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Mark T.

Mark T.

Joined on 01/14/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Fast & Sexy

LaCie Porsche Design P'9230 3TB USB 3.0 3.5" Desktop External Hard Drive LAC302003
LaCie Porsche Design P'9230 3TB USB 3.0 3.5" Desktop External Hard Drive LAC302003

Pros: I bought three of these drives for backup devices. The 7200 rpm internal drive is great as is the real power button on the back. The button comes in very handy sometimes. The drives are very good looking, and the LED isn't the blistering blazing LED of some other drives.

Cons: Price is on the higher side compared to other 3tb drives, but the 7200rpm is what you're paying for.

Most Critical Review

Works - sort of

MASSCOOL UHB-3232 Aluminum 3.5" Silver SATA I/II USB 3.0 External Enclosure
MASSCOOL UHB-3232 Aluminum 3.5" Silver SATA I/II USB 3.0 External Enclosure

Pros: Inexpensive

Cons: Not recognized by my USB 3.0 hub, extremely hot, noisy, grinding

Overall Review: I thought these would fit the bill. I was moving from an ancient Mac Pro to a Mac mini and needed to keep my HDDs happy and connected. I ordered 4 of these Masscool enclosures since they were relatively attractive and affordable. They become so incredibly hot to the touch! My LaCie Porsche P'9230 drives never ever get this hot. They are very noisy. Yesterday my computer was idle, and the drives were just grinding and grinding and grinding away. My mac had already indexed the drives via spotlight, carbon copy wasn't running - there was no reason for the drives to be grinding like that, but they were grinding away. It made me worried that the controller in the enclosure was misbehaving. The real kicker was that my Mac Mini 2012 (and my MacBookPro 13" late 2012) would only recognized the USB 3.0 connection when directly connected to the computer. The drives wouldn't show up at all via the USB 3.0 hub. My LaCie drives, my WD drives, and my ioSafe Solo 3TB all connect via the USB hub just fine. These enclosures wouldn't play. So, back to newegg they go. I ended up purchasing two additional LaCie P'9230 drives to replace my old HDDs altogether. That's how worried I am about the integrity of the drives after the Masscool grinding fiasco.

12/12/2012

Flawless in my 2012 Mac Mini

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Upgrade Kit Model CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10
CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Upgrade Kit Model CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10

Pros: Inexpensive, easy to install, compatible with Mac Mini

Cons: doesn't sing me to sleep with a lullaby

Overall Review: Got my new Mac Mini with the base configuration of ram. Also got these puppies. Opened my Mini, swapped out the ram in about 50 seconds, turned it back on - BOOM! Easy peasy lemon squeezy - it works perfectly.

12/12/2012

Really well made, great versatility

Stanley PC1A09 100 Watt Power Inverter with USB Power Outlet
Stanley PC1A09 100 Watt Power Inverter with USB Power Outlet

Pros: well made, high value for dollar, AC+USB!

Cons: Silly non-functional aesthetic screws as cosmetic detail

Overall Review: I purchased this to replace a power inverter I already had that provided one AC outlet and a DC (cigarette lighter style) outlet. This device, with its AC outlet + USB is far more useful for my road trips. It's very well made compared to the previous device, and it's immeasurably quieter - the other thing roared like a jet when plugged in! The goofy "ruggedized" details with fake screwheads don't really bother me since it is so well built. The 'business end' that meets the cigarette outlet in my car is very sturdy, unlike most other inverters.

Pretty terrible in terms of hardware

Brother MFC-5490CN Up to 35 ppm 6000 x 1200 dpi Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer with Networking
Brother MFC-5490CN Up to 35 ppm 6000 x 1200 dpi Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer with Networking

Pros: If you just want to print on letter size paper and never do anything else, this is probably going to be just fine for you. My dissatisfaction comes from the clunky and downright unfriendly hardware and terrible paper handling.

Cons: To connect the device to your computer/network via USB or Ethernet, you have to lift up the entire scanner glass assembly to get to this crazy in-the-guts-of-the-machine port area to snake your cables through and plug in. I never though that external USB and RJ45 connectors were a feature, but after using this thing I'll never take them for granted again. It never successfully networked with my apple network. This Brother machine, though, couldn't handle them at all. It would slip, snag, snarl and jam every 10th sleeve. The output was difficult to access (reach your hand into the cavity of the machine to get it) and when it did finally print a sleeve, the rollers obviously slipped, because the text was fuzzy. It was as if the sleeves were sliding around under the ink nozzles. Every sleeve that made it through was also severely wrinkled. Also, beware that this machine ships with "starter" ink cartridges.

Overall Review: Bad design (hidden USB/RJ45), bad performance (not handling my print jobs at all), and anti-consumer tactics (starter ink cartridges!) make me sure that this is the last device from Brother that I purchase.