Pros: *suitable quality for distance video chat tutoring for my family *versatile stand, have had it on a table, my laptop, and my desktop LCD *mic is suitable for video chat tutoring *reasonably clear snapshot resolution up to 2560x2048

Cons: *bright light sources overload the camera, for some reason excessive brightness in one section of the shot causes severe ghosting effect in other sections. *significant barrel-type distortion on image along outer edges. *fixed focal point of roughly 1.5-2 feet

Overall Review: Used this camera for my laptop without a built-in webcam. Intended use is for assisting my brother with classwork while I am away form home for college. Tested cheaper web cams and found they either lacked adequate picture quality to pan across a sheet of math equations or a sub-par microphone. Bought this one and found it to be more than adequate.

Pros: **Plenty to unlock, more FFVII backstory if that's your thing. **Mouse and keyboard support is available. **Stats and levels to grind out as well as somewhat customizable weapons. **Excellent CG sequences akin to Advent Children's presentation **Decent shooter if you can get the settings to your taste

Cons: **The option of mouse and keyboard is a mixed blessing: can change Sensitivity, but can't disable Mouse Acceleration which is at different levels on the horizontal and vertical axis (i.e. - left and right buzz by extremely quickly with even a deliberate motion while up and down is painfully slow overall). I was unable to find a combination of settings that allowed consistent mouse control even after completing the game the first time through. **This is the only game where I've had to willingly enable partial auto-aim to assist while using a mouse. **Levels are spartan at best, great examples of brown and grey. The bright blue on the enemies and the red of Vincent's cloak will be the only color in many cases. **Various attack options are nearly useless when using mouse and keyboard as the Acceleration often under- or overshoots the target enemy **Most materia is completely useless in Normal mode.

Overall Review: If you're one who wants an FF-themed shooter then this game is definitely for you. Otherwise Devil May Cry would prove to be far better in gameplay. Comparing to DMC, Dirge has a better story/presentation but overall gameplay options and control responsiveness go to DMC. I came in expecting much more gameplay, but ended up sitting through uninteresting backstory and a plotline you can see coming if you know FFVII.

Pros: *Much better than most built-in speakers in modern flat-panel televisions. *Convenient connection options with line-level outs *Two bottom-mounted ports plus acceptably high feet results in no perceptible port noise.

Cons: *Crossover implementation makes causes the system to sound awful, especially considering the price. (See other thoughts for specifics) *Steady electronic hiss is present when no audio is on regardless of volume level.

Overall Review: I did some non-instrumented testing (my testing equipment in the hands of Fedex after a trip) after receiving the bar and after using it for a week am wholly disappointed even though I obtained it at less than 1/3rd MSRP. First, I appreciate that the system appears to have an acceptable crossover. It appears the system is crossed at 150 and 500 Hz The "subwoofers" have useful output down to about 45 Hz, which for general TV is fine. I do not appreciate that of the 6 full range-drivers, the front 4 are used to reproduce from 150 Hz to roughly 450-500 Hz. The side 2 cover frequencies 450 Hz and above. This puts the tweeter off-axis (read: pointed away from listener) from all locations except directly to the left and right of the speaker bar. A greatly compressed sound stage is the result. A side-effect is that the speaker develops a "chesty" sound, indicative of accentuated lower frequencies. This suggests an issue of rolled off upper frequencies. In lay terms, it sounds distant or as if an individual is talking while facing away from you. Listening to material is annoying at best. I found it is greatly alleviated if you place a flat reflector (heavy weight paper works) at 45-degrees to divert the upper frequencies forward. This arrangement gives much better, if overly bright, results. My most significant complaint is the effective "tweeter" placement. I was able to reproduce frequencies from 600 Hz up to 20 KHz only from the side speakers. The significant problem was that after 15-16 KHz, a peculiar grainy motor noise I could not identify began. For comparison, my previous configuration utlized a small tripath chip amp and a pair of Sony SS-B1000 bookshelf speakers. With the tweeters actually being on-axis, the imaging is pleasant and accurate. My personal take-away is that the system seems sound on paper, but in practice results in sub-par system considering the MSRP. I may "crack her open" and modify the crossover myself.

Pros: Plug 'n play on my older Windows server; replaces a 100Mb adapter. Existing driver works and I experienced a ~5% throughput increase after Windows Update picked up a newer driver. Throughput tested by beginning HD movie streams or 100-200GB dummy transfers (written to server then copied off server) on all devices on my wireless network. This was done continuously for 10 hours by queuing several movies and/or running batch files. Resulted in 70-80% utilization with no noticeable degradation of service to client machines. No instances of connection drop or client disconnect.

Cons: None thus far

Overall Review: I haven't used any of the remote management options available so I cannot comment on that. Have not run synthetic tests, but the real-world testing was adequate for me to accept marginal increases in system usage. Expected network utilization is typically 15-25% on my own personal devices and the new NIC provides more than enough capacity to accomodate devices from others in the household.

Pros: Near perfect fit, stabilizer is 1-2mm recessed compared to edge of expresscard which is flush with laptop body

Cons: Three pack (not really a con, but how many laptops do you see with more than 1 expresscard slot?)

Overall Review: Paired with a Transcend RDF-1

Pros: -Speed is better than rated. Maximum tested sequential reads exceeded my 2.5" external drive on eSATA *See other thoughts* -Picked it up at roughly $0.52/GB

Cons: -full rated speed (UHS1) is only attainable with something MUCH faster than USB 2.0. In my case, an expresscard reader.

Overall Review: I don't typically write reviews after just receiving an item. However, in this case I'm so impressed with the results I need to post it. I tested the below numbers using AS-SSD, all are sequential results, and all are an average of 5 runs. ------------------- USB 2.0 reader 22.41 MB/s read --- 20.16 MB/s write ExpressCard reader 86.83 MB/s read --- 42.78 MB/s write ------------------- Comparison values 840 SSD on SATAII 253.13 MB/s read --- 241.88 MB/s write External eSATA Spinpoint M8 250GB 5400RPM drive 82.22 MB/s read --- 85.56 MB/s write 8GB USB 2.0 thumbdrive 31.13 MB/s read --- 15.64 MB/s write ------------------- Practical test Transfer of 1GB .MP4 file to card, averaged over 5 runs of same file. Rates estimated by (1024 MB)/(Averaged time in s). I could not obtain reliable numbers transferring from card to SSD on Expresscard reader (transfer dialogs disappeared before I could read anything). Due to this, I opted to utilize the lower write speed to compare against rating. via USB 2.0 reader 1m 23.5s @ 12.26MB/s via ExpressCard reader 25.1s @ 40.8MB/s To eSATA external drive (same Spinpoint as above) 8.8s @ 116.36MB/s ------------------- This was used in a rugged PC design. The end result was better than expected, and I found the UHS1 standard much faster than my needs demanded.