Bren's stats
- Review count233
- Helpfulness votes1,741
- First reviewDecember 27, 2016
- Last reviewAugust 5, 2025
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- Average rating4.8
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- First answerDecember 27, 2016
- Last answerNovember 4, 2021
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Retro style and superior sound that go great together~anywhere. Enjoy retro style, amazing audio, and built-in dual voice assistants anywhere in your home. With the JBL Authentics 300 speaker~s leatherlike enclosure, convenient metal handle, and built-in rechargeable battery, you can take your music with you~from the kitchen for your dinner-prep playlist to the bedroom for your wind-down podcast. Its retro ~70s-inspired design featuring the iconic Quadrex grille makes a bold statement anywhere you set it down. And so do its wide soundstage, crystal-clear highs, and deep bass. With Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa available simultaneously, you can play your favorite music, control your smart home devices, and more, hands-free, using just your voice.
Customer Rating
5
Portable audio for the aesthetically inclined!
on September 15, 2023
Posted by: Bren
In many circles of audiophiles, you will hear or read time and time again that function matters over form. “Looks be danged, as long as the speaker produces the best sound possible!”
But what if, my dear readers, you could have both? What if it was possible, to have a Bluetooth speaker that, pound for pound, absolutely rocks a room with incredibly balanced and clear audio, while also being so aesthetically pleasing as to be welcomed to adorn the shelves, dressers, mantles, or tables of even the classiest of folks? Enter the JBL Authentics series and¬–more specifically–the JBL Authentics 300 that stands out as the absolute Goldilocks selection in this current triune Authentics lineup!
I am in love with this speaker. Plain and simple. From the moment you open up the JBL packaging, you can tell that they care deeply about the presentation and heritage this Authentics series represents. On first handling the speaker and pulling it out of the box, I was stunned by its substantial heft and high-quality feeling materials and assemblage, all pointing again to the determination that this is not merely another boring black box to sit on the counter of some bachelor’s bathroom while they listen to their favorite podcast. This is a speaker that when placed in the center of my living room, drew our attention and admiration immediately.
The setup was as simple as anyone could hope these days of wireless-connected audio products. I intuitively pressed the power button on top of the device and was greeted by 75% battery from the factory (according to the visual battery indicator) and the sound of a pleasant guitar riff on boot-up in place of the usual annoying beeps or robotic voice directions of other, lesser Bluetooth speakers. I opened my iPhone Bluetooth settings, pressed and held the Bluetooth button on the speaker for a few seconds, and was immediately able to find it in my Bluetooth devices and connect with ease.
Then came that moment of holy ascension into the heaven of audio that washed over me like warm bath water after a chilly winter’s snowball fight. The trebles–crisp. The mids–present and blended. The bass–warm and impressively potent yet not overwhelming or overpowering of the rest of the audio mix. Present on top of the device are manual knobs for treble and bass, but I simply sat back on my couch and enjoyed the audio rolling over me while drinking in the visual, retro appeal of this most excellent speaker.
All of this dramatic write-up aside, I want to convey in plain terms that this speaker is the best choice for anyone who wants a mature, good-looking speaker that has excellent utility as a dual-smart assistant capable speaker, while also having the deep pockets to pony up for this trendy device. I would never lie and pretend that there are no Bluetooth speakers half this price that sound as good if not better. But I will also pair this with the honest opinion that most of them look half or less as good concurrently.
I will not sit here and write out a recitation of all of the stats and facts about this speaker that are already listed in the product descriptions and specifications but will mainly focus on some final points of praise and some points of improvement for the future of this device lineup. A point of praise is that this speaker is the perfect size and capability to be a good, multi-room transportable speaker with its substantial eight-hour battery life, while also being of a size and aesthetic to be perfect as a soundbar replacement for those inclined to use it as such. My wife and I use a portable projector setup as the “TV” in our room, for the rare times we feel like enjoying a movie or show in our bed. This Authentics 300 speaker, plugged into power, served its purpose perfectly over the course of my testing of connecting each time automatically I turned on the projector (and Xgimi Mogo 2 for those interested) and was a source of awe and praise for us as it turned our bedroom into a close facsimile of the full surround sound entertainment system we utilize in our living room.
The only detractor that I can identify in this speaker is one that may be considerable for some and less for others: The speaker does not charge via the USB-C port, but via a power cable that, while not proprietary, certainly doesn’t have the kind of portability and universality that a truly on-the-go Bluetooth device would require. This is the same kind of double-barrel plug cable, though, that many consoles like the Sony PS4 use for their power, so you can find extras for less than 10 dollars online if you are concerned about portability! Alas, I think that for a device that, to my testing, uses less than 35 watts at peak power while charging, many of us would have preferred an external adapter with a USB-C cable, allowing us to trickle charge the device or buy additional adapters as needed (or charge with 35 watts PD cabled power stations), as opposed to having the AC adapter built into the device with this undeniably ugly cable serving as the only means to charge this speaker.
That small but unavoidable irritation aside, I am happy to say that this speaker has earned its place in our home and hearts as a main go-to for all our music and portable external audio purposes. There are many soundbars that can perform admirably as music speakers, but there are not many portable Bluetooth speakers that can look this good and perform so well in that dual purpose! Furthermore, the addition of being able to set up this speaker to serve as an Alexa smart speaker (and/or Google Smart Assistance for those inclined) further increases its modern utility. Thanks for reading and I hope this review has helped to encourage any excitement you already may be stoking for the anticipation of choosing to buy this speaker!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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The Ninja Detect Duo Power Blender Pro with BlendSense Technology allows you to toss in any ingredients, press the dial, and watch them transform into a perfectly smooth output. Whether blending or chopping in the 72 oz. full-size pitcher, Ninja Detect makes live decisions on the amount of power, speed, and time needed to get you to a perfectly smooth outcome every time. The blender that automatically adjusts speed & time for perfectly smooth results.
Customer Rating
5
Excellent Blender for All-Around Use!
on August 30, 2023
Posted by: Bren
This blender has been excellent for all of our household blending needs, including the excellence and efficiency of being able to blend in the included individual blender cups for smaller servings or on-the-go use!
The BlendSense technology of this system does appear to work well! I tested it multiple times with different configurations of ice-filled cups with smoothie ingredients like whey protein and banana, and much to my delight the blender did indeed vary in the speed and intensity of its motor as the different ingredients were detected. It even displays a digital count-down clock as it is blending at displays in real-time what actions the blender is performing, including “crush” for when a large amount of ice is being ground up! I will be perfectly honest that I don’t think that this detect feature is precisely life-changing where our blending needs are concerned, but it is absolutely cool to use and the feature that detects if there is too little liquid in the mixture may actually come in handy and prevent the blender motor from experiencing unnecessary strain or damage.
As with other ninja blenders I have had in the past, this blender is utterly intuitive to use and requires little to no setup to get started. The first few times I blended with it, we did notice a rather pungent, acrid, heated-electronics smell coming from the motor exhaust at the bottom of the blender, but it stopped smelling that way after a few cycles of blending were performed.
The only thing I wish that this blender had in comparison to the last Ninja blender I had was a better cord management system for winding it up and stowing it away when the blender is not on our counter being used. The last Ninja smart blender we owned had a protruding rear vent port that was also handy for winding the cord around.
Altogether, this very small complaint aside, we are extremely happy with our new Ninja Detect blender! It is a very handsome-looking appliance and is very tech-forward with its digital display and real-time feedback while blending. Thanks for reading and I hope this review helps you make your purchasing decision!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Feel the power emanate from within the neon-hued shell of the Helios 16. Suit up, strap in ~ and let Helios pave the way. Equipped with superior cooling technology and a trove of performance like NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 laptop graphics and the latest 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processor with new performance hybrid architecture~ this gaming laptop will be your guide to gaming bliss. With the 16" 2560 x 1600 IPS panel, 240Hz Refresh, NVIDIA Advanced Optimus, NVIDIA G-SYNC technology and 3ms Overdrive response time you can say farewell to blur and hello clear, crisp, high-octane gameplay.
Customer Rating
5
Top-level gaming in a mobile form factor!
on August 18, 2023
Posted by: Bren
The laptop is a gorgeous device. I will detail more about individual features below, but I will just start by saying that the build quality is excellent and this 16” screen laptop weighs just a little over 5 pounds (without the power adapter, more on that later). It is less than an inch thick and is surprisingly sleek, fitting into my 15.6” laptop-accommodating backpack. Even better, the laptop includes a custom neoprene zippered protective carrying case from Acer, so it is ready for use on the go right out of the box! The colors of the finish of the device look great. Granted, the keyboard deck and the top of the lid are fingerprint magnets, so you are going to need to keep it wiped off if you want to maintain a clean look. There is an abundance of I/O enough to make anyone happy, including two USB-C ports with the latest Full-Function Thunderbolt 4 certification and an HDMI 2.1 Port for ease of hooking up additional monitors with high refresh rate capability.
One of the most positive aspects of this machine is, as expected, the incredible screen. The 240hz, 1600p IPS screen with 3ms response time is incredible for all different kinds of gaming. I am primarily an FPS gamer with games like Doom Eternal and Hunt Showdown, and this machine CRUSHES both of those games. That 240hz refresh also corresponds to really smooth experiences with regular computing tasks like web browsing and productivity. Also, this screen gets BRIGHT. The 500-nit screen is bright enough to make daylight brightness in a room still possible while playing games with darker sequences or night maps (like in Hunt Showdown). There is some perceptible blacklight bleeding in the top right and left corners of my particular screen, but it is not enough for me to worry about. Finally, the colors look GREAT on this screen. I am not a photo editor so I can’t speak to the precision of the colors, but for gaming and general productivity purposes, the images this screen produces look fantastic.
The hardware this is equipped with is appropriately top-spec for a high-end laptop like this but is in need of special accommodations for optimized cooling. The Intel i9 13900HX is an incredible mobile CPU and crushes at multitasking and pushing out all of those crispy, high-end frames to the monitor on AAA title games like Doom Eternal. With HWmonitor, I did detect the CPU temps climbing up to 100C on some of my more intensive multitask workloads while gaming and streaming. By putting the fans into turbo mode through the PredatorSense app and putting the laptop on a cooling pad, I was able to keep the CPU temps at 90C and below and never noticed any stutters or frame drops while gaming. This laptop has visible fans on the bottom of the device with slats to allow plenty of cool air to be pulled in. As such, it is essential that you keep that air intake unobstructed by keeping this on a flat, hard surface like a desk while gaming or utilizing a laptop cooling pad. The good news is that my complaint of some finicky cooling needs only extends to the CPU. During my most intensive testing while gaming at full graphics, running a second monitor, and streaming via the GPU hardware encoder on OBS, the NVidia 4080 this laptop is equipped with never exceeded temperatures higher than 94C! For a high-power mobile CPU like this with 12GB of VRAM, this is fantastic for my use case and has left me completely satisfied with the performance for concurrent high-fidelity and frame-rate gaming combined with streaming on Twitch!
Another thing that I really like on this laptop is the keyboard. It is a comfortable keyboard to type on, with just the right pitch and angle to the palm rests for ease of typing on a flat surface. The keys themselves feel great and the full number pad they included is a welcome addition for my Excel spreadsheet household budget crunching. The media control keys above the number pad are a welcome addition, as are the comprehensive and fully lit controls on the function row of keys. The keys themselves are beautifully lit with the mini-LED RGB per-key lighting. Also, there is additional lighting on the rear jutting portion of the laptop, right on the top of the deck! It looks so cool and honestly adds some edgy appeal to this device without overdoing it. Altogether, as an almost 30-year-old, I can get behind the looks of this high-end gaming laptop without being afraid it looks too unprofessional in certain business settings.
The speakers on this laptop are actually a real surprise as to how loud and clear they are. There is a detectable bit of buzz to them occasionally on the very top end of the volume levels when an audio track gets dense with mixed trebles and mids, but it is not that bad or frequent. Frankly, I am an obligate headset and earbud user so the speakers on a laptop like this are not important to me. Most gamers I know are also using headsets, so the gamer crowd should be perfectly satisfied with the audio on this laptop. The webcam on this laptop is one of the reasons why I can openly say that a business professional or student would be thrilled to have it. It is a crispy 1080p full HD camera and has proved to be excellent in dim rooms. I am impressed that they managed to squeeze such a good camera into the top of this very thin bezeled screen without having to go with a notch design (thank goodness). I used this camera on OBS while streaming on Twitch and even though it isn’t the most flattering camera angle for my face, it worked great and was seamless to use. There is a green indicator light that lights up next to it when it is activated, but there is no physical shutter to block the camera.
Now to just touch on a few of the identified downsides of a device like this. The first is that the power adapter this comes with is an appealingly rounded edged adapter but is an absolute brick weighing over 3 pounds with the cords included. To my testing, this laptop cannot receive power in through its thunderbolt 4 ports, even during eco and battery saver use, so that means that if you are expecting to use this beast of a gaming laptop on the go for more than a few hours, you are going to have to lug that large power brick with you.
The next gripe is one that I am going to be reasonable about, but it is the short battery life. This beast is absolutely ravenous for power! In my battery test, I went as absolutely low power as possible, including using eco mode, setting the battery immediately to battery saver mode, setting the keyboard RGB to static color and to turn off after 30 seconds of nonuse, and turning down the screen refresh rate to 60. While that took away some of the beauty of the screen, it did not reduce my productivity on the machine. An addendum necessary to all my battery testing is that I am an obligate Google Chrome Browser user due to my online master’s college program being a Google University, so I recognize that there is less power efficiency there than with Google Chrome as my web browser. With all of these efficiency settings implemented, I did manage to squeeze out 2 hours and 4 minutes of unplugged use before I hit the 10% mark on the battery. While this is acceptable for my use case, I just want to make sure others are aware.
I really wish that Acer could have included the ability to charge this over the USB thunderbolt connection with a 100W PD option or the like so that there might be a more portable way to juice this thing up on the go than that 3-pound beast of a power adapter, especially given that the laptop draws less than 100watts when fully charge and doing basic tasks that don’t involve the discrete GPU. One other issue I think should be mentioned in this portion of the review, is that the software of the PredatorSense app will not allow you to change the mode from balanced to Performance or Turbo, where it claims to overclock the GPU and CPU, until you reach 40% or more battery power, even while the adapter is plugged in. This makes sense I suppose from a voltage and device protection perspective, but it is still a limitation people should be aware of. That way, you know to plug your laptop in when you get home from the coffeeshop for some time (as an example) before you get your high-power gaming session started.
Benchmarks:
1TB M.2 NVMe SSD in this laptop is a PCIe Gen 4 drive. It achieved over 6500MB/s read speeds and 4978MB/s write speeds! This is a beast of a drive. There is also one more M.2 slot open for additional storage to be added.
1TB M.2 NVMe SSD in this laptop is a PCIe Gen 4 drive. It achieved over 6500MB/s read speeds and 4978MB/s write speeds! This is a beast of a drive. There is also one more M.2 slot open for additional storage to be added.
Geekbench 6 (GPU) OpenCL score: 170020
Geekbench 6 (CPU) Single Core score: 2799 Multicore: 16022
Unengine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 with Ultra Quality, Extreme Tessellation at 1600p resolution: 105.3 FPS with a score of 2654
Overall, this laptop delivers exactly what I would expect at this price point in the way of being a beastly gaming laptop with some aspects that make it more reasonable for mixed business or school use like the FHD webcam and full-sized keyboard. I really don’t have any recommendations for how Acer could make this laptop better, except that I am always game for more ways to power mobile devices on the go such as with USB-C power input capability. Thanks for reading and I hope this review has aided your purchasing decision.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Enjoy legendary Technics sound quality in a sized-to-fit earbud, with advanced noise cancelling technology and call clarity. The Technics AZ60M2 True Wireless earbuds let you focus on your critical business, not on outside sounds, with immersive noise cancelling; combined feedforward and feedback noise cancelling uses both analog and digital processing for significant noise reduction in all low- to high-frequency bandwidths. A must-have for high-priority business calls, AZ60M2 earbuds ensure your voice comes through seamlessly on every call, with JustMyVoice technology using 8 MEMS microphones and an advanced noise-reducing algorithm to minimize outside interference. Now you can connect to more than two devices at the same time—Technics’ Multipoint technology allows you to connect to three Bluetooth devices simultaneously, keeping you connected to your computer, tablet, and phone at once and giving you the ability to multitask with flow, making these earbuds as essential for business calls as they are for family Zooms. Charge wirelessly (Qi compatible) to keep your workspace and bedside table neat and organized; wireless hi-res audio uses state-of-the-art Bluetooth with LDAC compatibility. Noise cancellation, EQ, and more are customizable through the Technics audio app so you can always have sound just as you want it.
Customer Rating
5
High-Class Noise Canceling, Difficult UI-at first!
on August 15, 2023
Posted by: Bren
As the title of my review stated, these earbuds have some incredible active noise-canceling technology. I work a lot around yard equipment like mowers and blowers, and to-date I have never had a pair of earbuds that actively cancels both the high AND the low-frequency sounds (like the hum of a blower turbine) with such efficacy. If your first and biggest priority is noise canceling capability if you are on planes and the like often, you will not go wrong with these! Where these earbuds have been a bit of a struggle for me has centered around the difficult user interface (UI) touch controls on the surface outer pad of the earbuds on both sides. I have included with my review a picture of the touch guide from the technics webpage guide for these earbuds, but I still find it hard to actually perform some of these touch actions on the fly, not to mention the minor discomfort it causes sometimes to be “drumming” the touch-sensitive pad of the earbud directly into my ear canal. The Technics app does make these different touch controls customizable, so that is a big win for these. One other complaint of these highly-sensitive touch pads on the exterior of these earbuds is that I inevitably end up pausing and unpausing my music frequently when I make comfort-based adjustments to the position of the earbud in my ear. I have had to get used to gripping the external outer edges of the earbud to make adjustments as opposed to going right to the earbud and pushing the pad of it to make adjustments. I am getting used to it and causing less accidental pauses and plays on my music, so give yourself some time to make the adjustment!
Build and fitment quality: Technics does everything possible to make sure you have a good fit with these earbuds, including offering a very specific visual guide on how to ensure these are appropriately oriented in your ear, while also including a veritable legion of different eartips to make sure that these comfortably fit into almost any ear canal! I was lucky enough to have a comfortable and quality fit with the earbuds that came out of the box. These are considered a “concha fit” type of earbud, if you are an anatomy nerd like me, so they nestle nicely into the anatomical curvature of your external ear landmarks which may actually feel like a more secure fit for some users as opposed to typical earbud “hook shapes” like AirPods.
Build quality wise the earbuds themselves are excellent as high-quality earbuds at this price level go. There is nothing about them that would indicate to me that they are flimsy or wouldn’t stand up to the rigors of athletic use. They are IPX4 rated, which means that they can handle rain and rivulets of sweat with no problem. Just note that this rating is given to the earbuds themselves and not the case! The case is shorter than the AirPods pro case, is longer, feels a bit denser and heavier by a gram or two, retains the ability to wirelessly charge on my Qi charging pad, and is designed to stand up on a flat surface. I think this case is no more or less obtrusive in one’s pocket than an AirPods pro case, but the Technics logo engraved into the top of the case is, in my opinion, a little low-quality looking. I think that future revisions of this product and/or case should include a bit of an edgier case design.
That minor complaint aside, the audio quality of these earbuds is incredible. The 8mm free-edge dynamic driver in these earbuds provides an excellent blend of treble, mid, and bass frequency mix to my favorite tunes and feels highly immersive; certainly on par with my AirPods pros (1st gen) and some other higher-end wireless earbuds that I have tested. An example of a song I was really excited to hear in such beauty and clarity was 1:25 minutes into What I Got-Reprise by Sublime. Wow, I could almost viscerally feel the bass lines punch through in that part of the track!
It should be mentioned that there is a Premium trim of these Technics earbuds that sits about another half of a Benjamin bill above this price-wise, with the boasts of some bronze accents and some other rather indeterminable features upon first glance of the generic specifications sheet. Personally, I am very happy with these less costly earbuds from Technics and it is going to come down to personal preference of aesthetics and the desire for top-of-the-shelf performance stats whether to upgrade to the Premium version of these.
Overall, if you are not brand loyal to some of the bigger, more common household names in the wireless earbud market and are not part of the Apple ecosystem where AirPods just make more sense, than I would give these earbuds a solid recommendation! Thanks for reading and hope this review has helped!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Hit the mark for precision and immersion with the Razer Cobra ~a lightweight wired gaming mouse powered by Razer Chroma RGB. Armed with ultra-durable switches and decked out with a gradient Chroma underglow, you~d never expect a mouse so small to pack such big-game performance.
Customer Rating
5
Perfect mouse for beginners and the experienced!
on August 4, 2023
Posted by: Bren
Razer peripherals are the first ones I ever fell in love with as an early gamer back in 2014 or so. Their edgy appointments and tasteful RGB LED lighting have always been some of the key features that have had me come back to them. Now, with this inexpensive and incredibly high-quality mouse, I am sticking around with them again for a while!
I have been running a SteelSeries Aerox 5 wireless mouse for a while as my daily driver FPS gaming mouse, and I admit I have grown frustrated with the seemingly endless cycle of 2.4ghz wireless connection issues and having the mouse lose battery life at the most inconvenient of times right in the middle of a match. I found interest in this Razer Cobra wired mouse as a small, lightweight, wired mouse with the simplicity that those features imply combined with the high quality I have known of Razer.
This mouse has everything you need for simple FPS gaming. Is lightweight and has an excellent polling rate and boasts an 8500 DPI optical sensor that allows for precision and excellent flick shots in games like Hunt Showdown. If you are preferential to switching DPIs midgame like I am, I found out that in the Razer Synapse software, I can change how many DPI presets there are, and I have now narrowed it down to two custom DPI settings: 1850 for my faster flick shots and 1600 for more precise aiming. The button directly below the scroll wheel lets me switch between these two settings easily! The scroll wheel, mentioning that, is very precise and has distinctly articulated bumps as you scroll along. The two side buttons are mapped to certain actions in my game and are also helpful for navigating back and forth on Google Chrome pages. The only thing I will say is that Mouse Buttons 1 and 2 (your index finger and middle finger buttons, respectively) have a remarkably loud click that some gamers may not like. I personally don’t mind at all!
Continuing to discuss the mouse’s quality. The braided cable is an extremely nice feeling material and pushes along my desk and Razer Goliathcus mousepad without any hang-ups or catches at all. The RGB is tasteful and not distracting, with the Razer tri-snake logo on the top being programmable RGB along with a nice “underglow” strip of RGB right at the underside front curve of the mouse.
All the above I have detailed makes for an excellent mouse that is sure to be a winner for gamers of all types! It should be noted that this is significantly smaller than some mice Razer offers. This would be best for medium male hands at most (I am a medium-large nitrile glove size, and this fits just about right for me) or for more petite female and adolescent hands. Thanks for reading, and hope this review helps offer some insights!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Get blazing fast printing speeds and easy management tools with LaserJet Pro. This printer is built for maximum productivity with fast speeds and reliable hardware, delivering effortless everyday use from wherever work happens so you can focus more on your business.
Customer Rating
5
Senior citizen-Friendly printer-easy to use!
on July 27, 2023
Posted by: Bren
Sometimes, all you need is simple features when it comes to printing, and this printer delivers on exactly that. Simple setup, ease of use, and fast print speeds all come in handy for a pseudo-home office setup like what my grandpa has.
One of the stand-out features of this printer that led me to select it is the self-healing wifi and how easily it can reconnect to my spotty hotspot connection if it drops. We are using this printer out in a rural setting where my grandpa, typical of his generation, still enjoys having everything on the internet like emails and insurance policies, in printed format. He does not have typical wifi, but instead (with my help) will just use hotspot connection off of his cellphone plan. This printer is really forgiving of this slower speed, more so than other printers we have tried.
Additionally, because it is a simple black and white printer, it is a little more economical for my grandpa to run and print from than a full color printer, which seem to run out of color ink even when all you are doing is printing in black and white (from the printer head cleaning etc.)
This printer model does not have a scanner or any other distracting features, it is just a simple enough printer to use and set up that even my senior-citizen grandpa is starting to feel perfectly comfortable with it! Hope this review helps give a little bit of insight from the user experience case here that you didn’t gain from simply reading the description or specifications on this page.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Manage up to four electronic devices with this TERK universal rechargeable remote. A fully-backlit keypad enables easy use in the dark, while the quick-access keys let you seamlessly access your favorite apps. Compatibility with most TVs, satellite cable and streaming players offers versatility. This TERK universal rechargeable remote provides up to 6 months of operation on a full charge.
Customer Rating
5
Easy setup, easy on the wallet!
on July 13, 2023
Posted by: Bren
I have had a Magnavox Blu-Ray/DVD player sitting around for a while that we like to take with us to hotels and also hook up to a projector to play movies for the family in the backyard. One of the difficulties with it is that the remote has been gone from it for a long time, and its functionality was limited to the buttons on the front.
Enter this awesome remote! This remote worked from unpacking to setup with ease! It already had enough charge to get it synchronized up to the Blu-ray player, but it was super easy to charge it up to full with the included USB-C cable.
The box for the remote had a list of codes for all major device manufacturers and the different types of devices like Smart TVs, projectors, DVD players, etc. I was able to get the correct code for the Magnavox player on the second try on the list!
Here are some tips before you go getting excited trying to program this remote to your devices. First of all, out of the box, this remote comes preprogrammed to operate most Samsung devices, Roku streaming players, and Comcast and cable boxes. The instructions state that you should just press the corresponding device key on the remote and try it first with some common functions to see if it works.
Next tip, this remote does support control of CEC-enabled RF devices (like a Firestick), so before you start trying to program the remote to those devices, program to your TV first and then see if you can operate and control the connected devices with the remote.
The remote itself is sleek, thin, and much more modern looking than some thick, cumbersome beast of a remote that requires cylinder batteries like AA or AAA. The backlight is excellent and the remote is programmed to turn off after 15 seconds or so to save battery life.
Altogether, I highly recommend this remote! It has all the functionality you need without any excess or fluff. Thanks for reading and good luck!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Annihilate your competition with this ASUS ROG gaming desktop. The Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM deliver rapid performance during fast-paced action, while the 512GB SSD provide plenty of storage for large files and downloads. This Bluetooth-enabled ASUS ROG gaming computer features an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card for tear-free rendering of 4K games.
Customer Rating
5
A Winner of a Pre-Built Gaming Desktop!
on July 5, 2023
Posted by: Bren
This is a truly amazing mid-level pre-built gaming PC for the price. To qualify this statement, I will elaborate.
Asus ROG gaming hardware like motherboards have always been one of my go-to’s when it comes to building my own computers and ROG’s pre-builts are excellent since they are typically well-tuned for gaming. An example of this is that Asus elected in this PC to use dual channel RAM (two 8gb DDR4 3200mhz modules) for a total of 16GB of RAM. It is well known in the gaming community that dual channel has far better performance over the typical single channel RAM that is often seen in pre-builts at this price, that is just one example of attention to detail they have shown in this generation of their pre-built gaming desktops. Another example of the build quality is the absolutely robust, bordering on overkill anti-sag GPU reinforcement bracket that is supporting the 3060 graphics card in this PC. It is super strong and looks akin to something a structural engineer would be proud to have supporting the foundation of a parking structure, let alone supporting a graphics card in a gaming PC. GPU sag has been known to kill PCIe channels over time or during the shipment process and ROG created a factory solution here to ensure that does not occur. This bracket also makes this desktop a little safer to transport if you have to move it around a lot. The bracket is easily removable for future longer length cards if you decide to swap out the graphics card later on.
The case itself is a beautiful thing to behold, far better in appearance than last generation and it appears to have better airflow design as well. A detail I really like about this case is the built-in headphones hook on the display side of the case. It made me chuckle with delight when I realized it was there! I love that very gameresque aspect of the PC! The RGB is perfect, in my opinion. It is not overdone, but elegant and tasteful, including the RGB strips that project onto and refract across the clear side panel. It just looks gorgeous and is user adjustable with typical RGB control software. I like the included removable carry handle strap at the rear of the case, and the selection of front I/O is absolutely amazing with two USB-C ports on the front and two USB-A slots along with two dedicated and separate 3.5mm mic and headphone jack ports. I am quite happy that Asus seems to have listened to the gaming communities clamoring for USB-C ports after the last generation of this prebuilt did not have them built in. The rear I/O port selection is excellent too with plenty of additional USB-A ports to meet your gaming setup needs. Granted, I would have liked to have had at least one rear USB-C port as well.
As always, just make sure that you plug your monitor cable such as an HDMI or Display Port cable directly into the Graphics cards ports at the very bottom rear of the case. This PC uses an Intel 13700F CPU which, the F connotation indicates it does not have internal graphics. So if you plugged into the higher up ports (as the included confusing instructions would have you do) you would not have an image and think something is wrong with the PC!
I have listed some benchmark and FPS stats below, but I just want to mention that this desktop with the Intel Core i7 13700F and Nvidia GeForce 3060 is going to slay some games if you game at 1440p and below! It is worth mentioning that the 3060 GPU lineup can vary a lot in power, with some laptop versions only having a paltry 6gb of VRAM which is downright underwhelming these days for gaming in resolutions greater than 1080p. This Asus ROG 3060 GPU has a full 12GB of VRAM which contributes to its excellence as a card for gaming! I am a 1440p (2K) resolution gamer on an older AOC Aegon 24” 1440p G-sync capable monitor hooked up via a display port cable and I am getting an absolute kick out of how great my games look and perform! I am coming from my home-built PC with an Nvidia 2080 super (8GB VRAM) and this prebuilt from AOC is meeting and exceeding the performance of that system in some aspects such as ray tracing capability! If you are a 1080p gamer and looking to keep your entire system more budget, make sure to take advantage of the included decent-enough wired mouse and keyboard with this PC to start and if you just add a high refresh (120hz or above for sure) 1080p monitor, you will likely be playing ALL your games on maxed out settings with this PC!
Now, for a few gripes that do not affect the stars I am giving this PC. One gripe that I have, albeit not critical for most strictly PC gamers, is the anemic air cooler for the CPU. It is definitely not doing the job of effectively cooling the CPU when I ran Geekbench 6, with temperatures climbing up to 98¬¬¬oC as the system got heat saturated in my 740F room at that time. This temperature was never reached during my normal workflow with a few dozen chrome tabs in the background while playing Doom Eternal on maxed settings with Ray Tracing and DLSS on at 1440p resolution, with temps staying below 90C on the CPU. Essentially, I think that only the highest-level CPU users are going to push this system hard enough to get it that hot. If that is the case, then you should consider either one of the higher-end ASUS selections in this lineup with an AIO liquid CPU cooler prebuilt into it or just consider adding a better air or AIO cooler yourself down the road.
Another small gripe that I have—speaking of fans---is the noise of this PC when the power use ramps up. It has two exhaust fans at the back and top rear of the case, and the CPU air cooler fan. These 3 fans add up to a decent amount of ambient noise when the gaming really ramps up. I am happy to report that they are not high-pitched or whiny sounding compared to the last generation; they are just generally loud when the system ramps up. I game with a headset so this is not the most concerning issue for me currently.
Down the road, I am going to outfit this PC with some Corsair MagLev or Noctua fans to quiet things down and maybe just improve airflow altogether too. On that note, this motherboard has distinctly few fan headers, so be prepared to but some fan splitter cables or use Molex cable (the PC includes one) powered fans if so inclined. Have no fear about the GPU temperature though! I never got temps that exceeded 89C on the hotspot of the card, even during 8-hour long gaming sessions in a 76F room! The GPU is cooled by a robust, 100mm or 120mm size fan built onto the card and it is definitely doing the job. One further mention about air flow and cooling in this case is that there is really great ventilation on the front of the case that passes the “flashlight test” with me being able to shine a light and see right through the holes for ventilation for the case! This probably contributes to some passive airflow being pulled in through the front of the case as the exhaust fans at the top-rear and back of the case do their job.
One final small gripe I have before I list off some stats from benchmarks I took is the SSD size. Not the speed, but the size. 512GB to me is just painfully low on storage for an advertised gaming PC these days. With modern games being over 120GB at times, this previsions the average non-tech savvy consumer with only enough storage for 3-6 AAA title games like CODMW2 before this SSD is filled up. Personally, I can live with this storage size on the boot drive, because I am going to turn around and add a 2TB 2.5” SSD for game storage very soon with the included SATA data cable that Asus provided with this PC. However, if you are not tech or computer saavy and don’t want to add additional storage later on, you may want to look into get a higher storage prebuilt in this Asus lineup so you are not playing the install/uninstall game with your PC games down the road! Or just consider adding an external hard drive via USB-Cable and look up how to use it as an additional game storage drive. There are great guides on YouTube etc. on how to do that!
The Stats:
Geekbench 6 (GPU) OpenCL score: 91845
Geekbench 6 (CPU) Single Core score: 2656 Multicore: 12003
Unengine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 with Ultra Quality, Extreme Tessellation at 1440p resolution: 61.6FPS with a score of 1552
CrystalDiskMark 8.0 (Micron_2400_MTFDKBA512QFM M.2 NVMe SSD): Best Read of Three: 4330.75 MB/s Best Write of Three: 1822.9 MB/s
Geekbench 6 (GPU) OpenCL score: 91845
Geekbench 6 (CPU) Single Core score: 2656 Multicore: 12003
Unengine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 with Ultra Quality, Extreme Tessellation at 1440p resolution: 61.6FPS with a score of 1552
CrystalDiskMark 8.0 (Micron_2400_MTFDKBA512QFM M.2 NVMe SSD): Best Read of Three: 4330.75 MB/s Best Write of Three: 1822.9 MB/s
Doom Eternal Max Settings Ray Tracing on DLSS on 1440p resolution: 120-160FPS
Hunt Showdown Medium-High Settings at 1440p resolution: 90-130FPS
Rocket League Max Settings at 1440p FPS uncapped: 290-350FPS
Summary: This is an excellent PC to look into if you are looking for a great value in the gaming space for yourself or a loved one. The looks are good enough to make anyone happy, while still retaining the important user customizability features that future-proof this PC and prepare it for hours upon hours of joyful gaming for years to come. Thanks for reading and I hope this review helps point you in the right direction with your purchase!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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The perfect solution for the evolving workplace, the Pro EX11000 Full HD 1080p laser projector produces a bright and vibrant display designed to maximize visibility and engagement. Cultivate collaboration during Zoom meetings and video conferences with vivid, immersive images up to 300"~all while keeping the lights on. Experience amazing clarity with 4,600 lumens of color and white brightness (1) plus, with the 20,000-hour laser light source (2) there are no lamps to replace, ever. With Best-in-Class Color Brightness (3) and a built-in 16 W speaker, the Pro EX11000 helps ensure that you won~t miss any of the important details. Offering a multitude of connectivity options, including two HDMI ports and a USB port to power popular streaming devices like Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast (4), the Pro EX11000 redefines versatility. With 3-chip 3LCD technology, experience remarkable color accuracy while maintaining color brightness. Featuring easy-to-use image adjustments, 1 ~ 1.6x optical zoom, auto vertical correction and more, you will be up and running in no time. Work better together with the Pro EX11000.
Customer Rating
5
An incredible, full-featured projector!
on July 3, 2023
Posted by: Bren
I don’t even know where to begin to explain how excellent this projector is and how glad I am to have it. This projector is as versatile as the side-hustles and business that I do. For one, I am a nursing school tutor of sorts, and I have been taking this projector with me to study rooms to meet with other students and review anatomy and physiology concepts and pharmacology. This projector balances being perfectly portable with the included soft-padded carrying case with being incredibly useful in even the brightest rooms and lit areas I have done these sessions in. The 1080p capable projector is incredibly crisp, and even a novice can learn how to adjust the size and sharpness of the image in seconds with intuitive dials. The most useful feature I have found is the image angle adjustment, where I am able to straighten out the image projected if the projector is unable to be pointed straight at the screen or whiteboard being used.
Some other cool things. The speaker is perfectly adequate and gets plenty loud on its own for a conference room of about 20-40 people in size. After that, it is worthwhile to hook up to the a/v system in the presentation room or—if you are on the go for me—I just bring a 3.5mm auxiliary cable hooked up to a Bluetooth speaker and use that for audio. Another cool thing to note is that this can be adequately powered by a relatively inexpensive portable battery like the Bluetti EB3A for about a 1-1/2 hour presentation successfully. The projector draws about 190-210 watts, so my 293wH battery bank with a 600W AC inverter powered it just fine. Another cool thing about this projector is that it worked with ease with my iPhone HDMI adapter cable (a cheap one that I got from Amazon that is powered with an iPhone lightning cable). I managed to actually plug the iPhone power cable into the USB-A port on the projector itself. Additionally, we were able to use the Bluetooth speakers hooked up to the iPhone as the audio source while we used the projector as the video source! That HDMI adapter cable managed to power and charge the iPhone while the presentation was rolling from the iPhone, and we were scrolling around Microsoft OneNote and such. Any way that I can streamline my services, I desire to do so, and this projector makes it that much easier.
At the end of the day, even though I use this and will be writing its related expenses off for business expenses, it is also fun for mixed home use too. I bought a cheap $19 dollar 100” projector screen off of Amazon and hung it in my wife and I’s bedroom and much to my delight, we were enjoying Harry Potter on our Blu-ray player hooked up to the proctor at 100” screen size!! Wow!
Altogether, I cannot recommend this projector enough. Whether you are a power user or a lighter-use self-employed professional like me, you are going to be glad you spent the money on this projector. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this projector!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Introducing the Outdoor Premium Full-Motion TV Mount - Designed to handle the elements, this weatherproof mount is built with a corrosion-resistant coating and stainless-steel hardware for durability. 25-inches of extension offers flexible cable access, and the perfect viewing angle so you get the best seat wherever you are. Motion lock knobs keep your TV securely in place to prevent unwanted movement. With Virtual Axis(TM) fingertip tilt technology, you can tilt and swivel your TV to reduce glare and improve the viewing angle. The slim profile of this mount blends seamlessly into your d~cor, placing your TV just 2.74 inches from the wall for a sleek and stylish look. Upgrade your outdoor entertainment space with the perfect mount. For TVs 40"-85"
Customer Rating
5
Perfect, secure outdoor mounting solution!
on June 1, 2023
Posted by: Bren
Pros:
• Weatherproof and corrosion resistant. I live in the PNW where it rains constantly for weeks on end, so corrosion and weather-resistant finish on an outdoor mount for my back patio TV is a must. This suits the bill.
• Padlockable. We keep our TV out of sight of the neighboring yards and street, but it is good to know that even if some of the local transients or misbehaved teenagers got an idea to break into our yard, this is secured.
• Perfect tilting, pivoting, and tilting angles. You ever get that little bit of mid-afternoon glare on your TV outside and wish you could adjust the angle of the TV just a hair? Well, this stand accommodates it.
• Practically flush mount when pushed back. I am the kind of person that does not like the TV to be the centerpiece of the décor in an area, so my wife and I both like that this can sit back so flush against the wall under the awning but still be able to easily move it.
• Passes the “wife” test, in the sense that she can move it and adjust it with no coaching or help whatsoever. We have a 65” OLED TV mounted up there which is heavy and she can pivot the mount with ease.
• Padlockable. We keep our TV out of sight of the neighboring yards and street, but it is good to know that even if some of the local transients or misbehaved teenagers got an idea to break into our yard, this is secured.
• Perfect tilting, pivoting, and tilting angles. You ever get that little bit of mid-afternoon glare on your TV outside and wish you could adjust the angle of the TV just a hair? Well, this stand accommodates it.
• Practically flush mount when pushed back. I am the kind of person that does not like the TV to be the centerpiece of the décor in an area, so my wife and I both like that this can sit back so flush against the wall under the awning but still be able to easily move it.
• Passes the “wife” test, in the sense that she can move it and adjust it with no coaching or help whatsoever. We have a 65” OLED TV mounted up there which is heavy and she can pivot the mount with ease.
Cons:
• None
• None
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Only at Best BuyPlay your way to the top with this HP OMEN notebook. The Intel Core i7 processor provides lightning-fast response times, and the 1TB hard drive is enough for all your favorite games and apps with room to spare for music and video files. This HP OMEN notebook has a full-size backlit keyboard for fast, easy typing.
What is the RPM of the 1 terabyte hard drive?
7200rpm, much better than the 5400rpm hard drive found in my $1600.00 MSI Stealth Pro :(
8 years, 8 months ago
by
Bren