Apple Reviews

Okay. Here is a write up, that I did, on the comparisons/contrasts on MP3 players. Mainly, the Harddrive versions (I.E. Rio Riot/Apple IPOD -both of which I own) and the flash memory type... (I.E. Memorex 3642 Mp3 Player, of which I own as well).
What prompted this little jaunt (of which you may send to as many people as you like) My $499 Apple IPOD died during a sync last month. Just me copying files over to it, and the battery ran out of juice. I would have not attempted to copy music had I known the battery was low, but the battery read FULL STRENGTH. Anyhoo, I called Apple, they said return it for maintenance.

I did. Sent it back.

They returned it, still broke.

To my suprise, there is only a TEN DAY return policy.

TEN DAYS.

I did not realize this at all... and it was a costly realization.

So, after a month or so of messing around trying to find another MP3 player... I decided to go with a flash memory MP3 player, the ones that use memory sticks.

SO, here are the pro and cons of these devices.

Pro's for the Memory Stick Mp3 players

-Cheaper. WAY CHEAPER than Hard drive types.

-If you go into music match and file convert to MP3 Pro and shrink the size of your MP3 to like, say 3o percent... you can really make a good Kompression. Example. My Memorex MP3 player has 32mbs of memory on board. It is expandable to 256mb. 32 mb will basically let you put one cd's worth of music. It is easy to put music on and off of them, due to your computer reading the USB as just another hard drive, so you drag and drop to put on, delete them to take them off. But, after you shrink your files to MP3 Pro 30 percent, you can put twice as many. So, basically a 256mb chip will allow me to put 208 songs on my little less than palm size MP3 player. And it wieghs like 3 ounces.

- More on memory. These little chips are the size of the upper part of your thumb, at least my thumb anyway. They come in 128mb, 256mb, 512mb and even though there aren't any MP3 machines out there to handle them YET, you can even buy a 1.5gig thumb size chip thingy. Considering the size of the chips and the shrinking kompression I told you about earlier, I could shrink my whole KOLLEKTION down to 10 of those 1.5gig chips. At the current shrink rate I am at 5 DVD's, which are way bigger and more fragile than these little chips.

- Not as fragile as hard drive type. You can drop one of these chips and not scratch it. I wouldn't stomp on one with my foot, nor get one in water, but they are encased in plastic. Ruggedish.

- Batteries last for like two days. There isn't much going on here, no moving parts, no laser or hard drive to put power to. Most of these flash Memory types have a single AA battery. I use a rechargeable type, so we are talking very low cost here.
In comparison to the hard drive types, where you will get a solid 8 hours of playing, this really whupps up.

- Size. Small. Very small. Mine is three inches by three inches. A square. But, you can get smaller ones. And the memory chips that go in them are the same ones you use for your camera. And you can put files on them. If you want to put a word doc on your memory chip, you can. Your Mp3 won't recognize it, but it is nifty storage.

COMPARISON/CONTRAST

- Size does matter. In the case of hard drive Mp3 players... lets face it, you can, if you so chose to, put a library of congress on these monsters. They are the caddilacs of the hand held devices, and guzzle batteries like gasoline. But when it comes down to it, size is the only thing they have going for them. I don't mean to downplay the hard drive types, but don't drop them, don't shake them, and after shelling out $499 to Apple you might consider insurance. Apple doesn't care about you or your apple after 10 days of ownership.

- Price/Komparison. IPOD ran me $499 bucks. My memorex MP3 player ran me 45 dollars. The 128 memory chip runs you 50 bucks. Owch. There really isn't a comparison to the two. The memory stick Mp3 players just kick butt on this issue. And, you get MORE than a ten day return policy, since you buy these things at Target/Wal Mart etc...

So, that is my review in a nutshell
*************************************

Not completely sure why I am getting such a roasting on this review. I am only reporting what happened to me, and how I bought another product and compared the two.... I am not trying to change anyones mind, but letting someone know what happened to me.

OK, this is a splitter. You can buy a cheap one anywhere but this one is well-made. The design matches the iPod well but it's functional as well. The black circle is a rubberized material with ridges that provide a good place to hold the splitter while you plug or unplug headphones. It works great.

I bought the splitter to use with a laptop playing DVD's while on vacation so that my wife and I could both listen with headphones (extremely important not to wake kids, especially while trying to enjoy a quiet moment on vacation). It works well on the plane too where you must use headphones to not disturb other passengers.

This thing is sweet, it works great to play your ipod through your stereo!!!

I read the short description of the product, then there is no Specifications what so ever mention or found to this item.
I would like to say for any upgrade around a $100.00 to achieve 300 to 400 MHz and of course enough Ram is sufficiant to run windows without crashing or locking up, and yes, minimum to keep up the moderate gaming apps. What I need is the required voltage settings (Core Volts) and frequency range and multiplier set. Also, the Front Bus speed... Well, that's the bottom line, Oh, one more thing the 'pin' count. Thanks 'trd55'.

One thing you need to check before trying this chip is whether your motherboard will run a chip with a voltage requirement of 3.45-3.65 i.e. 3.5 volts. Many boards support 5,3.5, or 3.3. Mine in particular has a jumper for 5 or 3.3 but not for 3.5 so the chip does not work.

So maybe 233 MHz isn't that much these days. It means a lot more then it seems like, though. Trust me. 233 is the cutoff point, you see. Games, for example; Loads of games, more then any other speed, require a 233 MHz processor. Most scanners do, as do applications and decent services. It's the minimum these days.

I used to use a 166 MHz processor, and nothing worked on my computer. Then, I simply bought this tiny upgrade, and suddenly EVERYTHING would work on it. Even new games, like The Sims and Diablo 2, accept this speed.

So if you don't want to blow a thousand and some odd on a brand-new computer, go for this. It's easier to install then it looks, too.

I bought this monitor because of all the excellent reviews it
got, because of Viewsonic's service reputation, past satisfaction with Viewsonic products, and because it looked good in a store. However, on my machine (a Dual Athlon with a Radeon 9700 card) it flickers incessantly, making it useless. Viewsonic has not responded with assistance or a warrantly replacement despite my submitting 3 requests with them.


When it works, it looks nice for the price, but since it is
unviewable about 50% of the time (the flicker sets in after 2-6 hours of uptime), that's not so great. I'd like to have given
it a good review, but it's hosed, and Viewsonic's support has
gotten very unresponsive since I last had a problem with one of
their monitors. I am reconsidering whether or not to purchase
any of their monitors in the future based on this experience.

Best investment on my computer - I spend a lot of time reading on the computer, and this has made my eyes relax.

My parents have the VX900 19" LCD, but I highly prfer this one. More widescreen so movies look better. I have the DVI connection going, and while playing UT 2003 I had ZERO ghosting problems.

Great monitor, great company, nothing more to be said!

I had to replace my 17" crt, so I started shopping for a flat panel. I decided on the vg191, and don't have any regrets. It's only a few days old now, but so far I love it. Nice big picture, no dead pixels, very bright and vivid. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a big flat panel that will not break the bank buying it.

Firstly, the image is beautiful. It's brighter than many LCDs. It's much more responsive -- no ghosting when you drag windows around, fast enough to play games on without smearing the way many LCDs do. The DVI-D display is rock solid when it's working. The analog VGA input is slightly substandard, however it's nice if you have a second system and would like to use the monitor buttons to switch between the VGA and DVI-D sources without a KVM. The built in speakers are pretty weak, but they're plenty for business use. The portrait display orientation feature is cute, but the rotation is all done in software you isntall on your PC, not in hardware. This means that display rotation comes at a signficant cost to performance, and video overlays simply don't work, or end up offset from the blue "genlocking" area much of the time. You simply won't enjoy watching DVDs or playing games with the display rotated. There's also a big bad side to the VP201M and VP201MB that you can't ignore: They have serious compatibility problems with many, many video cards. The VP201 monitors were produced before the 1600x1200 DVI-D display standard was ratified. And while some cards (most notably, Geforce 4 Tis, Geforce 3, some ATIs) have a compatibility mode for early release monitors like the VP201 series, many other cards (Geforce 3MX, 4MX, ATI 7500, some Mac Powerbook models) do not. You'll get green noise all over the display, or strange grey distortions. Do yourself a favor and write a note to Viewsonic support before buying. They won't give a full list of compatible cards, but they will generally tell you whether a given card works in 1600x1200 DVI-D mode or not. Keep future upgrades in mind as well. Viewsonic doesn't track the newest cards, and if you're like me, you may find yourself trying four new upgrades before finding one that works. This would be a five star monitor if it didn't restrict your ability to upgrade to new graphic cards without worry.

I too use this monitor at work, where I often spend long hours staring at the screen. It is the biggest, clearest, brightest and easiest on the eyes of any monitor I have used professionally or personally. I have no complaints about it whatsoever, except that it is just too expensive for me to justify buying one for my home computer. Of all the LCD monitors I have seen, used or played around with, this one has the best base with the most logical, sturdy and free-moving mechanism for making adjustements to angle, height and portrait vs. landscape view. It is actually difficult to acclimate to using another screen after using this one for any period of time, because this monitor improves the interface experience so much.

I read the other review that gave it three stars. I have not noticed any problems with the antiglare coating or picture at all. To my untrained eye, the picture is perfect. The best I've seen. Then again, this is my first LCD screen. The other person should consider returning theirs. Perhaps they got a faulty one.

As for the graphics card compatability problem, I imagine thats due to its landscape/portrait feature. Without installing the PerfectPortrait(R) Display Pivot Software that allows the Monitor to be used in portrait mode, I'm sure that this monitor would be just as compatible as any other monitor with video cards. I usee it with a GeForce4 Ti4200 myself.

I used this monitor at work where I can spend as much as 10 hours in front of it. It is easy on the eyes and has a nice sharp picture. The portrait mode is great when it comes to word processing or web surfing.

The only problems I have encountered are with the PerfectPortrait software. If I shut down Windows XP while in portrait mode, I get the blue screen of death when I boot up. I also get the BSoD when I use a 3d accelerated screen saver in portrait mode. However, Considering that most software is not written with changing screen dimentions in mind, I have no complaints.

I have used this monitor for 7 mounths and I highly recommend it.

The product is OK, but Microtek's support options are second to, well, everyone. You can call a toll number, listen to more options than you ever thought possible, and hold for at least twenty minutes, or you can browse their shockingly inadequate website. I'm not sure that it isn't more prudent to go with a different brand that has more comprehensive support options, especially if you are a new or inexperienced user.

The scanner itself has what I value most: dependability. I need something that works everyday as I have no down time in my digital photography and design business. I can't tell a customer to hold on while I'm trying to get a product in for service. Needless to say this has not broken down on me since. It has metal rails which is nice when everything else looks like they have gone entirely plastic. With that being said I like the fact that they give you an advanced menu bar, not treating you as if you are to incompetent to know what color curves and descreening are used for. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about don't worry, they have a simple version of the software that comes with the scanner.

I'm been shooting film for quite some time and decided to give digital a try. I consider myself to be a professional and wanted a professional scanner, but not something that would put me out. After reading a bunch of reviews I came up with the 8700 Pro. Came with Silverfast which I have heard great things about and this software that lets you blow up a 35mm slide to near poster size without pixelation occuring. Scanner also comes with calibration software that allowed me to plug in my ICM profile into the software for the correct color on everything. Next step is to obtain a great printer. I recommend B&H as they were excellent on helping and the scanner shipped pretty fast.

I have had nothing but problems with this monitor. So far, the company (NEC) has sent me 2 DOA (dead on arrival) replacement monitors that are supposedly rebuilt. They are both worse than my original.

I think this model just wears out faster than the average CRT monitor. Mine died after 1 year.

This is a good intermediate quality monitor. The display is perfectly flat and has excellent sharpness and color saturation, and at 1280x1024x75Hz the display is very clear.

There are three things about this monitor that I don't like. First is the contrast. You have to turn the brightness and contrast up all the way to make whites appear white. Second is the image quality at higher resolutions. If you go higher than 1280x1024 the quality of text degrades noticeably, and at 1600x1200 you'll give yourself headaches trying to read anything.

The thing about this monitor that I liked the least were these two annoying lines across the upper and lower halves of the screen. At first I thought it was a defect, but the manual says they're supposed to be there (so if you buy this monitor, you too will have to live with these lines). The lines aren't that bad if you're reading text or surfing with a browser, but try to do image editing or graphic design with this; it drove my wife and I nuts.

While the monitor does have a sharp image and good color, the poor contrast and annoying lines were too much for me to accept for the price I paid, and today I returned the monitor.

Before buying it, and over a period of 6 weeks, I compared the Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 920 with almost all top monitor manufacturers, from Sony, Viewsonic, Samsung, Eizo, NEC, Hitachi, CTX, Sceptre, and KDS. My key metric was performance, followed by price. I needed a new monitor to replace my 17 inch Optiquest V775 which had lost its blue color after 5 years of use.

So why did I settle on the Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 920?

1. Very high resolutions and refresh rates: I am running it at 1600 x 1200 at 85 Hz (maximum PC resolution and fully flicker free). You can also run it at 1280 x 1024 at 85 Hz or lower.

2. A uniform 0.24 mm aperture grille (AG) pitch. This is in contrast to the latest Sony FD Trinitron tubes which have a variable 0.24 (center) -0.25 (corners) AG pitch.

3. Outstanding and uniform focus throughout the display area, regardless of resolution, and even at 1600 x 1200.

4. Excellent geometry: straight and parallel edges on all 4 corners, with only a very slight, almost unnoticeable bowing in of the video image on the top of the monitor.

5. Superb on screen display and controls - more than you will ever use. Full controls for size, angle, geometry, color purity (4 controls for 4 corners), horizontal and vertical alignment of blue, red, and green guns, ... you name it! All in a very intuitive and easy to use format.

6. A "fine picture mode", enabled via a single key in front of the monitor, that enhances the contrast for text based applications.

7. Light (for a 19 inch monitor) - less than 10 lbs more than my old 17 inch, at 51 lbs (23 kg).

8. Space saving - a short depth of only 18 inches - this is only 0.5 inches deeper than my old 17 inch monitor!

9. And finally, Mitsubishi quality which has made its monitors famous among graphic professionals and desktop publishers.

As for the price, this monitor is only ... more ... than the 17 inch Sony CPD-G200, with better quality and specs, and 2 inches more (diagonal) of space....

I highly recommend this monitor.

payman

I haven't used alot of differant keyboards but I am supprised that this one has an extended hub on it. This keyboard came with my Imac and I think its great. I just pluged in my mouse on one side and my printer on the other and to my supprise printed! The fact that it is clear and black does make dust and dirt very noticable when present. But it looks very nice and with an extra usb port I'm happy with it.

The new apple keyboards have black keys and clear plastic...cool look and the usual functionality.

...are those who can't properly use spell checker.

I liked this printer at first because I was able to insert my CF card from my digital camera right into the front of the printer. It would then download all my pictures.
Soon I found the ink clogs so easily that after about 5 pages printed the black ink was only half there. It was very light and smudged. I would have to get it to run a cleaning cycle. Sometimes it had to clean 3 times or so before the black would work. It also happened with the colors several times.
The photo printing was so-so.
Then I got an "error 41." This says to unplug the printer and call brother. Great. Its a generic catch all error I've found and it can mean your printer is now useless. This happened to me after only having the printer 5 or 6 months.

I researched these machines until the cows came home ( literally , I live on a farm) . I had a 5yr. old Brother MFC that provided good service but was no longer compatible with my new computer's Windows XP . I worried about reviews about low print quality . After 6mos. of service I find the only thing I don't like is my inability to copy from a book . It may be that I'm doing something wrong . Everything works great ! It fits nicely on my computer station , is quiet , fast and easy to operate . I even figured out how to scan pictures to file and to email !! I'm just your everyday shopper/emailer/info researcher so this machine is everything I need .

I have been very pleased with this multifunction printer. It is very quiet and has everything you need. One feature that is really nice is that you can hook your digital camera memory card right to the printer and print the pictures without having to go on the computer. I am comparing this printer to our old one, which was loud and wasn't a multifuncion, but the quality of this one is so much better and I love having the copier without having to scan things to the computer. I really reccomend this multifunction printer.

I've just tried a few basic functions and encountered the following problems.

(1)Color reversal-with the factory packed cartridges in the correct spot, red turns into yellow, yellow turns into red, blue turns into green when copying.

(2) Scanning makes very loud clicking noise

(3) Envelop printed out in the reverse direction when feeding according to the diagram on the feeder.

I have not tried other more sophisticated functions yet...

Brother customer service couldn't solve the problem over the phone. I took it to Brother authorized repair shop which took 3.5 days to find out all the replacement parts they have to order. Then the technician said he cannot guarantee that once the replacement parts arrive from NJ, he won't need to order more parts to fix all the problems. So I decided to just return it and purchase something else. I cannot be out of office machine for a month.

This Brother is quiet, and fast with high resolution. I have found it to be everything they promised, and in a sleek executive style package. The only reason this multifunction printer is not 5 stars is; since it is a flatbed, faxes need to be placed on the glass one at a time instead of sheet feed.

I rarely by an electronic device without reading all reviews but being that this is a new product on the market I decided that it was my turn to be the guinea pig and write a review. The 4820C has everything that I wanted in a small neat design and the price was terrific. All that was left to know was how it performed.
I've had the machine for three weeks and it has been most enjoyable. Keeping in mind that you just can't have everything, this machine is a great all-in-one and does the job nicely. I can't say that the print qulaity is better than any other inkjet printer but it is just fine and the color copies are impressive. The black copies only look nice when set to "best quality" otherwise they are grey and fuzzy.
Scanner and fax are good. As you know from the description, multiple pages first have to be scanned one by one, so if you send a lot of multiple page faxes, this may not be the machine for you.
This is not a powerhouse for any of the functions but for home and home office use it is really great to have it all in one small machine.
Oh, and unless you really need the phone and answering machine built-in (due to lack of space), you may as well go for the model without the phone because this feature is far from top-notch. The speakerphone is no good and the message center registers all calls even if a message was not left. You may come home one day and find 5 messages of just beeps. This is annoying.
I gave the machine 5 stars not because it is a wonder but because it is everything I expected. For $250 it is terrific value!

Perhaps this printer is useful at home but for a "small workgroup" as advertised, the printer is useless. Prints hundreds of pages of garbage from Explorer or Netscape, from Windows or Mac, has no "off" button to reset when it freezes (which is several times a day at this point) and when you unplug the thing to reset it, it loses its network identity. The printer utility's preferences file must then be trashed before setting the printer up again or it crashes the computer. In addition, the extra [$$$] for the network version does not get you an internal ethernet port, but rather a flimsy external USB to ethernet adapter. This printer is garbage, our small workgroup is back to using our 5 year old 5 ppm printer with a broken cassette.

Our home network consists of a router/hub, a dual-boot PC (Windows Me/Mandrake Linux) and a Mac (OS 9). The printer plugged straight into the hub, and was able to be set up using DHCP (our IP address strategy using our hub) as it came out of the box.

The instructions were very clear, and the printer worked properly for all of our setups. The print quality (when econo-mode is turned off) is fantastic, and in general, we're very pleased with the printer.

If your network has static IP addresses, or some other way of set-up than DHCP, it may be harder to configure the printer than it was for me (the other post I see here indicates that this is apparently something to be somewhat concerned about).

I love the printer and recommend it for a multiple-platform environment where you need high-quality black and white printing over a network at a reasonable cost.

I've had three printers in the last 12 years (An HP540 Laser-jet, HP 900CSE, and this one;HP 1200 Laser-jet).

This is by-far my favorite one. For one, it's a laser printer which produces, clean, crisp, non-smudged, black and white prints. And, two, it never jams. I've had this printer for 18 months and it's worked flawlessly.

I used to be a "bubble-jet" consumer. But now, I've made the jump to laser and I'm glad I did. The prints are just much more consistent. It's not noisy like the HP900 (bubble-jet) was. That one was slow and loud (shook from side to side when it printed). This one warms up with a humming sound and then prints out nice clean letters. You can adjust the print quality if you like too, but that also means that you will need to replace the cartridge sooner. I've only had ONE cartridge so far, and it's about due to be replaced. I print out about 150-200 pages per month. So, it's not like I run a "print shop" or anything. But considering that I've had this for over 18 months and not one jam, that's saying something. I'm quite happy with this printer.

...