Joined on 07/09/04
Shipped in perfect condition
Pros: Came in packaged well. No dents or dings. No dead pixels, no stuck pixels, low/tolerable light bleedthrough, but of course it's there-as with most consumer LCDs.
Cons: Stand has no height adjustment, but has solid tilt. OSD is hard to configure, and it comes out of box pretty bright, almost like staring straight into a fluorescent light. My jet black desktop background is a bit washed out. It sits low on the desk on its stand, so anything in front of it will obstruct it.
Overall Review: Viewing angle is tolerable-remember you're supposed to sit at least 18 inches away, I stay about 2 feet away. If you're any closer you're going to have viewing angle problems. Don't expect miracles.
What do you expect?
Pros: -Cheap -Built in power cord, no DC adaptor -Headphone jack
Cons: -Cheap -Built in power cord, no DC adaptor
Overall Review: They plug in, they work. Their sound quality is what you'd expect of bargain bin speakers. If you plan on listening to anything other than windows notifications, get something better. Otherwise you'll be able to hear the classic windows "Donk!" pretty well.
Got one of my mics
Pros: It still powers things through its ports
Cons: I use a USB mic with Dragon Naturally Speaking. I realized one day after cleaning and rearranging that my mic didn't detect. I switched to a 3.5MM headset and forgot about it. When I came back to it a week later, I tried it in other ports, only to find that it was dead and not even detecting. The mic's indicator lights were flashing, but even when I hooked it into other computers, it didn't work. Long story short, I contacted the company that made it ( Blueparrott ), found out on a forum that hubs can blow out USB mics, had that reaffirmed here by another reviewer, and etc. I decided to 'just' use this with thumb drives, but it won't even do that now. Avoid it.
Overall Review: Rosewill products...blegh. Is there no escaping the generic 'made in China' stuff? I just want something made to a high standard and backed by a good warranty by a company that can be held accountable. Yeah they're Newegg's in house brand, not sure that reflects well on Newegg.
Not supported, demand refund
Pros: Very sturdy to type on. It is comfortable like no other keyboard. The keys have a good feel, until their surfaces wear smooth. Great if you're going for a blue LED color scheme and black hardware.
Cons: Thread 75487 on the OCZ forums "When can we expect a driver update..." has an OCZ tech saying that they have discontinued this product and will never be supporting windows 7 x32 or x64. After being backed into a corner OCZ is offering refunds tentatively. If you got this keyboard for the OLED keys in windows 7, find this thread using google ( without " marks ) and demand a refund directly from them. It is not newegg's fault OCZ rebranded a product and refused to support it, I suggest going straight to OCZ and standing on them for a full refund for this keyboard.
Overall Review: It's an awesome idea. It was advertised as accepting .ico files ( it does not ) and letting you type text labels for the keys ( nope ) as well as having some degree of driver support. You'd think a product launched from 2008-2009 would have windows 7 drivers. It does not. It isn't entirely OCZ's fault. This keyboard is really another company's product sold under the OCZ name. However, OCZ made its bed with this company and now they get to sleep in it. Get a refund if you paid full price for this product. For more than a benjamin I expect at least a year of driver updates.
Remember to disable TLER for RAID!
Pros: -In for two, 0 DOA -Fast -Comparatively quiet -Runs cool (in an antec 1200, but what doesn't there?) -Not even a hiccup.
Cons: -MUST disable TLER for RAID! I run raid-1 (mirroring) on all my new drives for a year after I get them. I learned before I got these drives that they had a 'feature' that made them drop themselves from RAID arrays. I used a search engine with the string "Official WD tool to disable TLER" (with quotes) and my RAID array hasn't had a problem. What the 'feature' does is go into a 'deep recovery cycle' when it detects possible data corruption. I use RAID mirroring, so I have absolutely no need of this and do not want my system randomly hanging, anyway. Because WD saw a need to implement this feature with these drives, I'd have redundancy in any array I did with them, and as single drives will turn TLER back off.
Overall Review: The forum I got my copy of the TLER tool off of was Hard to find. Using it was quite easy, but required a floppy drive or a custom rerolling of ultimate boot CD.
Absolutely a blast
Pros: I got this only for UT2004, and it's absolutely a blast. It has all the content of 2003, and has an extensive modding community. Try it with ballistic weapons mod. The AI are brutally intelligent at higher difficulty levels, the maps are well designed, and the graphics are clean while being detailed. For the price you can't lose. They also provide free dedicated server keys, if you're so inclined to host one. The taunts and announcers, the mature ones, are HILARIOUS. The game delivers fast paced, intense action regardless of if you mod it or not.
Cons: Sometimes UT4mod file associations won't be made. This is a major problem if you want to install mods. You will have to manually set file associations. The correct way is to set the association for the filetype to point to "UT2K4/system/setup.exe %1", the rest you can figure out from google.
Overall Review: It's too bad other games haven't used this formula, even the sequels to UT2004 have cramped levels, censored taunts, overemphasis on blood (Meaning you can't disable it as you can in this game) and just aren't as fun. Why aren't you buying this yet?