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Aric B.

Aric B.

Joined on 08/13/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review
LG Nexus 4 E960 3G/4G LTE 16GB Unlocked Cell Phone 4.7" Black
LG Nexus 4 E960 3G/4G LTE 16GB Unlocked Cell Phone 4.7" Black

Pros: Easily the best phone money can buy. Always responsive and smooth, high quality display and construction, and good battery life. You'll be paying at least twice as much for something comparable, like the S3, S4, Note II, Razr HD, HTC One, LG Optimus, etc.

Cons: Cheaper on the official Google Play Store.

Overall Review: Responding to the first reviewer: If you want to get the most out of the display, install the ParanoidAndroid ROM or another kernel that allows calibration and look up some people's settings, you can get OLED-level color and contrast without the burn-in or pentile. As for the audio quality, in addition to the above, look for a kernel that supports speaker gain adjustment, you can turn down the gain and increase the volume to get better sound. The Franco, Faux, and Motley kernels from xda-developers will do the trick. The battery can be replaced, but you'll have to undo some screws and tape.

Most Critical Review

Hold off and don't buy this one.

Acer GD235HZbid Black / Orange 23.6" HDMI Widescreen 1080p NVIDIA LCD 120Hz 3D Monitor 300 cd/m2 ACM 80000:1
Acer GD235HZbid Black / Orange 23.6" HDMI Widescreen 1080p NVIDIA LCD 120Hz 3D Monitor 300 cd/m2 ACM 80000:1

Pros: Relatively bright, decent colors (although I turned down the red and green a bit), and of course it's "120hz."

Cons: 120hz mode is buggy. Strange sharpening effect as others have reported, although it CAN BE FIXED. Color scheme is ugly, I rather would've had it be all plain black. Not LED backlit It is smooth, but in 120hz mode, once every second, the monitor will jump back a frame and things appear to go backwards. I have perfect eyesight and, while the effect is very subtle and I ignored it at first, I did a bit more testing and easily confirmed it. To test, I ran Counter-Strike Source in fullscreen mode (getting about 300-600fps) with v-sync ON (so only one frame is displayed per refresh), and swung my view from side to side. Looking carefully, the effect was very distinct and I noticed it much more easily during normal use. The monitor also supports 110hz, 100hz, and 60hz modes, so I played with those and found that the same thing happens at 110hz, but not 100hz..so that's what I run it at now. Also, the sharpening effect is pretty annoying, see below for the fix.

Overall Review: To "Not happy" complaining about the sharpening effect, HERE IS THE SHARPENING EFFECT FIX: 1. turn off monitor 2. hold down the left-most menu button 3. turn on the monitor, holding down the menu button 4. the monitor boots in diagnostic mode 5. navigate up to OD and flip it on then off - this will disable the effect and make the display a bit brighter too Additionally, I've had the right half of the screen turn solid black at random once. Turning it off and on didn't fix it, but unplugging it and plugging it back in resolved it. It seems like this product has some pretty serious software issues. I highly suggest holding off and waiting for newer generation models which are less buggy.

@ "last straw"

Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SV300S37A/120G
Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SV300S37A/120G

Pros: Bought this drive at retail a while back, kingston is on top of their SSD game.

Cons: none

Overall Review: @ "last straw" review: there is no "missing capacity." Storage manufacturers have ALWAYS advertised capacities as ACTUAL gigabytes (prefixes are factors of 1000), and windows has always displayed storage capacity as GIBIbytes (prefixes are factors of 1024.) Watch this: Advertised: 120 GB = 120 * 1000 M/G * 1000 K/M * 1000 B/K = 120,000,000,000 bytes Windows: 120,000,000,000 B / 1024 B/K / 1024 K/M / 1024 M/G = 111.758 GB Open my computer, right click the drive, go to properties, and look at "capacity", and what do you know, 120,000,000,000 bytes, if not more!!!

11/23/2013
XIGMATEK FCB (Fluid Circulative Bearing) Cooling System Crystal Series CLF-F1455 140mm Purple LED Case Fan PSU Molex Adapter/extender included
XIGMATEK FCB (Fluid Circulative Bearing) Cooling System Crystal Series CLF-F1455 140mm Purple LED Case Fan PSU Molex Adapter/extender included

Pros: These fans glow a dim but very deep purple. Late at night when my eyes are completely dark adjusted, I still can't see the light from these fans anywhere but the carpet right next to the case and the fans themselves, while the single blue LEDs in my power button and HDD access light are visible on the ceiling. They're also some of my most powerful fans and also my quietest after having them for 18 months with ~10000 hours of runtime.

Cons: They're not cheap... a set of 4 of these and 4 of the 120mm variants (CLF-F1255) to completely saturate my case cost around $100.

Overall Review: Given their apparent diurability, I'd say they're worth it.

XIGMATEK FCB (Fluid Circulative Bearing) Cooling System Crystal Series CLF-F1255 120mm Purple LED Case Fan PSU Molex Adapter/extender included
XIGMATEK FCB (Fluid Circulative Bearing) Cooling System Crystal Series CLF-F1255 120mm Purple LED Case Fan PSU Molex Adapter/extender included

Pros: These fans glow a dim but very deep purple. Late at night when my eyes are completely dark adjusted, I still can't see the light from these fans anywhere but the carpet right next to the case and the fans themselves, while the single blue LEDs in my power button and HDD access light are visible on the ceiling. They're also some of my most powerful fans and also my quietest after having them for 18 months with ~10000 hours of runtime.

Cons: They're not cheap... a set of 4 of these and 4 of the 140mm variants (CLF-F1455) to completely saturate my case cost around $100.

Overall Review: Given their apparent durability, I'd say they're worth it.

Logitech K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard for Windows, 2.4GHz Wireless with USB Unifying Receiver, Ultra-Thin, Compatible with PC, Laptop - Black
Logitech K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard for Windows, 2.4GHz Wireless with USB Unifying Receiver, Ultra-Thin, Compatible with PC, Laptop - Black

Pros: I bought this keyboard from Logitech's site a few months ago, and it's great to work with. Not having to mess with wires or batteries is a giant plus, and the battery holds at 100% despite me using it all night long with all lights off. Additionally, they use the proper one-row enter button, which is a requirement in any keyboard. The keyboard has a very nice feel, where the buttons give a solid response and aren't mushy, although I wish keyboard makers would reduce the force on the buttons to make typing a bit easier. There's also no stupid extra proprietary function/gaming/macro buttons to waste space and materials. (I hate to see all those G15 owners who brag about those buttons but never even use them.) The media controls as the function keys is brilliant, but it has some implications...

Cons: ...because of the media control function key, the bottom row layout is a little strange. Both control buttons are massive, and on the left side, this causes cramping of the windows and alt buttons. On the right side, both the right windows key and the menu button are omitted to make room for the big function and control keys, along with the tiny alt button. I'm sure if the size of these buttons were all the same and they played with the spacebar a bit, they could've fit in all the standard keys as well as their function key media control system. Additionally, I can't imagine that putting on lock status LEDs would take up enough power to warrant their omission, especially if some low-power, subtle but readable LEDs were used. Also, the battery level button could easily display more information than it does currently by showing a 4-bar battery level indicator as well.

Overall Review: Overall a very nice keyboard despite a few minor complaints. I just wish I got it from newegg now instead of paying full price for it on Logitech's site a few months ago.