Computers Reviews

Mine broke down two weeks after warranty expired. Customer support is terrible, I'm on hold w/ tech support right now - they tell me their computer are slow. Half an hour to get a return authorization! Plus the technology is old and cumbersome.
I wouldn't give it 1 star - but the review system requires at least that.

The GPS works fine, but I bought this unit because of the software available that it was supposedly compatible with. Do NOT purchase this unit if you think it will work with any of the mapsend programs. It will NOT work. I have spent 3 days of sending emails and making phone calls, and cannot get any support from this company whatsoever. I still have yet to load topo map one into this gps. With no releif in site. I have resigned myself to the fact that I am going to have to send it back. As for the technical support from Magellan... I would rate it a negative 5 on a scale from one to ten. The very worst I've ever experienced.

I bought the explorist 210 primarily for Geocaching. I have had it for a month now and it works very well for Geocaching, and the included Geocaching software is easy to use. You can download .loc files from geocaching.com and open them directly into the Geocaching software which is a big time saver. I manually copy over the hints since they don't come as part of the .loc file so I can geocache without paper copies of the cache details.

I wanted a unit that was accurate but not so costly I would be afraid to let my kids use it. The 210 fits the bill perfectly. I let my kids direct us to the geocache and get the thrill of finding the cache. My six year old can even read the screen and point which way to go.

The unit is dead on accurate with WAAS and I can usually get 10-12 satellites of reception. I even get 3 to 4 satellites indoors. I am usually never more than 10 feet from a cache when the unit says I have arrived.

Most of the other Magellan and Garmin models do not have built in Geocaching abilities. For models that do, you have to spend much more than for the 210. The 210 shows geocaches right on the map and treats geocaches separately from waypoints or points of interest.

I read other reviews about the 210's screen being easy to scratch, so I took a screen protector for a Palm Pilot and put it on the screen and haven't had any problems even with kids using it.

Battery life is excellent. I use rechargeable AA batteries. If you don't use the backlight, you can cache an entire day on one set of batteries. The backlight is excellent for night time caching, however.

There are several low cost add-ons you can buy so you don't need to buy the high cost Magellan add-ons. You can buy most any low cost USB car charger (mine was around $7 with shipping) to power the unit while you are driving. Just connect the cable that came with the 210 into the 210 and plug the USB end of the cable into the USB car charger. The unit will NOT charge the batteries when plugged in, but the unit will use power from the USB cable instead of from batteries. You can also buy the Radio Shack A/C Vent Wireless Phone Mount (Part # 17-548). It looks like it was made for the explorist.

I have not used the unit for turn by turn driving yet. For this the unit seems adequate but does not shine. From reading the manual, you do NOT get automatic route calculating (if you miss a turn the unit will NOT recalculate a route). All legs of the route point directly to the next waypoint (as the crow flies) and do not follow the roads. Before you leave you must download the route into the unit and the unit will prompt you for each turn, though not with any sound - just with an on screen message. The basemap is decent with all state roads and interstates. You can use MapSend Topo to add more detail to the unit (not sure about other MapSend maps).

I purchased this after connecting a new external harddrive I bought and seeing a message that I should connect to a hi-speed connection. Installing it into my desktop with Windows XP SP2 was a snap. Couldn't be easier. Works like a charm and man is it fast.

I purchased this after connecting a new printer and seeing a message that I was connecting a hi-speed device with a standard connection (also purchased a USB2 printer cable). Installing it into my Dell Dimension with Windows XP SP2 was a snap. I now have both the new printer and an older one connected to it so it is backwards compatible as claimed. Basically, install it and forget about it. Couldn't be easier.

After hassling and wasting time with a no-name brand USB card that was most likely defective, I got this card. I just popped it into a PCI slot and Windows XP automatically installed the drivers (I didn't have to install any additional software or drivers). I plugged my iPod into it and it worked perfectly. Couldn't have been easier.

Maybe I'm nostalgic about things when it comes to computers. I remember my first USB key drive. A 128MB Sandisk model that I acquired with a rebate check from Discover. I actually still have that USB key drive because it survived a washing and drying.

At 2GB (actually less when you count the formatting but those of us in the computer world are familiar with the numbers game) this drive is probably more space than the average person will ever need.

PC Magazine has a great article on what you could do with a 512MB USB key called "The Ultimate USB Key" that I'd highly recommend for anyone looking for USB key solutions.

Pros:
Storage: 2 GB* (1.90 GB actually) of storage
Accessories:
* Lanyard (I can't tell you how important these are as one of my original 1GB USB keys is forever lost because it didn't have a lanyard where as my 128MB is still viable because it does.
* USB extension cable (great for the back of my laptop dock)

Cons:
The casing: The plastic is rather flimsy
The cap: I'm so sure this thing will eventually loosen up to the point that I'll lose it without even knowing.
Price: I was able to get this drive for $54.88 shipped and I've also submitted for a $10 coupon. The price here is a bit steep.

Very good quality. I am very satisfied with PNY. Good brand at cheaper prices.

I am a graduate student in linguistics working with an indigenous language in Oaxaca. I brought this speaker set to Mexico with me this year as a replacement for a bulky Panasonic cassette transcriber. It worked like a dream. Instead of using cassettes for transcription we used mp3s recorded on an Edirol digital recorder. Instead of a transcriber we used a laptop with windows media player and these Altec Lansing speakers. The sound quality was perfect for transcription, and the whole package was lighter and easier to manage than a transcriber. In my down time I got to listen to music. Can't beat that.

Worked great for my 15GB ipod. Unpacked, plug in, put my ipod in, press play and I was good to go. Using it in a 12 x 12 office at low listening volume and find it to be just fine.

Very pleased w/item. Compact. Easy to move from place to place.

Good price and quick delivery. The product is a Canon original and not a generic which the repairman told me never to use in my Canon printer after repairing it due to ink damage from a Staples generic cartridge. I mean it ruined the print head and the main board. Thanks Amazon.Com for good service and products.

Like many inkjet users, I have tried to save some money by buying third party inks. Well there is such a difference it is amazing. My printed had died and when fixed, the repair center showed me what my off brand looked like, and what Canon Ink looked like. That was it I will only use Canon's ink. The ISO 9002 standard inks were not as vivid as the Canon's, the Black looked like it had Gray in it.

Use Canon ink with you Canon printer and you'll have no problems, just excellent pictures.

I bought a Wireless N to replace my Linksys Wireless B hoping this would boost the range of my office wireless network. But it kept having the problem of signal too weak to reach a room about 20 feet away from the router. I spent about 4 hours talking to two different tech support persons without any improvement. I finally brought a Linksys wireless G router from home to the office and the signal immediately improved about 30% over the Wirless N.
Bottom line: Do not buy the wireless N yet until they fix the bugs.

While I've been very happy with my Netgear wireless router, I wanted something that would expand my connection range. What a HUGE mistake!

Once I've configured the setting to run in an 128 bit WEP encryption mode, I was able to connect to the admin page from my laptop but I could not get out to the internet. I checked my desktop that was directly connect to the router and that machine had no issues getting out to the web, so I knew my ISP service was fine.

I tried messing with all kinds of settings, including disabling my WEP encryption, but I was not making any progress.

So I tried using their online configuration tool and that really does nothing but set up a default LINKSYS SSID with no encryption which I've already tried without any success.

So I finally caved and called their tech support which routed the call out to India. Right away, I could not understand what the technicians was trying to say, except when they constantly had me unplugging the power from my cable modem and the router. We also tried configuring advanced settings without any success. The technicial finally tells me wireless card that is the problem, which is far from the truth, especially when I was able to get to the Linksys web admin page from my laptop and my connection was displaying strong signals.

After wasting 5+ hours messing with this piece of junk, I just re-enabled my Netgear router and will be returning this product first thing tomorrow morning.

some of the earlier reviews mentioned issues with installation of this product. I just wanted to say I had a very easy time getting it installed and working properly just by following the quick set up guide. I was up and running within 15 minutes and havent had any performance issues. when I stream audio or video it is very smooth compared to the wireless B router I replaced. I highly recommend this item.

In my area the preset FM stations all conflict with existing FM radio stations. It does not work well enough to even use. Even if there were no conflict with existing stations, the quality of the sound did not seem very good. For me it was a waste of money.

Maybe in a car a long ways from other FM radio station it might have some value.

Just had to add my two cents as I'm so thoroughly disgusted with this. Strong signals on stations near any of the choices seem to cause interference. Any movement near the unit (i.e. moving the gearshift) affects the clarity (sometimes improving it!). Altogether too unreliable to bother with.

The title of this review says it all: an inexpensive product will yield unsatisfying results. This transmitter works, but I would not say that it works well. It has only four station settings, which limits the playability and clarity of the sound (when a radio station uses the same frequency that you are tying to play your iPod on, the sound is scratchy if there is any sound at all) For the price, the transmitter is useful on highways, but not on surface streets.

I rarely had a problem with my 3rd generation iPod's iTrip. Some static here and there on long road trips, but overall I was pleased. This iTrip for the new video iPod however has produced nothing but static. The only way it's remotely worked has been when I've held the iPod upside down...this makes for scrolling through songs very difficult.

I gave it one star since 0 stars was not an option. This thing didn't even work brand new, right out of the box. I spent hours updating my iPod, rebooting it, no sign of life. Looks like I'll be returning it first thing in the morning. This iTrip was supposed to replace the last one I bought, which barely worked either. I wonder if Griffin even tested these things before they put them on the market. The iTrip connector broke and was hanging out of the plastic housing. This is only after a few uses. Well, I won't be making the mistake of buying anything from Griffin again, hold on to your money.

After reading all of the reviews and ignoring them thinking everyone was just whining-the iTrip really is a poor product. It works sometimes but more often than not I'm wishing that I don't crash trying to make it work.

I consider myself extremely patient, but dealing with the static is a bit much and thus I am returning it tomorrow. If you are looking to buy this product with the hopes of it being useful for long road trips and such, I'd advise against that because the frequencies change so often and theres too much interference

Thus- I'd suggest buying a tape deck adapter: they do get in the way, but it's the best sound for the money and they are much cheaper than this piece of junk

You know what, I'm a person who mostly crticizes a lot of things, but this camera is indeed great.
It's very easy to setup, the camera works very well, the picture is clear and bright and the microphone sensitivity is awesome. I'm using this through Yahoo! messenger and people several thousand miles away compliment the great picture and sound quality.
The additional s/w itself has so much, that itself pays for everything. The remote monitoring s/w included is awesome. Not to mention the great other picture s/w like collage creation etc.
Overall, a great camera, I love it and will buy a few more.

The Creative Webcam Live! Pro is so much better than the Creative Webcam Live! Motion- Titanium. The picture and video recording capabilities are outstanding. It works well with Yahoo messenger. The price is reasonably cheaper. It is a very good product to use for communicating your family.

While no consumer level webcam will ever deliver the quality of a professional grade cam or even use of surveillance cameras, the Live! Pro USB 2.0 flavor of Creative's webcam does remarkably well for itself. Several different recording resolutions for the camera and use of stillshots with fairly high resolution option is excellent to have if you want to take snapshots. Installation of the webcam was a simple and quick task. Overall, I would recommend this over most other webcams on the market at this time.

good GPS. You never lose your way with this.
However,
Map data is so old (more than 3 years old?)
that you can not find it such as the closest WAL-MART.

It is very hard to activate the XM-traffic service.
I tried to call XM-radio customer service, but gave it up because had to wait for long time.

Given a choice of a factory-installed GPS or StreetPilot 2730, I vote for the 2730 because it is capable of receiving XMTraffic broadcasts. On approaching Chicagoland during rush hour, a yellow diamond appeared on-screen to alert me about congestion ~10-miles ahead on an Interstate. It offered to reroute and took me away from congestion on a less-traveled and faster route that was a big timesaver. XMTraffic only works in selected cities and you should check their website.

Easy to use and with a bright, clear screen with plenty of detail. Voice prompts work well through car's FM radio. It also comes with its own speaker that I do not use. Remote control convenient.

System also includes an XMRadio receiver that can play through car's FM radio. That service includes weather and traffic info that is very useful. It also will display prices of stocks.

Installation of the GPS unit is straighforward. Adhesive and beanbag mounts are provided. The beanbag makes it easy to move system to another car. I elected to install a separate lighter socket under dashboard to reduce clutter.

I was initially concerned about placement of the hockey-puck antenna needed for XMTraffic and XMRadio because its cable would be vulnerable to winter ice. Therefore, I experimented by placing the antenna on the dashboard against the windshield and found that it works perfectly. One reason may be that my car has a sunroof that allows radio waves to enter. I recommend use of nail polish remover to erase trademarks so that unit does not attract attention of thieves.

All-in-all, the GARMIN StreetPilot 2730 is a very capable unit that I am pleased to recommend.

I was in the middle of a cross country move... My employer was openning a new office in a place I'd never been, and I was "on the ground" for a month and a half helping set up the office. The Garmin made the trip a joy, and insured that I was not going to go to my hotel and watch TV. I not only was able to find the location of anyplace I wanted to go, but the thing was up-to-date on the Points of Interest, helping me find places to eat, shop and hang out. I can't recommend this unit enough!