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Michael F.

Michael F.

Joined on 04/13/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review
Fractal Design Define R4 Black Silent ATX Midtower Computer Case
Fractal Design Define R4 Black Silent ATX Midtower Computer Case

Pros: Vibration dampening hdd caddys, acoustic dampening panels, well designed, with plenty of space. Quiet case, made my RAID arrays virtually silent. Combined with a decent graphics card you can build a pretty solid system with very little noise.

Cons: Many buyers (myself included) will require ATX PSU extension cables for their power supply to reach the connections on the motherboard from the bottom of the case. The included fans are a bit loud at the full 12v, though to be fair they work quite well at the 7v setting.

Overall Review: PSU Extension cables needed. Quiet case, but not "silent".

Most Critical Review

MS Office

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 Product Key Card - 1 PC
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 Product Key Card - 1 PC

Pros: You get official Microsoft Office...

Cons: You no longer get Outlook or Access... Visio is still an add on. In my humble opinion it's a bit of a rip off considering what limited software you get!

Overall Review: LibreOffice, OpenOffice, GoogleDocs

10/29/2013

Good hardware, software buggy.

ASUS Transformer Book T100 Intel Z3740 Quad Core 2GB DDR3 RAM 64GB SSD 10.1" Touchscreen Tablet w/Dock, Windows 8.1 (T100TA-C1-GR)
ASUS Transformer Book T100 Intel Z3740 Quad Core 2GB DDR3 RAM 64GB SSD 10.1" Touchscreen Tablet w/Dock, Windows 8.1 (T100TA-C1-GR)

Pros: Solid piece of hardware given the price. Speedy enough for all but the most demanding PC applications. Full Windows, none of the RT (ARM) limitations. Comes with Office 2013. Screen has good viewing angles.

Cons: BUGGY. I had to restore the OS after an update caused it to hang on the loading screen despite running Startup Repair. I then had various issues with secure boot. Eventually I got that sorted and the system stable. It would also seem to refuse to power on at times, requiring me to hold the power button for a good 30 seconds a couple times in a row before it would "wake". Disabling the hibernation settings seems to have fixed that. (though we were using "sleep" anyway!) z37xx series isn't nearly as quick as a Core i5 Haswell based system, but then again even Haswell is limited by it's GPU performance when it comes to demanding PC applications. This is perfectly quick for browsing, playing/streaming media, and using Office. It won't be transcoding media (very quickly) or playing current generation games. Screen resolution is a bit low for reading in tablet mode... With the screen closer to your face you really notice the lower pixel density.

Overall Review: Even if it had a high resolution display; Windows still doesn't deal very well with high resolution displays, increasing screen dpi to make Windows view able in high resolutions often causes problems with some apps.

ASUS Ultrabook VivoBook Intel Core i5-3317U 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 24 GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 4000 14.0" Touch Screen Windows 8 64-Bit S400CA-DH51T
ASUS Ultrabook VivoBook Intel Core i5-3317U 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 24 GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 4000 14.0" Touch Screen Windows 8 64-Bit S400CA-DH51T

Pros: Core i5, Hybrid Hard Drive, sufficient RAM, decent battery life, touchscreen for Windows 8+.

Cons: The display could use improvement, especially the viewing angles. In this day and age I expect a much better panel.

Overall Review: Middle of the road.

Rosewill Memory Foam Mouse Pad with Wrist Rest - RIMP-11001
Rosewill Memory Foam Mouse Pad with Wrist Rest - RIMP-11001

Pros: Comfortable, albeit familiar design. Circular shape doesn't waste space. Good price!

Cons: The memory foam wrist pad is not quite as comfortable as some of the gel wrist pads.

Overall Review: The soft rubber base\backing is pretty sticky. This can be annoying if you move the pad alot. However, it very good if you want the pad to stay in one spot! (gamers?)

ENERMAX UC-12EB Case Fan
ENERMAX UC-12EB Case Fan

Pros: I've owned a couple of these fans for a couple years now without a single failure. They don't move a ton of air but they are very quiet I take my machine out to the deck and spray it out every few months. These are some of the quietest fans I've owned and are great for creating airflow in your case.

Cons: They don't provide more than a gentle breeze. You'll want something with a variable speed for your components.

Overall Review: I've found tweaking variable speed fan curves with motherboard and graphics utilities is the best way to keep a system quiet while still providing proper cooling under load.