Computer Reviews

I have a Dell Dimension 8200. I went to their website to see what kind of ram I should buy, and how much it would cost. They told me to buy something that cost twice as much as this! I also went to the Simple Tech website, and this ram was not listed as being compatible with my computer. But I read the review by aeronutz and thought I would take a chance... and am I glad I did! It works fine, no problems. No more thrashing of my hard drive! Thank you!!!

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 running Windows XP Pro, and after having to return two RIMMs purchased through Dell's website, I resorted to looking at other alternatives. This module has an access time of 40 ns whereas the Dell-branded memory that was sent to me (based on my service tag number) was 45 ns. Be sure you know the access time of your existing RIMMs if you are upgrading your machine! After installing this memory (remember that your machine will require TWO of these modules) into my machine and increasing my total memory to 512MB, a significant performance improvement was evident. Consequently, I would highly recommend this memory to anyone wishing to upgrade their machine.

Simple Tech makes this impressive RAMBUS 128MB RIMM. My computer dramatically increased its speed and performance. It's got a great price and was easy to install. Upgrading is an easier and cheaper solution than buying a brand new computer.

One year after I bought my Gateway desktop PC I realized I had to increase my memory capacity to boost my computer's performance by purchasing a Simple tech 256MB DIMM memory. My next step was to increase my Windows performance (Of course I am referring speed). The installation was very easy and immediately increased my CPUs speed, which enabled me to multi-task between applications...

I know that not alot of people probably run their computer to the extreme that I do. I do direct-to-hard drive music production and recording as well as develop web sites, so I really push my processor to the limit. I was crashing alot and a buddy of mine said that I should increase my RAM. BIG difference, and the memory works great!!! No more crashes!

Really needed to increase my computer's performance running windows, so I decided to pick up this simpletech 256mb memory. It installed very easily and really increased the speed of my computer a lot.. It is as if I have a brand new computer since I installed this upgrade. Can't complain about the mail in rebate too. good deal go buy one and run your computer faster.

I shopped for a new 36 inch TV for 2 weeks. I went out to 4 different stores and looked at all the new models, from JVC, to Panasonic, to sony WEGA and XBR. I finally decided on THIS TV. The Model # is Fv300. This is the 2nd model down, (below HDTV) in the WEGA 36 inch line. The features such as infared headphones, picture in picture, "WoW" sony simulated surround sound, and a 3D DIGITAL COMB, as opposed to 3 line digital, which appears in almost all average price TV's. The 3D Digital does make a difference, and only beging in WEGA in the Fv300. There are two S video connectors (1 rear, 1 front), and plenty of A/V jacks in the rear (19 of them).

Heres the catch, the stand. It cost me 219.00 bucks. Im not sure how much you can find it for, but that is the proper WEGA stand, custom made by SONY for this TV. Let me say...it is one SOLID stand and LOOKS like its worth over 200 dollars. It really does make the presentation. The cheapest quality stand you could find will still run between 99.99 and 169.99 anyway. So I suggest doing as I did, and just going for it.

Another issue is the weight of this thing. It's easily 240lbs, some websites claim its more. If you plan on taking this home, your gonna need someone with an SUV or a truck, the box is enormous. I would suggest getting it delivered so you can have them put it right on the stand for you. Me and my brother are weightlifters, so we didnt have too much of a problem getting it in and on the stand , but I would suggest ATLEAST 3 strong people. All the weight is in the front, too.

When your past all the setting up, your gonna be happy with your TV. The audio out connection is easy for a home theatre system. I connected a Sony system, and Im attempting to dual connect Klipsch 5.1's.

So youve read about the TV, what are the differences in the different models of 36 inch WEGA?

FS100- basic model, cheapest, no PIP, No 3d digital comb, No Tru surround sound...basically lacks important features.

FS200- Adds PIP, and other basic features, but very similar to the FS100.

FV300- This is the model I bought. PIP, 3D digital comb, free infared headphones (which allow you to listen to TV from a distance), etc etc etc...it's loaded.

FV500- HDTV model, includes all features of the Fv300, but adds the somewhat "gimmicky" HDTV feature. It looks nice but you'll need an HDTV sattalite connection, or some other form to use it. ALso, not all stations broadcast HDTV. It is TV of the future, but its not here yet. Save the 500 bucks.

Sony XBR- A step above WEGA, HDTV capable, and 40 inch. Runs double the price of the FV300.

Ok, I just wanted to provide you with some insite after my purchase. I'm happy with the Fv300, and I know I made the right choice. Cant beat SONY, Trinitron, and WEGA all in one. I've got two trinitron computer monitors and I was SOLD on the TV just as quickly. They are the best.

We are extremely happy that we purchased this TV. I can't say enough good things about the KV-36FV300.

The picture quality is outstanding. The filtering creates an image that will amaze you. Lines of resolution are almost unnoticeable and dot-crawl is minimal. We hooked up our digital cable with S-Video and the picture is excellent. I even saw a hint of pixelization during movement on one of the digital channels. This is of no concern because we don't have the HD converter box, but that shows how close this set comes to HDTV.

Used the component hook-up for our DVD player. WOW!!! You can get buy with S-Video here but you'll not acheive what this TV can do for you. (Pay a little extra for the component cables!) Sony allows you to select either a 16x9 enhanced mode or Auto for widescreen dvd's and I've found the auto mode allows a bigger picture in widescreen with no sacrafice in picture quality.

There are multiple sound and video modes fore each input to tailor each program, so you don't have to mess with settings constantly. Once you get the Clear Edge VM (velocity modulation) and the DynaBlack settings set the TV never stops blowing you away.

The sound is impressive! It has a 15-watt subwoofer for deep bass when using just the tv speakers, but I prefer my Yamaha theatre system most of the time. The wireless headphones were a nice surprise! The quality is better than expected but the range is limited. These are great for watching those late night games when everyone's asleep. (sports fans, are you awake?)

TV broadcasts through cable, particularly live sports, are simply outstanding. DVD signals are even better!!! And you can't find better sound from a TV anywhere else.

Unless you want to struggle with an HDTV (at least until analog signals are outlawed), BUY THIS TV!!!!!!!!!

(Advice: ...have it delivered, it's worth the money.)

Cheers.

I waited 8 months for last year's $1699 Sony 36 inch TV to go on close out sale. It finally did, *but* then I saw the new model. Better picture - a truely amazing picture. And, imo, much better styling - not that clunky old dark grey box that most TVs have. Once my wife and I saw shows on the regular cable (non-digital) signal, we couldn't get over how sharp and clear and bright it is. Popped in a couple of old VCR tapes, and the difference between the new picture and that on our couple of years old Sony 27 inch, in terms of clarity and brightness, was amazing.

Couldn't be happier!

Ok first of all these mini disc are like game cube dics actualy a little smaller... but the are in a little floppy like diskette. I just had to clear that up becuase every where i went like best buy would tell me that they were just cds but their not. O well they still r awesome and id have to say that these sony dics are the best you can get. though i think the next time i need mini dics i think ill get the sony golds. SO no matter wut ever u like more the colors or the gold id have to say that sony is the way to go .

Sony's MD technology has to be one of the most underrated and undervalued audio systems going! Their portables play back with digital fidelity and enough controls to keep the jogger, commuter or student happy. You can also get one of the home audio-deck recorders and really make music to suit your tastes. These 80-minute discs are flawless in their sound reproduction and can hold up to 323 minutes of music in the LP4 mode. That mode seems to have no appreciable degradation of sound, even with its proprietary compression scheme, from the normal or LP2 modes. Unless you are listening on a home stereo, you'll never notice the difference. The system drops all sounds inaudible to the human ear and that's how it gets its compression. I doubt you'll ever notice the missing bits. The portable players also give about 8-12 hours on a single AA battery. Some of the portables come with a rechargable battery. You can ride a train from Pittsburgh to NYC with two minidiscs and one battery. Or a roundtrip from NYC to DC. Apple's iPod is a superb music device, too, but you have to reload it a lot. MDs allow you to load 'em up and pick and choose what you want to hear when you're ready to trip outside the house. And as far as stuffing your purse or pocket, well, if 5 full CDs fit on one MD and a MD is about the size of two matchbooks so just two MDs can keep you going all day and you will never feel like you're carrying excess baggage.

I bought these SONY Colour Collection blank mini-discs for using with my MZ-R55, and they are excellent. No sound distortion, and definitely no comparison with the Memorex discs. Nothing flimsy here. Only quality, and 5 pretty colours. I really like the charcoal tone one.
What's even better, is that I can put all the discs away in the storage case, and not worry about where they are individually, because they are always there together. If you didn't know already, the colours are: emerald, topaz yellow, charcoal, sapphire and ruby. Even though there are only 8 pieces, there are obviously not two of each colour. If I am right, most sets come with 2 ruby, 2 topaz yellow, 2 emerald, 1 sapphire and 1 charcoal.

Anyhow, these discs withstand a lot of shock, and are to me, shock-resistant. I like the individual little cases they come in too. Nice touch with the transparent white plastic.

Well, these discs are totally worth the money, especially being 80 minutes. I can get lots of songs on them, and they're great for recording entire albums from MP3s.

Great Buy!

I ordered a Dual Battery Charger but received a single batery charger. However the single battery charger had a plug in adapter for a car cigarette lighter. This pleased me. Since this extra compensated me for getting the wrong thing

We bought it so that we could charge 2 batteries at once for the holidays and vactions. We have no complaints and my wife is putting it to good use with the new camera.

Compact, small, super-easy to use; small enough footprint; efficient. In retrospect, something that should've been "standard" with any Sony Cybershot camera. Hooking up my camera to an AC charger is too cumbersome and a pain. This device is so straight forward, with two "pockets" to insert batteries, that having one go dead on you while you're on the road shouldn't happen.

Well worth the price and less cumbersome than the TWO power cords that come with your Sony digital camera (one from your wall to the the charger, the other from the charger to your camera).

With this gizmo, you have just ONE cord. It runs from the wall to the charger. That's it. I always worry about charging my camera from the wall because there isn't enough clearance for the wire and the back panel to your camera. The result is your camera, during charging, is pushed upward at a funny angle, on one edge because the flimsy door panel to access the input jacks is flush bottom. This door feels it could break at the slightest mis-directed touch.

No such worries anymore.

I bought two of these for my Dell Inspiron 8500. They actually worked (both of them ;-D), and well, too. I use a Philips SDVD6004 DVD-Burner (on an Inspiron 8500), and these Sony disks work infinitely better than the Memorex DVD+R's (I burned 6 coasters- out of all 6 burn attempts- using the Memorex DVD's).

Really not much else to say, except these WORK, unlike the Memorex DVD+Rs. Plus, if you have some problem burning these Sony's, you can always erase the disk and try again.

Discs works quite well. No problem using my Sony DRU 500-A DVD burner.

This works fine with Philips DVDR985 DVD recorder and the DVDRW228 DVD+RW drive, which I own and use. The resulting disks also play in my other players that read the +RW discs. No compatiblity problems whatsoever.

The "granite" faceplate matches the Antec SLK3700AMB case perfectly. It's more of a bronze color. I never imagined there would be a drive that matched that case, much less a Sony. If you care at all how nice a case looks, or if you're a mom-and-pop PC shop that wants to sell computers in that good-lookin' case, this is the floppy drive to get.

This is the retail box floppy sold by the inventor of the floppy disk - Sony. I agree you can buy these items at 10% less in other online stores. That is, you are getting an OEM from them - bare drives packaged in bubble wrap. That's it. If it were half the price, then sure buy it. But think about the savings you think you're getting from them - you still pay for shipping and/or taxes. This comes with free shipping and no tax, get the unit with something else and you're all set.

Amazon is offering this retail unit at a good price. For a little bit more, you are getting a sealed unit from the manufacturer box which contains a manual and installation instrutions (which some might need) and two extra faceplates and buttons in color granite (gray) and matte black - which they call as the "color kit". This is especially helpful for people who want to customize the look of their PC. What I did was to mix and match the faceplate and buttons. Why stick with one color throughout.

Frankly, I don't believe in the Sony quality brand anymore as I've experienced with their other products. However, I have to admit that the brand still gives a good impression. All the included faceplates have the Sony brand molded which makes it even more classy to look at and when installed in the PC case. This makes it better than getting any floppy that looks as generic as it can be.

Yes, this is just a floppy. But you're only getting one, right? Make it worthwhile and get from the inventor that offers the best extras in the box.

It is a floppy drive. You plug it in and it works. Enough said.

This is a great unit- I bought a sony mini disc player 6 years ago which just started to give problems (having dropped it many times)so i had to get a new one. This B100 as a great replacement. It is so convenient to have the ability to record and play-back all on one unit-no cords.

Cons.

No lighted display!

This makes it impossible to read even in dimmly lit environments and obviously an oversight on sony's part.

That said, however, an excellent unit, great features and performance

...As a journalist of 25 years experience, I have tried just about every cassette/microcassette/solid-state handheld field recorder out there. Too well do I know the hearbreak of getting back from a day of great interviews to find nothing but a hiss, or hum, or worst of all, a mumble that you cannot quite make out. This recorder solves all of those problems. It is very easy to see that it is recording -- a red light flashes -- which is reassuring while the interview is in progress. It can record for five hours, more than enough for the average reporting day. The media is removable, which means you can tuck the minidisc in a folder and transcribe it later (not possible with the new batch of solid-state microchip recorders). Battery life is fabulous, advertised at 45 hours and I believe it, the battery never seems to give up. It has a nice variable-speed playback feature, so you can run it at 80 percent speed and thus keep up while transcribing. Only minor quibble is that the review feature has a delay...if you want to back up a few seconds to catch a missed word, you have to wait about five seconds for the backing up to begin. Anyway, this thing is not cheap, but if it salvages one interview that would otherwise be lost, it will be more than worth it to the working journalist. I use it for print, but I understand that minidisc is becoming the media of choice for in-the-field radio reporters. I believe it: the sound that comes out of this thing is just plain perfect.

I had recently purchased a Mini disc recorder from the guitar center. It's advertised as a songwriters dream. In a box you get the md recorder, mic, headphones etc. I thought to my self,all these damn cords all the time! with todays technology and demand why hasn't anybody developed a md recorder with built in stereo microphones (along with an optional mic jack), built in speaker (along with an optonal headphone jack)And a variable pitch control (very important). Well, I did some deep research and found that the only way to find such a product was to take a look at sony's line of md recorders and see if there on the ball. Sure enough to my amazement I found the Mz B-100 a buisiness recorder with all the features I'd desired plus more. Except, it's advertised only as a journalists tool. This little bad boy is a songwriters dream for It's quick inspiration and exceptional surround sound quality (if you want). Mono or stereo and two more mega bass boost settings are available. It has a high/low mic sensitivity button. The stereo mics are labeled left and right on each side of the recorder and are by no means a toy, they sound fantastic and I haven't even tried it with an external stereo mic yet,I could only imagine. And the speaker works well enough to monitor your meanderings in quieter setting(not in crowds). You can also monitor while your recording to get the best mic placement with the supplied earphones that are great. Or even better yet, try monitoring at home with a set of professional studio headphones...incredible! It also has an input for an optical cable if you desire to hook it up to a cd player or multitrack recorder. And it has a power supply jack, contrary to the advertised specs. Also You can label each track or pass. And The recording time and battery life are great. It's just an awesome little heavyweight! (can you tell I'm impressed?) Now a few little NEGS and believe me there just a few little ones. The carrying case is rather useless. The only thing it might do is protect the finish, that's it! Besides that, I've seen better carrying pouches that come with more inexpensive ones, I think in considering it's application, a padded case would have been more deserving... besides, I always accidentally hit record when I grab the carrying pouch (not good). And Considering the price of the machine, A display screen that lights up is invaluable to the journalist. Definetely an overseen feature available on lesser md recorders. Another problem is a few of the buttons are rather tiny. I have a very small hand and even I find it difficult to press some of the buttons such as erase, edit/memo, display, etc. Apart from that, It's a powerhouse of a tool. Still amazed that Sony isn't pitching it to the music retailers.

You could call this a 'longevity test' review. I've owned the Vaio GRX 520 since Summer of 2001 and I've been extremely pleased with its performance. Don't let the stats fool you... 1.6 Pentium 4, 256 MB Ram and 30 GB Hard Drive are plenty of "go" for most of us. Being in Graphics Design, I have many heavy hitting software programs loaded and still maintain almost 2/3 of my hard drive space empty. And let's face it, any processor over 1.6-1.8 is so fast that you won't notice the difference... waste of money to go higher. I originally purchased the Vaio because of its great 15" screen that's impressive, especially with the complimenting graphics chip. There's never been any problem with the computer hardware or accompanying software. The different port options accept many external devices i.e. memory sticks and 10/100 Ethernet connection. Let's hear it for USB's! Dependable, quality product, and does it all. One drawback... the weight, but didn't I tell you? It's a "portable desktop."

I can tell you this machine (GRX520) is a joy to work with for web and desktop apps. first i bought GRX550, but i returned that and went for GRX520. although both are same but i feel performance wise this is better. i cross my fingures. i got 256 RAM extra free of cost, so it is 512 now.
Watching DVDs is great, for the best in sound quality though be sure and get a SONY SRS-T77 speaker set to plug into the notebook, this little set of 4 watt speakers will rock the room and are small enough to fit into your bag and port along.
As for validating other comments I've read I'd suggest:
Size, yes the dimensions are a bit larger and I too bought a new bag - happily. I think this size of unit is best suited for a backpack versus an over-the-shoulder bag Batteries, seem to last me about 2 hours, I'm ordering an extra one Hard drive noise, havent really been bothered by it Screen quality - stunning. I've used Toshiba, IBM, and Dell's - The screen quality is really outstanding with the GRX Size of the charger unit. Yes, it is larger and bulkier than any others I have used recently. SONY should be able to do better than this.

This is laptop show many state-of-art technology of Sony. It uses P4 1.6GHz processor and therefore run very fast. It is provided with a amazing 15" TFT screen and can be used for entertainment purpose such for DVD player. Its fasionable design is very attractive for younth.

I have had three Sony Vaio computers over the last couple of years, and none has let me down. This latest Vaio is no different, with sleek styling and great performance. The machine is quiet, fast, and didn't cost me an arm and a leg even with the 19" FD Trinitron monitor that I also bought along with the system unit. Highly recommended - do yourself a favor and buy a Sony!

I had three nightmare HP Pavilion 7940s, in only three months. They literally took a summer and a fall out of my life. Then, I bought this Sony. Quite literally, it has turned me into a com-
puter freak. It has me roaming the Internet, downloading, uploading, reloading, uninstalling, and then reinstalling, just to play with it! I even subscribed to about ninety tech emags and regular magazines because it has opened up my interest that much in the new technology! It is fast, efficient, and ridiculously stable. It is not normal not to crash like this one never does. Also, it came with XP, which is the best thing Bill has done since '95. The HPs had ME, which is proof that terrorists have siezed contol of our nation's computer systems.

As you can see by just looking at the picture, the Vaio looks great, Sony is about the only computer company other than Apple that cares about its looks. The computer it self is great, it comes with everything you need. The processor is more than enough for any type of user, the ram is decent, for regular user that should be enough, but others might want to upgrade to 512mb, that only cost [price] so that isn't a big deal. The hard drive space is awesome; you can never run out, 80 GB, that's the second largest hard drive out there. The CD-RW is blazing fast; you can burn a full CD in about 4-6 minutes. And for those of you that own any Sony Digital Imaging or Video products, it gets even better, there is a I-Link port in the front of your computer, for easy access, and the Vaio comes pre-loaded for all the software you need. This computer is nearly perfect, the only extra that it's missing is the DVD-RW, but you wouldn't expect that in a computer selling for [price] (...). The Sony reliability factor is also an added reason for buying this computer, it never breaks down, it is flawless. For [price], this is the best computer on the market.