Apple Reviews

We have a second-hand laptop, which didn't come with it's own cigarette/car adapter. So we purchased this product.

It works great, no power issues at all. My only complaint is that it gets really hot, so if you can place it near an AC vent in the floorboard of your vehicle, that'd be a good idea.

This product works great as we have used it a good few times
for operating a laptop in the car.
However, it gets very-very hot very quickly. Not sure if this
is normal.

Like others, I have used this product in a car to power a laptop and such small equipment. It works great. My only wish is that it would have an attachment for airplanes, which it does not.

I have the 30 GB portable firewire hard drive. The hard drive is great because of the size which makes it easy to carry around. The issues I have with my drive is that it makes a buzzing sound when it is mounted. It's louder than any drive I've ever had and becomes annoying after a few minutes. I wrote VST support to verify that it's suppose to buzz and have not heard back from them for 2 days. I call their support line (not toll free) and I'm constantly on hold forever.
Also, I was disappointed with the color of the hard drive because all the pictures that are associated with the 'graphite' color looks gray. The actual color of the 'graphite' color is a light grayish blue. (It's less attractive then the gray, so don't get too hooked on the gray because you'll be pretty disappointed.)

This is the first VST product I've bought---since then, i've only bought VST brand HDs---not just at home, but also at work. Unlike it's brother, it does not rely on a AC adapter for power, which is a real plus when bringing work home. The data transfer is great for a few files, but don't expect speedy transfers when trying to copy huge directories (ie number of files) but in single (or smaller #) large files, the copy speed is great. The hard plastic shell has proven time and again that this is a durrable drive, designed to take more than just desktop abuse. With the two FireWire ports on the back, this drive can be daisy chained with other FireWire products. With great customer support (VST) and my past experiences with their products, I would recommend this drive for both the office and home.

Have used a different color version for two years now, bringing back and forth from home to work everyday. No problems whatsoever. Speed is about the same as other firewire drives

The USB version is great step up from the old parallel version. Faster and self-powered. No more dragging round that horrible thick cable or external mains unit BUT build quality is [poor]. The unit is cheaply made, rattles and the USB port is obviously soldered to a [unsatisfactory]PCB that is poorly secured in the pastic shell. BAD quality throughout on the hardware front I fear. However, it works, the discs are robust and I guess in a few years you can chuck the drive and buy another. It's pretty much a disposable price now anyway. At 100MB though you may be better off buying a USB hard disc dongle like the Disgo. A really good 128 MB storage and very strong. ZIP discs have a place but a 100 MEG is probably on the last few years of life. Guess that Iomega know this and that's why they have released such a cheaply made unit.

I had to come into the 21st century and use a backup better than the old 1.44 floppy drive. I bought the Iomega 100 mb zip and it is an improvement, however I am always having to reinstall it because it seems to disappear. It is always wanting me to install a storage device driver everytime I boot. There has to be a better backup drive out there. I thought Iomega was the leader in the field, but I guess they are like HP and put out junk too.

In my work I deal with a lot of sizable files--25-30 megabytes is common. These don't do well on my lap top. My solution has been to use the Iomega 31234 Zip 100 MB USB Starter Kit by Iomega.

While my company and my customers use a wide array of computers, virtually all have USB ports. This compact, lightweight device is easy to carry, easy to install and, based on my experience, apparently indestructible.

The kit also comes with 6 multi colored, rewritable disks. That's 600 MB of storage, which is a lot more than usually comes with these devices. Moreover, the color disks are nice as I can color code disks to companies I'm visiting and quickly and easily get the one I want, get things set up and get rolling.

The other thing I like about this system is that the way these devices work, you can use a 100 MB disk on a 250 MB disk drive, but not vice-versa. I have a 250 in my PC and do my heavy work on that and download the specific files I need to the 100MB disks for road warrior duty.

So, all in all what you get is a very easy, reliable and flexible system that you can use virtually anywhere.

So, get this puppy, clean up your hard drive and get more productive!

I thought the scanner was great, but the lamp went out just after 1 year after I bought it. So now all my scans have a rainbow line from top to bottom. Microtek's extent of technical support is reinstall the drivers, if that doesn't work you have to return it so we can repair it, because there are no authorized repair people out there, but us. They will not sell me the lamp, because they need to repair it themselves (they want the labor dollars). So, after I paid $1,400 for this thing a year ago I am going to have to pay another $200-300 for repair and shipping both ways.

Microtek makes one of the only large format scanners on the market today, which concerned me as I don't like to see a monopoly as then product quality won't be job #1. I was surpised, albit pleasantly when I was received the scanner from CDW and how easy it was to use. It has SCSI, Firewire and USB connections on the back which make it easy to setup and install. Scanner quality is excellent as we scan dental xrays and then send them to insurance companies, who are always complaining about fuzziness of the scans. Needless to say we have had no difficulties with this Microtek and would probably buy another one in the future!

I have waited four years to buy a large bed scanner. I will never understand why the slight difference in scanner bed size increases the cost so greatly, (an 11 X 14 scanner is as little as $...) but that's the market as it stands. As an artist, I needed a scanner that would capture my work in one scan.

The Microtek scanner came practially ready to go right out of the box and installed into Windows XP effortlessly. It even came with a firewire card to install into the computer in the event the buyer didn't already have one. Very considerate! All necessary cables, both a Firewire OR a USB will operate it, and all the software was there and ready to go. Plugged in, it woke right up and scanned perfectly on it's first time out, as easy as downloading pics from my digital camera. No problems!

Amazon.com not only had the best price after a year of looking around, but offered free shipping and still got it to me the next day. If I had to spend this much on the scanner I at least got great service and treated well by the seller, as well as a quality product. OUTSTANDING!

This is my first flat screen monitor. I'm not super-happy with it, but I don't have any basis for comparison. When I took it out of the box and plugged it in, it worked fine, except it's blurry. I get the feeling that I have about 20/40 vision when I look at the screen. I checked the manual to see if there was an adjustment to make the image sharp or put the image in focus, and the problem was not mentioned in the manual. I searched the Web and found a few comments about flat screen monitors being out of focus, and that it requires some specialist technical skills to get the correct settings so that the image is sharp. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any more specific information about which settings to change or where, and so I've had to resign myself to the blur. For that reason, I wouldn't recommend this model of flat screen monitor to anyone but an expert who knows how to get the correct settings to make the monitor work properly. On the other hand, it is nice having the extra desk space and the speakers that are built into the monitor. So far, I have one dead pixel in the middle of the screen, but other than that and the blurriness problem, the monitor seems to function well enough.

It's the brightest screen I have seen. The angels are amazing. When I have friends come over they can see my screen at almost any angles. They have all commented on it. And the 16ms is awesome. Games look great on it. Only problem is the resolution needs to be really high or things might turn blurry. However that's the same with all lcd screens and their native resolutions. I need a better video card now.:)

Benq FP767 has the best performance/cost ratio: with 500:1 contrast and 260 cd/m2, other LCD panels just look pale and dark sitting beside FP767.

Convinient one-touch adjustment.

I tried to use it with a Jaz and a Zip drive on a Mac. It barely works. Only good for small file transfers. Large file transfer (10-20MB) fail due to "write errors" across the SCSI bus. Works better with a PC but the manufactor is no longer supporting this item (so NO OS X support)

This device has worked perfectly and flawlessly for both my legacy MAC and my Dell PC; I use it with an Iomega SCSI Jaz drive to back up these as well as my kid's iMac. Installation doesn't get any simpler. One caveat: the SCSI drive is just as tempermental as it always was - don't blame the converter! E.g., the drive must be on and loaded before your computer is turned on for the drive and "removable media" to be recognized at start-up; from there, the removable media can be removed, swapped, etc. At least that's been my experience.

This adaptor cable is like an upgrade for my zip drive! I replaced the old scsi to scsi cable and added this cable: scsi into the zip drive, usb into my G3 powerbook, installed the driver with 1 easy step from the enclosed CD, back in business!...it rocks! yeeehaw!

I bought the 6800 after using a lower grade Microtek scanner for 9 months. The old one kept locking up after doiong a scan directly to the printer. The 6800 did the same. I contacted Microtec and they walked me through a down load (via e-mail and a printout) from their site. Still had same problem after taking same steps 3 times and the fourth time I tried to reload the disk that came with the scanner. Still same problem. I again contacted Microtek. This time no responce. I retured the scanner to the store. However, if don't use the direct scan buttons, and go through the program steps, it does scan well. Tired to do a few slides, and only got a black square. People at store said maybe I had a bad light in the 35mm adapter. Anyway, for a new scanner that I paid $150.00 for, I guess I expected everything to work!

I got the ScanMaker because I have lots of photos from my wedding to scan. I also have roughly 450 medium format negatives from my photographer. Scanning both has been a breeze. The scanner software can operate in advanced mode, which allows saving different areas of the scan as different images, but in one scanning pass. So for my negatives, I can scan 4 negatives into 4 separate images. Very nice.

Image resolution and color reproduction are top notch. Digital ICE is great for images and saves some post-scan touch-up time. It would be nice to have it for film, but I consider it to be a bonus even for photos.

My only complaint: The USB cable is way too short. The power cable is nice and long though. If this were fixed, it would get a 5.0.

After using ASF's software for a while I was very interested in this product. I saw that it only worked on reflective images, not slides and negatives which was disheartening at first but the actual product more than made up my initial percieved shortcomings. The scanner is very fast when you do not use the digital ice feature. When you do use it you need to give it some time to work its magic but it does work wonders. If you have old pictures that are torn up or scratched then this is what you need. It's suprising to see a product today that works as advertised. Edit: I should re-phrase that it does scan slides and negatives, just not with the digital ice function (restoring ability). I will keep everyone up to date with my progress with the 6800 but so far so good!!

Pros: USB 2.0 and Firewire connections for both my PC and Mac. Fast scanning when not using digital ice. Excellent photo reproduction capabilities!

Cons: No ice function for negatives

I bought this monitor in July 2000 and have now owned it for 3 days. The monitor is compact and relatively lightweight (31 pounds). The image quality seems comparable to the much more expensive 21-inch monitor I have at work. If you don't want to spend much money for a monitor, this seems like a logical choice. In general, NEC is a reputable brand while if you find something any cheaper, you are probably sacrificing manufacturer quality.

I bought this monitor to replace my aging Acer 15" monitor. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a new monitor because I plan to buy a new system in a few months. The NEC is much nicer than my old monitor, with sharp detail and vivid colors. The viewing area is small but I can live with it. I took it out of the box, plugged it into the PC and a power outlet, and here I am.

After seeing this monitor in a set-up ... , I decided it was just what I was shopping for. But....the store did not carry NEC. I went to three other stores here in town and could not find a 15-inch NEC - all were 17's. That was Monday, July 17. I came home and ordered from Amazon. The monitor was delivered by standard shipping this morning - July 19! It is all I expected and then some. If you are looking for a 15-inch monitor at a bargain price, this may be your best bet.

There are several reasons why I do not recommend this printer:

1. Lack of Customer Support. Sony is notorious for bad support. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried getting support via email, chat and phone and did not get any help.

2. Picture Quality. While the pictures are sharp, the colors are really off. When I have tried printing several pictures, they come out with a yellow tint. These same pictures were sent to an online printer and came back okay.

3. LCD Screen. Even though Sony makes the screen really easy to use, it does not always reflect the exact way a picture comes out. I found myself wasting a lot of paper because the picture on the screen looked good but then printed out too yellow, etc.

4. Documentation. The documentation they include with the printer is very poor.

I received this printer for Christmas and I am definitely thinking about bringing it back. It is definitely not the quality I expected from Sony.

"Wow!" That's just what we thought when we hooked up Sony's latest DPP-EX7 digital photo printer. The DPP-EX7 is an on the spot photo editor, borderless coated printer, and memory accessible device (no need for a PC). These qualities make it the perfect printer for quick high quality prints. Today Bytesector will explore the ups and downs of this printer. (full review @ Bytesector.com)

This is a great printer if you are using a good camera like the dsc-v1. The only thing is it takes 90 seconds for one photo but the photo IS worth the wait. Good quality.

According to Sony's spec for the LCD. The max resolution is only 1280x1024. Not sure where these guys got their numbers from. Office Depot doesn't even list this on their site.

First, because I needed a monitor NOW, I ended up buying this monitor locally and paying about ... more for it than if I had bought it from Amazon (after shipping, rebates, and taxes).

Second, this is a very nice monitor. I'm hooked up via the DVI connection, so that might make a difference if you use the standard monitor connection. Pictures on the monitor are absolutely beautiful. Things like video clips and DVD playbacks look just fine (I've still done very few of those). Text, on the other hand, looks somewhat grainy (it varies from screen to screen), though it's still quite acceptable. I think this is actually a function of the dot-pitch for the monitor being larger than what my old CRT's was. This graininess can be mitigated by loading Microsoft's Clear Type in Windows XP and using the tuning utility. Also, make sure you adjust the Contrast and Brightness (turn the Contrast all the way up and then turn the Brightness down until blacks actually appear black (with Contrast at 100, my Brightness is at 25)). The display area of this monitor is actually somewhat bigger than what was displayed on my old 19" CRT (though the rated 18.1" is theoretically the same). So, if you want, you could also increase your font size for better viewing.

One other thing. The monitor is back-lit and comes set to 100% illumination. Unless you're looking at this thing in a highly lit room, you can probably turn this off entirely (use the "ECO" button on the bottom of the column of control buttons). At a minimum, you can definitely turn the backlighting down to, say, 70% (probably more).

One thing I do wish the monitor had is some type of swivel feature. You can tilt the angle of the display to your heart's content. But, there's no way to turn it from landscape to portrait mode. Also, and I should have thought of this before I bought it, there's no place to put the center speaker in a 5.1 speaker setup. With my old CRT, I just rested the speaker on top. Since there's essentially no depth to this monitor, that's impossible. On the bright side, there's plenty of room behind the monitor for that same speaker. :)

One final note: The "Utility" CD that comes with the monitor is totally useless. All it has on it is a DOS, Windows, and Mac version of a test screen. It doesn't even come with a monitor INF file. When I plugged the monitor in via the DVI port under XP, Windows changed over to a standard LCD screen driver (everything worked fine, it's just not fully accurate). You'll definitely need to go to Sony's web site and download the proper INF file.

We bought the monitor for our office manager and she absolutely loves it. The size, clarity, and color are perfect for someone who spends all day in front of a computer monitor.