Desktop Reviews

This is one of the few DSL devices that work well back to back. I use them to connect offices over short distances < 5km over 'dry pair' or an point to point alarm circuit. There is a small panel on the back of the unit. Set switch 1 to ON for one of the units and they will connect. I can't figure out why this feature is not documented.

Great product.

Works very well, easy to setup. One minor problem, the firewall only allows for one VPN tunnell out to the same access point.

Hollywood FX Plus for Studio 7.x or higher is an excellent add on product.

Studio 7 and 8 are notorious for being unstable but if you can get them to work right, the addition of FX Plus will make your editing even more enjoyable.

You have many new affects with FX Plus. Some of the effects rival the Video Toaster or even broadcast quality products. You just have to see them to believe it.

One thing to note: you will really need a 3D Graphics card to help out with the most complex transitions. The software rendering on slower machines just causes most systems to crash.

If you have Studio 7.x or higher, you MUST get this add on.

I think this sony computer mxs20 is the best product out there it
it give you the best of both world it give you business and entertainment. I would like to buy this product please email and
let me no if this sony vaio pcv-mxs20 is for sale.

This is my second Sony Computer. I bought another Sony as the first was reliable and had awesome sounding speakers. This Sony has a quality keyboard and mouse, and has performed well since purchase. Unfortunately it has one significant flaw, ...poor sounding speakers. How cheap, I saw the same "Made in China" speakers selling for six dollars a pair at a discount store. Shame on you Sony, not what I've come to expect from Sony products.

This is a fair price for a system this feature rich and powerful, but I would suggest looking at the cheaper 750 if you value price a little more than performance. If you are a major performance nut then Sony is probably not your brand. It is more a balance of performance, price and lots of cool extras. Dell or Gateway are better values for performance junkies but they don't have the extras that Sony does so well at.

This is not the fastest P4 system on the market but it is one of the better mid-cost systems you will find. Sony's build quality is very high, and they include lots of extra features and software. Nothing is free and Sony has done a decent job of making the right trade-offs to keep the price down on this system without selling you a bland box you can't use.

CPU: Intel P4 Nortwood 2GHz w/512k L2. A great CPU today, and with more software supporting its SSE2 features, the best investment for tomorrow. AMD has fallen about a year behind Intel and is desperately trying to catch up, so I would mark them off my list till mid 2003.

Chipset: Sis650 a good chipset, not as fast as Intel's 845 or 850 series, but it cost a lot less.

Memory: The ... review has this wrong. This system comes with 512M PC2100 DDR running at 266MHz. Without boring you with a long explanation lets just say that it is not quite as fast as PC800 RDRAM (Rambus) but still much faster than what came on older systems.

FSB: 400Mhz not 533MHz (ignore what the ... review state). ... seems to have trouble with getting a few facts right on this line of Sonys. 533 would be great but 400 is fine and cost less. This is a concern only for power users.

Grapics: Sis Integrated "Real256" - Not a Nvidia chip (despite what the ... review says) this was developed in-house by Sis as a DirectX 7 compliant graphics chip. The latest games coming out now are DirectX 8 (and beyond). They will work fine on this graphics chip, but not at the highest quality settings (something I find disappointing in this price range). The good news is it comes with a AGP slot so in when you want to step up you can buy a new video card. I suggest ATI cards over Nvidia cards for overall quality if you do this.

OS: Windows XP, which is far superior to Win98SE or Windows ME. As much as I hate the 'activation' feature, it is the best thing going for most people.

Features: Sony is the best at adding in lots of useful things like, Firewire/I-link ports (for hooking all kinds of stuff like a digital video camera to adding an external DVD-RW drive), built in ethernet, modem, and sound. Also a CDRW and DVD drive. One down side: no USB 2.0 ports.

Software: Comes with Corel WordPerfect Office, PC-Cillin anti-virus software, and Sony's in house video software. Good bundle that comes a lot cheaper than MS Office and Norton Anti-virus.

This is the non-USB (that is to say, analog) version of the Telex M-560. Like its USB sibling, it cancels background noise and offers the convenience of a headphone-free existence. Still, for voice recognition applications, it may be slightly inferior to the M-560, in that the virtue of the USB design is that it doesn't pick up any undesirable noise off the sound card.

Where the M-60 may be preferable to some users, however, is if you already have a high-end sound card installed in your machine, and you plan on doing a lot of voice recording. Top-of-the-line sound cards offer many recording options that wouldn't be available with a USB microphone that bypassed the card. To be sure, you could probably emulate these features in some other way with a USB recording, but if you've already made the investment in a high quality sound card, it may make greater sense to get this version of the microphone.

Likewise, this is your version-of-choice if you're running a version of Windows earlier than Windows 98. They view their USB model as a "non legacy" device, and so aren't going to try to support it with early versions of Windows. It's a logical stance, given the power-hungry nature of voice recognition software, so if you're looking primarily for a voice-recording microphone and don't want to switch to a later version of Windows, this is your gig.

My Bellsouth-supplied DSL noden, an Alcatel, went on the brink after 2 years. I bought the Zoom ADSL USB modem. It took me about six hours of trial and error to get the right protocols to get on and surf. The problem is not so much the software as finding the protocols. The 'normal' USA protocol 'PPPOE" did not work. Unfortunately, Bellsouth only supports 2 modems, and could not tell me the setup for any Zoom. PDF documents at Bellsouth and Zoom were not helpful. I finally found some hints in a DSL Reports forum.
The modem is working fine now. It is small and can be placed anywhere around the computer, and speed (941/218, out of max 1500/256) is good.
For the price, it is an excellent buy.

"Home" "End" "Delete" "Pg Up" and "Pg Down" keys are in the wrong place. Until getting this keyboard, I never realized how much I used these 5 keys, particularly "Delete". Although I am getting use to the new placement, I must unlearn the placement ever time I use a different computer with a normal keyboard, such as at work. I really don't care which placement is better from an engineering standpoint. With keyboards, consistency is really important. Finally, I am finding I have to hit keys twice sometimes to get the keyboard to type. I have moved the receiver around with no improvement. I did not have this problem with my last cordless keyboard (logitech). Maybe that is a result of bum batteries (they come with the keyboard).

...I mean, this thing not only looks good, and feels good (the keys and ergonomics) but actually works really well (software is mostly flawless on my Win XP Pentium 4 machine)! Of all the peripherals I've ever invested in for my PC, this has to be one of the best---it's a pleasure to use, day in and day out.

PROs: the programmable keys make Internet surfing a snap, the cordlessness (all of my previous keyboards were corded) allows for all kinds of flexibility in terms of the junkpile masquerading as my desk, and the signal quality is very reliable (granted, I haven't tried to test the range much beyond my desk or my lap). Absolutely love the scroll wheel on the keyboard, and the back/forward buttons above it---perfect for going through photo galleries. So much less wrist-strain on my mouse-arm. The key word is: liberation!

CONs: pretty minor, really. A couple of the function keys have only limited programmability---but since there are a total of 25 of them, it doesn't really matter! Once in the while the software gets "stuck" so that when I hit any of the function keys that I've programmed to take to different websites, it only does so for the same one Explorer window. No way to tell if that's the keyboard software or the overall system software screwing up, though.

All I can say is, if Microsoft could only make ALL of its products, namely its monopolistic software, at this quality level, then Bill Gates might actually deserve the gazillion dollars he makes every 30 seconds!

... there is however ONE persistent problem this keyboard's software has. When I have multiple Explorer windows open and I hit the function shortcut keys to take me to different websites, it often will get "stuck" in one window and change the web page for that window only. So I end up having to do it manually, going to my "Favorites" pull-down menus. Kind of annoying, but can't tell if it's the MS software or my computer's OS that's screwing up.

This fancy keyboard and mouse set came with my PC a few months ago. Right away I noticed it was slick looking, and overall made my desk look much more professional and impressive. However, I can't give this product my full recomendation based on looks alone.

Firstly, I want to say that the MOUSE is just wonderful. Smooth, lasts very long and not a single problem. The best mouse I have ever owned. It even works well directly on the table, which is more than I can say for most wireless mice.

The Keyboard, however, has two problems.
1) There are no lights to indicate 'Caps Lock' or 'Num Lock', which is slightly annoying when typing passwords.
2) While the batteries last long, my keys frequently stop working and I need to give the thing a shake before they start working again. Maybe its because it's because I've spilt my fair share of food and beverage on the keyboard, but never have I had this problem before. Its not a big deal. Just a little shake and it works fine.

Overall, its a pretty, professional looking set and I recomend it.

I purchased this keyboard and mouse combination off Amazon a couple of weeks and love them except for one glaring issue...the F-lock key. If you're use to function key shortcuts (ie - Alt-F4 to close a window, F7 to spell check, etc.) please be aware that Microsoft has disabled them by default and changed the keys to perform these various functions directly. Of course, spell check is now where F10 use to be, and "close" is F6, and so on. You can turn off this "advanced" functionality but you have to do this manually every time you turn on the computer!!! By the way there is a "hack" (registry edit) that is suppose to fix this but it hasn't worked on my XP machine with this keyboard. Other than the F-lock key (and a few other key re-arrangements - home, end, page up are moved around) I love this mouse and keyboard...the mouse is sensitive, keyboard very responsive and I like the upper row of keys (above the function keys) that launch email, media player, etc. directly.

I have always been a fan of the Microsoft Natural Keyboard but I had always wanted a wireless one. This combo works very well and I think the price is very reasonable. Overall, I think this is an excellent product and so far I'm very pleased with my purchase.

I've seen many people complain about the function keys and while I can see this as a potential problem, I personally don't mind the change. All of the functions are there for me and it saves me a keystroke (e.g. Press the Close(F6) button instead of Alt+F4) The mouse is a nice change though it takes a bit getting used to for the smooth scrolling as opposed to the clicking of the past.

This product was wonderful. I had an natural keyborad and intellimouse explorer 3.0. The mouse was bad and need to be replaced. I came across this item at Best Buy and they were asking too much for it. I found it here and it was cheap and exactly what I wanted. I really didn't know what to expect of the product before I purchased it. Once I got it, the product was great. The thing was easy to set up. I could place the receive any where on my desk, below my desk and just about everywhere else the cord could reach and still has perfect reception for the mouse. The keyboard is great, just like the old natural keyboard, however it is lighter and feels a bit cheaper than the old one. The keyboard has little texture on it and it is transparent black. The functions on it were great. The mouse takes a while to get use to because it is higher than the old mouse which I had been using for a long time. I got use it in 4 days. I would recommend this product to anyone who is looking for a great combo.