Apple Reviews

Purchased this monitor December 2001. I use monitor for gaming and normal computer use. Happy with picture quality - however - entire screen developed pink/purple color blur/distortion. The entire screen appears pink or purple and makes monitor almost unuseable. Returned monitor for refurbished replacement under the 3 year warranty beginning of 2002. Replacement monitor developed same problem after 2 months of use. Just made the call to have the monitor replaced again. I was advised by NEC that a large portion of Accusync 120 monitors are having this problem and that they are going to be sent to engineering to figure out the problem. While I am overall happy with NEC's customer support, I am not happy that I purchased a monitor with unexplained defect. Beware.

My Hitachi Superscan Pro 21 inch monitor became blurry after 4.5 years, so it was time for a replacement. After a lot of looking, I decided on this monitor mostly based on its features and the Amazon reviews. I am very glad choose this monitor.

Although the screen not perfectly flat, it is much flatter than my old Hitachi. One thing that impressed me is that other than vertical and horizontal adjustments, I needed absolutely no other geometry adjustments (rotate, trapezoid, pincushion, etc., needed no adjustments). Maybe this was because of the flat tube inside?

When I first booted up the computer, the image did appear washed out, but that was because this monitor is so bright. After lowering the brightness to almost the lowest setting images and text look very sharp. I use it at both 1280x1024 (85Hz) and 1600x1200 (75 Hz). I enjoy the flexibility of the different resolutions a CRT monitor offers compared to a LCD.

For the price, this 21 inch monitor offers great performance. I would buy it again!

I just had this giant 21" NEC monitor this week. The first time it opened, it impressed me very much, because despite its giant size, it is crystal clear and crisp. The clarity is similar to Sony 15" monitor, but its size dwarfed it. Size matters, especially in reading and studying. It motivates the student all the more, without the added strain, making the review a more pleasant multimedia experience. I tried the CD material for Oracle DBA and MCSE, and this 21" monitor's hugeness and clarity, increased my motivation to read more and strain less. This is a best buy. Of course, there are other 21" monitors, but again its price beats its contemporaries. My advice to educators and students, go for this monitor. It will be a big help in passing all those exams, and certifications...

After using several B&W HP lasers for years, I'd always wanted a color laser. Finally, I splurged and got this one as my desktop printer about 6 months ago. I'm not happy- nor totally unhappy either. It's definitely a workhorse. Once it's warmed up, calibrated and running, it works beautifully. Furthermore, it is much less expensive to run than a regular inkjet. I had been spending close to $/month in ink with the PSC500 I was using before this printer. I'm still using the original cartridges which came with the printer...In this respect, it's a great buy.

However, to save energy it goes to idle after 15 minutes or so, and takes about 5 minutes to warm up, calibrate and get up to speed. If you get a paper jam, it will again require the whole cycle. Thus, it's not really suited to be a personal printer. It is best suited for specific large jobs, not as an everyday printer. Everytime I write a one page letter, cut a check or do something simple, I have to wait and wait, and it's definitely exasperating.

Also, it's not really good as a photo printer, although I have often used it as one.

I hope the new color laser series is better.

I have used my 4500 for about 6 months now and could not be more in love with it. I have owned about 6-7 color inkjets before this and finally made the big move to color laser. You can print perfect photos on just about any kind of paper. I would like to see some "true" glossy paper on the market for photos, however. Most specialty papers for inkjet printers (mostly glossy) will not work with the laserjet because of the heat. Keep in mind you can not do heat transfers with a laserjet printer. There are four cartridges that make up the 4500's color. They are VERY expensive, but I am still using the same one that came with the printer and have printed well over a thousand photos. Long term is much cheaper to run than an inkjet.

I print A LOT of graphs and charts on both paper and transparencies. I was very happy to see how well this printer handled them. Using HP Transparencies the printing quality was consistent and clean. No jams at all. Using plain 20lb copy paper, quality was even and bright. You can load up your media and literally walk away knowing that when you come back everything will be printed without having to "baby-sit" the machine. With the amount of printing I do (10K+ a month) that is very important to me. Hope this review helps people in their choice for a color laser printer.

This monitor has great picture quality. I've used VGA and it is still excellent quality. My brother experienced some problems with the screen flashing pink, but I think it's actually a video card problem, and not the monitor.

I got my vx800 from Dell. No dead pixels at all. I use DVI with it. Ths image quality is awesome and the response time is good (no problem with gaming or seeing DVDs.... though still slower than my SONY Trinitron CRT if you compared them together with some monitor test program.)

The view angle is wide enough.

This is a great LCD monitor.

I bought the VX800 back in November 2002. After 5+ months of usage, it's been a great monitor. Married to a dual processor Macintosh w/ a 64MB video card, this monitor has performed flawlessly. No shadows, not one bad pixel - not one bad thing to say about the quality of the monitor. But..... a couple things worth mentioning.

First, the speakers that come with this monitor are barely adequate. Good for basic sound but that's about it. And finally, this was my first LCD monitor; knowing I'm paying more then I should when compared to other quality LCDs with the same warranty period and bad pixel policy. With that said, there are monitors just as sharp as this VX800 for much less money. If you're comfortable buying an LCD with a top of the line brand name, ViewSonics and Samsungs are who to turn to. But when I buy my second LCD for my other computer, I'm going to look very closely at LCDs from Hitachi and Envision. These two companies make terrific LCDs with great warranty/bad pixel policies for significantly less money.

You won't go wrong with any VX series LCD, but you'll also do well spending less money for the same quality buying a Hitachi or Envision. This VX 800 gets 5 stars based solely on the quality of the monitor. If price was to factored, I'd drop the rating to 4 stars.

This particular Apple iPod was one of the first models to come out. Like most techo-gadgets, once you buy them - something better is going to come along within a few months. That is just the way of the world. The nice thing about this gadget is - it still does the job very well for me 1 1/2 years after I purchased it. This is the 5GB iPod. They have discontinued this model in favor of some iPods that hold larger capacity (i.e. 10 GB, 15 GB, 20 GB, and 40 GB) as well as the smaller sized iPod mini (a 4 GB device). I'm hear to say that the 5 GB still does the job and if this is how Apple is going to produce an mp3 device, this is going to set the gold standard.

I run my iPod on a Windows XP based PC. At the time, I had to buy a IEEE 1394 FireWard card for my machine. I was more than glad to add this functionality to my PC because now I can hook up other FireWire devices. At this time the Software used to organize music on the iPod is Musicmatch and not iTunes. Again Musicmatch does a great job for me and I continue to use it. There is no synchronization device with this iPod. Just connect it to your Firewire Cable and the PC and Musicmatch software will recognize it. If your Firewire Card supplies power, you will be able to recharge the iPod as it is connected to your PC.

This thing is as Apple advertises. Apple Advertised getting about 1000 songs on it. I have ripped most of my CDs in 128 kbps format and have about 600+ songs on it so far. With still about 2GB of free space, I should just reach the 1000 song plateau. If I went to 160 kbps format for all of my songs, I would probably see a substantial reduction in the amount of songs I would be able to store. The 128 kbps format should be just fine. This device never skips. I take it in my car and to the gym and it never skips. I advise buying a car adapter for about $20 that goes into your cassette deck (the one that portable CD players use works just fine) and then you can have your iPOd in the car.

The device itself is a nice looking one. There is a jog dial used to navigate the menus. There are plenty of organizations by playlist, album, song, genre, and artist (much of this is configured on the Musicmatch software automatically when you rip your CDs to mp3). It also contains 'extras' for Calandar, Contact, Clock, and a game. The game is actually a version of the old 'Breakout' game. The menus are in standard LCD gray and there is a backlight that can be turned on to see the menu better if needed. A great set of headphones comes with the iPod. It is the type of headphones you right on the outside of the ear and what is nice is they don't fall out of your ear - plus they sound great. You also get a portable charger that only requires the firewire cable. As for the firewire cable, it comes with one as well as an adapter for 4 pin and 6 pin ports.

There are three drawbacks I must point out. The first is the back of the player - it scratches very easily. The back is made of shiny metal and you are going to need to get a a case for it otherwise you will get tons of scratches on that surface. This leads into the second drawback - accessories. No case is going to come with it and of course, like with any accessory - you're going to overpay for them. Be careful when shopping for a case, some of them are cheap leather slipcases and you may overpay. Recently I tried to get a car charger and found one at an Apple Retail Store for $13.00, but remember seeing them in CompUSA for $40. The newer iPods are architected very differently and as a result those accessories won't fit this model of the iPod. I still also advise spending the money for a car adapter (mentioned above) that plugs into your cassette deck.

The third drawback is the battery. The battery will give you 10 hours continuous play when you first get it. Slowly but surely, you will see that erode over time. I'd say I'm down to 5 hours right now. Although I said the iPod does the job well, this is the one major drawback I've seen over the life of the device. To replace the battery - it is $99.00 from Apple and this is a job you are going to need them to do. With some of the newer iPod models, I know by next year I am going to face a tough decision on whether or not to replace the battery or upgrade my iPod. Another note on the battery is that if your iPod is idle and uncharged for a few days, the battery will lose some of its charge.

The plusses clearly outweigh the minuses here. I would give this 5 stars, but the drawbacks make this more of a 4 1/2 star effort. Don't let the drawbacks deter you, but be aware of them - especially the battery issue if you are buying a used one. If you do get this device, you'll be very happy with it.

My Husband gave me a christmas gift, I love it, its stores around 1000 songs but for me 100 songs are more than enough. Sound quality and overall features are excellent, the only bad part is I still didn't found a good case for IPOD I looked everywhere from Apple store to EBAY but they were not good, but other than that I had no problems till now.I hope this review is helpful.

The wife got me one of these for Christmas and you can't go wrong. Great interface, simple intuitive controls. If you have a huge music collection or plan on using it as an external hard drive go for the 10 or 20 GB model but I am not even close to filling this 5 GB up. Address Book and iCal updates work great with iSync. It even has a breakout game.

why i gave this printer 3 stars? 2 reasons... 1 i can't find the ink anywhere. 2 all of a sudden it's much cheaper than what i paid i just hate when that happens

I saw this by chance and ended up getting it because the price was right and it had the "all in one" feature. I must say, that it has worked really great. The speed of scanning and printing is awesome. I've been able to scan and print photos for framing within 10 minutes, whereas on my HP it took about 30 minutes.

For the price, you get a good scan and printing that is fast and pretty true to what you scan. One caution, I was scanning without printing at first and the scanned image on screen looked too yellowish. I had a cow and had a not so pleasant experience trying to get a useable answer from Lexmark's online tech support. But once they suggested I print the image to show them and I did, I found that the image printed like what I'd scanned. It did not have the off color tints like the image did on the monitor.

Really, I've been surprised and now use it more than my HP. The copy function is cool, because you don't even have to have the computer turned on to use it. Copies are quick and you can adjust the ink levels to get it as light or dark as you want. Plus copies in color or B&W. I like the machine alot and I'm very glad I got it.

I needed a printer, but one that had several features altogether. The scanner, photocopy, and printing features are all great. The quality for printing can be adjusted accordingly especially for rough drafts to conserve ink for final prints. This is a great buy for buyers like myself looking for budget price and having many features all in one. Also the usb cable works fine, I saved about $13 with the included one. I've been using this printer for about two months and no problems whatsoever. Installation is a breeze just follow the manual and display menu. It even has a power save feature that can be adjusted accordingly. Great quality for great price. Of course I bought mine when it was $120 which was outstanding in comparison to almost buying the Lexmark X1150 with no usb cable for $100.

Functional, but not my favorite snagless design. The rubber half-boots over the cable ends interfeer with the removel of this cable. This is not a problem if you're not taking the cable in and out like I do, or if you never have the cable in a tight connection like I do. There are better designs, like the ones with an additional piece of plastic covering the connection from the opposite direction.

Great Price and Fast Shipping!! This cable can easily cost up $25.00 in a retail store. Nice color, great connections, and a great all around deal!

Joey

I bought these Belkin cables. They are very nice quality. They seem heftier than a lot of the other cables. My system analyst neighbor mentioned that he prefers to buy the 1000 foot roll. He runs them to wall outlets, then uses the 7 foot or 14 foot snap in cable from the wall to the PC. That way, you don't have to buy a 40 dollar crimping tool.
You can't solder these cables. They require a metal to metal contact, and lead-solder doesn't qualify. Also, it is critical to keep them spiraled, all the way up to the end. Even when attaching, instructions call for twisting them right up to the connection.
Since the tech instructions, tell you to keep them down to under 350 feet, these cables, whether they are long or short, are in the right lengths.
I know Amazon doesn't print prices in their reviews, but they have the local major chain office supply stores beat hands down. The 50 foot roll was half again as much locally.
These are the Category 5e cables. They give you a better return feed, which results in better overall performance. So insist on 5e instead of just 5. I initially bought some wall plates from Radio Shack that were Category 3, then I returned those for the snap in option Category 5. Those were returned also, when I went to Home Depot (of all places to go networking) and they had the complete Leviton line of 5e accessories.
If I had to do it over again, I would still buy the Belkin 50 footers. I don't want to have a 500 foot roll of ethernet cable hanging around.
These are tops. Gold plated connectors, Snag free ends, that protect that little lock in tab on the ends. You know the frustration of unsnarling a phone wire, out of a wiring mess, and the little tab bends over backwards, never to work properly again. Well Belkin built twin arches over the sides to prevent just that. Way to go. Highly recommended, good stuff, for a good price.

This was a great scanner for it's time. It does a good job of scanning slides (haven't used it much for negative scanning). The Color Management System doesn't do the job I wish it did, often the colors are darker than the slide, so I usually adjust them in Photoshop. The shadows can be dark as well.

Overall, it's a good scanner, especially if you're only doing small-print or web work. Nikon now has newer scanner models with greater o/p and bit depth.

The question to ask yourself is "What am I going to do with the images I scan? Produce small prints or put them on the web?" If so, this scanner is perfect. If you're a semi-pro or pro who wants as much detail as possible, then get a newer model (ie: 4000 ED).....which will most likely be my next purchase. :)

This is a great scanner - but first time buyers of such a scanner, with Windows XP as an operating system beware! If you purchase the scanner, be sure that the package contains the Installation CD that contains the Windows XP installation update. Many of the inventoried Scanners do not have the update and to trying to get an update is an exercise. You have to download it from the website, but you must first call Nikon support to get this information. The hold times for the support line can take more than an hour. Then, best of luck on the download. After spending 4 hours on the thing myself, I finally had to call Nikon back, wait on hold for an hour and 15 minutes to then learn I had to call someone else to get them to mail me a disk. Hopefully, this tip can save you hours!

If you're looking for a 35mm film scanner, your research has finally come to an end. Specially now that THE PRICE HAS BEEN LOWERED! I've been using this scanner for about two months and I can only say that it's worth every cent you put on it. Colors are great, detail is incredible, the resolution allows really big output (around 12.5 X 8.5 at 300DPI - even bigger if you use 250DPI). But the biggest star is ICE. Ok, it doesn't work on B&W film, but the time it saves you from retouching on Photoshop more than pays for this scanner. And ICE comes in two flavors - normal or sharpen. You can improve sharpness while removing scratches and dust. Mine came with the latest firmware (1.31), but I updated to the software's latest version (2.5.1) via download. The software works fine. Specially if you know how to use curves to correct color casts, improve details on certain areas, etc. And it has a very special feature that makes it better than all others I've seen - you can resize the preview window to the size of your monitor. You can't imagine how much this little detail helps on correcting or improving each scan. Great. The Nikon Coolscan III (LS-30) is such a good scanner that I don't believe paying more for the LS 2000 makes sense. Ok, the other has 36 bit and multiscan for improved shadow detail. But until now I never felt the need for this. Or for throwing US$ 700 more on a scanner. Better buy another Coolscan III... Ah, with Vuescan, a third party software, you can do multiple scanning on the Coolscan III for better shadow detail. It has a nice place for storing the transport screws on the back, has built-in termination. The connectors are HDI-50. It comes with a cable (HDI-50 to 25 pin SCSI), but if your SCSI chain has other equipment and you want to place it right after the computer, you'll probably need another HDI-50 to other connector cable. As with most things Nikon, it feels solid as a rock. Certainly will last a long time. Hope as much as the faithful Nikon Fs. Looks like. It's hard to go wrong with the Nikon Coolscan III.

The ViewSonic E771 has been with me through college using two different computer systems. As a Computer Science major, it has been through a lot of use. The picture is crisp, colorful, and bright.

At about two years into its life, it started malfunctioning. The monitor was caught in an odd resolution. I called ViewSonic, and without any hassle they had me send it in. They sent me back a new one in no time, even though I had no receipts or original packaging.

As a basic 17 inch monitor with no frills or extras, the E771 does a great job. I definitely recommend this monitor along with any ViewSonic monitor. ViewSonic is a very trustworthy company that stands behind its products.

This monitor is great for day to day usage of just internet browsing and checking email and such. It goes for a great price and is easy to set up with a nice picture. I did have a problem with it before and had to return it to Viewsonic, however I was given a replacement monitor at a Viewsonic location in my city for no charge right on the spot without having to pay shipping charges back and forth to California or such. If you're into gaming I'd reccomend spending the extra bucks for a better monitor however this is just great value if you can't afford anything better.

I recommend this monitor for anyone that can't decide what to get because of it's well-rounded features. Personally, I am more concerned about image quality than size. When I looked at the slew of monitors that were offered at the store, this one seemed to have the clearest looking images. It's also not too big or too small, so it's a decent "first monitor" as well. I work at an engineering firm, and we have used Viewsonic monitors religiously with little or no problems. The USB hub is extremely useful if you have the right drivers for it. It eliminates some of the wire cluttering in the back of the pc, plus you don't have to reach back there as much anymore. The on-screen menu is easier to use than most TV menu's. This product has been running over a year for now me with no problems. Hope that says something.

Have the printer for about 1.5 years and love it. Gives good crisp black and white copies. Prints photos as good or better than any printer I've tried with similar dpi resolution. And all with generic inks!

I use the Epson Stylus color 800 and Stylus Photo 785 EPX and I am very pleased with both. I got the Stylus color 860 this past week to replace my 800 before it goes bad. The 860 is just awesome so very pleased with it. Only thing I find wrong with it is that it said you can use banner paper well you can't make banners it. The longest is only 22 inches and listed as panoramic. Unlike my 800 I can make banners 44 inches long. The right up on it was deceiving. I like making banners so I will continue using my 800 for that. Graphics and Photos are outstanding with the 860 so I really am not disappointed in it a bit. I may of been if I didn't still have my 800. I can do banners with my Photo 785 EPX but is more costly.

I have owned a number of ink jet printers, but the Epson 860 is by far the best. It has had few problems and the printing is sufficiently fast in both black and color. I would highly recommend that everyone get one, but unfortunately, the company no longer makes this model.

The analog connection is ok but text is fuzzy. The digital connection is FAR superior. Please use the digital connection only if you buy this LCD. Even though it is .29mm dot pitch, it looks amazingly sharp in digital. The text on the screen is amazingly clear and readable. You will have no problems with viewing angles. This LCD is brighter than my old 21" monitor. In fact it is almost too bright for nighttime lights off usage.

DVD movies look superb. Computer games show very slight ghosting but not enough to affect your gameplay.

No sound built in, but that's why I have my existing subwoofer and speakers for.

The casing has a lazy susan at the bottom so you can spin it around, and you can tilt it to suit your height.

Buy it, you won't regret it.

This monitor is very solid. Ive had it for over 6 months. Movies look great on this monitor. Its even good for gaming. You may not want to pay the price but It is so well built that you cant complain.

Out of box with a perfect picture. Best Lcd 19" Flat Panel PC
monitor I've ever purchased.