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David F.

David F.

Joined on 04/18/10

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Most Favorable Review

Love it

Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24" Full HD 1920 x 1200 60Hz 8ms DisplayPort VGA DVI-D 4xUSB 2.0 Pivot Swivel Height Adjustable LED Backlit IPS Widescreen LCD Monitor
Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24" Full HD 1920 x 1200 60Hz 8ms DisplayPort VGA DVI-D 4xUSB 2.0 Pivot Swivel Height Adjustable LED Backlit IPS Widescreen LCD Monitor

Pros: Excellent build quality Beautiful picture A lot of picture tweaking options Awesome height/tilt adjustment range USB hub Dim, non-intrusive standby light Rock solid base

Cons: None. Gamers will look at the single-sided spec of "response time" (8ms) and claim that's too high. How did these guys ever game five years ago?? What they forget about is input lag, and in a recent review of this monitor, it blew away the two "faster" TN panels it was up against- negating the slower response time. I have gamed on this monitor and everything looks awesome. And bigger. And sharper. And with way better color. Let's clear up the misconception about HDMI inputs: the only difference between HDMI and DVI is sound. HDMI can carry sound; DVI can't. This monitor has no speakers, so it's not needed. People whining about no HDMI are those who want to hook up other sources to their monitor (ie XBOX). What they fail to mention is that $5 adapters are available with zero signal loss. I'm glad Dell omitted this jack- I'll never use it and it keeps costs down for all of us. Rest assured, even the latest $1000 video cards use DVI, not HDMI. Stop confusing people, gamers!

Overall Review: I originally ordered a sub $200 TN monitor, thinking that newer technology would surely blow away my 5 year old monitor, but it was actually worse in terms of color depth, black levels and overall "pleasantness" to look at. Text was awful. I purposely waited return it until this Dell arrived and I could see them side by side for a day. WOW- the difference was dramatic, and I was finally able to be excited about a new monitor. The U2412M made the other "HD" 16:9 monitor look positively washed out (I set both monitors to the exact same video settings). Even with the TN monitor tweaked to the max, it got beat by the Dell right out of the box. Not only did the Dell have superior color and black levels, it was actually sharper, too. Small txt and details were noticeably clearer, and somehow the picture just had a better depth of field. It was more like looking through a window vs looking at a picture. The 16:10 ratio is awesome- definitely looks larger vs 16:9.

Most Critical Review

Junk

Logitech S120 2.0 Stereo Speakers, Black
Logitech S120 2.0 Stereo Speakers, Black

Pros: Price, looks

Cons: Very tinny sound, no longevity

Overall Review: Died 48 hours after plugging them in. No power trying several different electrical outlets. Not worth the gas and shipping cost to return.

Awesome, unassuming presence

MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 Graphics Card RTX 3080 VENTUS 3X PLUS 12G OC LHR
MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 Graphics Card RTX 3080 VENTUS 3X PLUS 12G OC LHR

Pros: - Golden sample? Mine OC'd VERY well - Temps rarely go over 70C, but I do crank the fans when gaming (who cares when you have noise-cancelling headphones- a MUST for gamers) - Runs 35C or less at idle - Seems like a high quality build - 12GB gives a little more headroom versus the standard 10GB 3080 model - Pushing out high frame rates on a 3440x1440p 175Hz monitor!

Cons: - No LEDs at all. I don't need a light show, but a few status light would be nice. Barely a con.

Overall Review: I would recommend this GPU to anyone and would happily buy it again. The price was reasonable and from what I've read the 4080 is only going to be about 20% faster and consume a lot more energy. Unless you're pushing 4K, not worth the wait or the potential issues of high prices/low availability to wait.

Good value

50pcs Laptop Monitor LCD TV Screen Cleaning Wet Wipes
50pcs Laptop Monitor LCD TV Screen Cleaning Wet Wipes

Pros: 50 sheets of moist wipes for your monitor

Cons: none

Overall Review: Work very well

11/13/2015

Seagate = high failure rates

Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Cheap

Cons: This is a risky purchase- these thing fail a LOT. I have a friend who was an engineer at Seagate and he told me (after my purchase) that I should've gone with WD. He was right. Mine was only used for media storage (not my primary drive) and died without warning two months outside the two-year warranty. A recent article from an online cloud storage co. said the Seagates failed at alarming rates vs WD and HGST. They are using more than 12,000 of EACH brand simultaneously, so it's a pretty large scale observation and "luck of the draw" is essentially not a factor. They also noted that most Seagates died 2.2 years into service (conveniently, right after the warranty expires) and that's exactly how old mine was! Seagate's 3TB drives had a failure rate of over 43%!

Overall Review: Most of the positive reviews state they've had no problems in the first year- but let's see how they feel a year from now... I spent the extra money on the WD Black (which has a 5 year warranty), because it's cheaper and less hassle in the end. You may have much better luck than I did, but there's a reason why the Seagates are so much cheaper. When you factor in the higher performance and 3 year longer warranty (5 yrs vs 2) of WD, I think it's worth the extra dough.

Even works on MUSCLES

Magic Wand HV260 Personal Massager
Magic Wand HV260 Personal Massager

Pros: How this large and powerful massager became known only as a pleasure device is beyond me. The motor in this massager will shake your muscles to the core, and is powerful enough that it barely slows down when placed between your back and the back of a chair (in other words- you can put a lot of weight on it for a deeper massage). Works great on feet, hands, neck- anywhere that you want relief from sore muscles.

Cons: None- well built and powerful enough to relax the most achy muscles. Don't be scared off by all the *bedroom* reviews, this was designed and built to be a massager, not a vibr.ator; that's why it doesn't offer low speeds, a moisture-proof cover, or a long cord.