated to work with IE the ActiveX control doesn't work well. Zmodo support's answer is to use a different browser (Chrome or Firefox). While other browsers are fine, the camera is marketed as working w/IE so using another browser just to access their camera is not acceptible. * ActiveX Control is not signed, so you have to disable security features in IE to install. * Audio is HORRIBLE - you usually get massive echo and feedback. Other times no sound at all. * The camera cannot handle multiple users accessing it simultaneously. * Wireless is a bear to configure. * Documentation is pretty much worthless. * Software available for download or comes w/camera has minimal value & cannot be used as a substitute for web interface. * IE connection disconnects after a period of time. * Often have to power cycle 3-4 times before it works. * LONG time to power up (2-4 minutes). * Many protection tools block the IE video feed and ZModo support won't tell you what to whitelist.
Overall Review: I had planned to use this as a room monitor for my baby and then would migrate it for other uses as she got older. Using their software, IP Cam Viewer (Android) or web interface the camera took a LONG time to become available when it worked, but most of the time I got no video feed. I have worked with a wide variety of IP cameras from industrial quality through fairly inexpensive D-Link & Asante models. Having strong technical abilities & lots of IP Camera experience I ignored the bad reviews figuring my experience would get my through. I got this through a shell shocker deal and figured it would be worth some hassle and effort to get the features for such a great price. Unfortunately the camera rarely worked despite my best efforts and tons of time dealing with Zmodo support. This camera has a great feature set that rivals cameras at a much higher price point, but it's lack of stability makes it pretty much worthless. All in all, not worth the hassle at any price in my opinion.