Bren's stats
- Review count247
- Helpfulness votes1,753
- First reviewDecember 27, 2016
- Last reviewNovember 25, 2025
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- Average rating4.8
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- Answer count11
- Helpfulness votes1
- First answerDecember 27, 2016
- Last answerNovember 4, 2021
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SimpliSafe delivers advanced security solutions that put you, your home, and your safety first. With optional professional monitoring powered by Fast Protect Technology, SimpliSafe combines innovative hardware with advanced AI and real people ~ for 24/7 professional monitoring that delivers fast emergency response when you need it most. The award-winning SimpliSafe system is effective, intuitive, and affordable ~ so that home can be safe and secure for everyone. You can protect every inch of your home. SimpliSafe has sensors for every room, window and door. HD security cameras for inside and out. Smarter ways to detect motion that alert you only when a threat is real. Hazard sensors that detect floods, and other threats to your home. Powerful sirens that can help stop intruders in their tracks. That~s the unmatched combination that separates SimpliSafe Home Security from the others. At SimpliSafe, we believe everyone deserves to feel safe at home. That's why our bundles are designed to be effective yet affordable. And with no long-term contracts or hidden fees. This 8-piece wireless security bundle provides 24/7 protection from the outside in. Starting outside, the Outdoor Security Camera Series 2 keeps watch with a 140 degree field of view, 1080p HD resolution and color night vision, and includes 2-way audio. With the included power cables, the Outdoor Camera can help prevent crime before it happens with SimpliSafe Active Guard Outdoor Protection (available with select monitoring plans). The Base Station is the brains of the system. It sends alarm signals to the monitoring center with a built-in cellular connection with a professional monitoring plan, plus a back up battery that lasts up to 24 hours and a loud, 100 dB siren. The smash-safe Keypad is soft to the touch, easy to use during the day and night, and requires no plug so it can be placed anywhere. Entry Sensors (4 total) protect your doors, windows, and cabinets and are designed to blend into the background. And the Motion Sensor is designed for human detection, not pet detection.Advanced security, whole home protection. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
Posted by: Bren
Until I became a husband and I father, I never really took my home security into much consideration. In the last five years of my life, finding a wonderful woman to marry and now having a beautiful toddler together has made me realize just how important it is that I fortify and guard our “castle” against intruders. Particularly in this state of the world, where civil unrest is rampant and it seems like manners and common human decency have gone by the wayside, I have wanted to have better monitoring of our home for protection. Enter this system: SimpliSafe has outdone itself in creating a smart and cost-effective package that allows you to get set up with a DIY security system that has a monthly professional monitoring plan that starts at less than the cost of a Netflix subscription each month. This, to me, way outdoes the old days of SOS alarm systems paying their exorbitant installation costs and having to deal with customer service that felt like it was from the 20th century. Oh, wait, much of it is, haha! Not so with this system!
I really can appreciate what is included in this package. I think you get just the right equipment to get started for an average lower-middle-class American home with one public-facing entrance (great place for the outdoor camera to canvas) and two to four doors leading to the outside. Even some additional aids are present here, like the motion sensor camera, which is a great pick for an indoor living space where you expect movement of an intruder to occur. In our use and testing of it, our 55-pound labradoodle has not triggered the motion alarm! Way to go, SimpliSafe!
The only additional thing I wish this package had included was their doorbell camera. That way, that could have been used for the front public-facing entrance, and then the outdoor camera used elsewhere. Speaking of that outdoor camera, it can be used wirelessly or wired, but the so-called Active Guard Outdoor Protection requires a wired connection. The Active Guard Outdoor Package seems like it has some great benefits, particularly for high-crime or break-in areas where you want a live agent to be able to actively confront an intruder via the camera’s speakers and siren. However, this requires some of the higher-tier, more expensive monthly plans, and for me, I just don’t think I am going to pony up the price for that yet. It is important to know that this is available, which will be very attractive for some prospective buyers!
Altogether, I would give this system 5 out of 5 stars for just getting me the right gear in one package to pretty well blanket my home in sensors and intruder protection that certainly are worth their price for the best peace of mind I have felt in a long time!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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CRUSH THE ACTION WITH MIND-BENDING BASS. Meet your ultimate workout buddy. Crusher 540 Active is packing the power of Crusher Bass to fuel your most intense sessions. Our premium active headphone keeps you cool with breathable fabric ear cushions and makes post-workout wipe-downs effortless with its sweat- and water-resistant nano-coating. It~s Crusher for the gym ~ feel the bass, feel the burn.
Posted by: Bren
These headphones are, without a doubt, one of the most fun and entertainment value providing electronics I have acquired to memory in the last years! The haptic bass experience on these is beyond amazing. If you have ever been a passenger or owner of a vehicle that has true aftermarket subwoofers installed, such as dual 12’s or the like, then you have an idea of what that kind of powerful bass feels like: it is immersive and not just flowing into your ears but conducted throughout your whole body in a pseudo-emotional experience. That is what these headphones remind me of when I listen to my bass music on them! I am taken back to 2011 when I had my first car with Kicker dual 12’s in the trunk, and my friends and I would turn up Skrillex or Bass Hunter so loud that we made the rear-view mirror pop off the front windshield once. Anyway, I digress.
These headphones are made for bass; if the above paragraph did not convey that point enough. From the moment you first turn them on and plop them on your head, you feel like you are about to experience something different. The haptic slider on the left headphone allows you to control the intensity of the bass, while the other nicely tactile controls allow you to distinguish between the various buttons like power, volume/track up, etc. While this headphone set is a little plasticky in appearance and no great beauty visually compared to its competitors in the price range, the bass experience is 100% the best I have ever experienced on an over-the-ear headphone set.
I think those are the most important things I want to convey here! Know what you are buying in terms of these not necessarily being up to the build quality of competitors, but man, do they thump the bass like no one’s business!! 5 out of 5 stars for sure!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Samsung's 37" ViewFinity S8 Monitor with 4K UHD Resolution reveals crystal-clear visual excellence with higher pixel density. More screen space and exceptional color detail enables professionals to create intricate designs, complex diagrams, and dynamic video content. With 1.07 billion colors, HDR10 provides near-limitless hues and true-to-life color representation with deeper contrast for darker darks and brighter brights. A USB-C port allows up to 90W charging and data transfer at the same time, while a built-in LAN port provides seamless Ethernet connectivity for laptops. The built-in KVM switch enables you to choose split screen, Picture-in-Picture, or Pictureby- Picture for enhanced efficiency when multitasking. The Ergonomic Design with its height-adjustable screen tilts and swivels for optimal viewing at any angle, while the Easy Setup Stand requires just the simple push of a button ~ no tools necessary. T~V-certified for intelligent eye care, reduces screen flickering and protects against excessive blue light; brightness and color temperature are automatically optimized for your environment.
Posted by: Bren
For the dedicated productivity enthusiast or digital professional committed to highly efficient, multitasking work, you have found the right monitor for you! This monitor is honestly so well featured and gorgeous to behold. 37” of 4K resolution pixels just baffles me as a young millennial who remembers our first flat screen TV in 2008 being a 1080p 37” television that just boggled our minds back then. Now, my work and leisure-use monitor is the same size and many times greater the resolution!
I love the use of this monitor. I have a 2021 MacBook 14” M1 Pro that I do all of my work and productivity activities on, and thanks to the USB-C display and 90-watt power delivery charging of this monitor, I can easily hook up to the monitor with just a single click of a USB-C cable! The monitor also has the right blend of features that help keep the price from being astronomical while still providing most end-users exactly the right experience they are looking for. Allow me to elaborate.
First of all, this is no gaming monitor. It is only 60Hz refresh, which I will admit is vaguely disappointing. My MBP can go up to 120Hz refresh, so sometimes when I am running the Samsung monitor as an extended monitor to the MacBook, I find the slower refresh rate to be a little jarring, as it is evidenced in aspects like clunkier scrolling and more jarring mouse and page movements. However, I should confess that I am a first-person shooter gamer in my spare time, and I am used to screens with 165Hz refresh and higher, so I am very sensitive to frames (or their absence). The average user won’t even notice, so that is a good value here. An additional good value is that they went LED on the display type with a VA panel on this monitor. Neither of these technologies is the cutting edge available in 2025, but they are, again, perfectly adequate for average users and allow this to be a 37” 4K monitor with excellent I/O, even if it is not the most featured panel they have used.
All of this in composite has resulted in a monitor that I think is going to be just right for 95% of users. As to the color accuracy or higher refresh needs of some users, you may want to look elsewhere. Thanks for reading, and I hope this review has helped guide your purchasing decision!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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ASUS Chromebook Plus CX14 is made to enable ultrasmooth productivity with Google AI in a compact form factor. This lightweight, ultraportable device is powered by an Intel Core processor with a vivid slim-bezel NanoEdge display that fits more screen into the compact chassis for easy multitasking and immersive entertainment. It~s fast, secure, and perfect for any task.
Customer Rating
5
Highly usable, well-featured Chromebook Plus!
on May 30, 2025
Posted by: Bren
I am very happy with this Asus Chromebook Plus. It has far exceeded my expectations in several categories and even stood to downright impress me in others! I will bounce around on the things I like about this Chromebook, but the TLDR is that if you are in the market for a Chromebook in this price range, this is absolutely one that should make it to the top of the list for you!
First of all, I am just impressed by how usable and versatile Chromebooks are nowadays. The setup of this computer is as smooth as any I have experienced, and waaaayyy smoother than the still bloated and clunky setups of even high-end Windows 11-based machines. Because I have already been an avid Google Chrome user with a Gmail account and other Google-oriented devices, logging in and setting up this device felt almost as simple as logging out of my daily use desktop computer, opening up this laptop, and picking up where I left off. Because Chrome OS is the operating system here, all of my Google-related content just loaded up perfectly as soon as this device was set up and ready to go. My main activities on my home computer, including web browsing, Spotify, YouTube content consumption, and productivity on Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, etc.), were as easy as pie to get into on this Chromebook. In fact, I wrote this review on Microsoft Word via the Microsoft 365 app available to download in the Chrome app store! I have to admit, as some background, that I am a diehard MacBook Pro and Air fan for my day-to-day portable computing tasks and for use at my work. But this Chromebook is absolutely giving them a run for their money in terms of general usage at a fraction of the price! Let’s talk about that performance next.
One of the reasons I picked this Chromebook is that it is equipped with what I feel should be the minimal specs for a laptop computer these days. It has 8 GB of RAM, which, on an optimized lightweight OS like Chrome, is plenty for the majority of people to have multiple apps open in the background, along with plenty of Chrome web browser tabs open without the system getting bogged down. Adding to that is the Intel Core i3 processor, which is perfect for keeping plenty of power fed to the computer programs to allow for intensive CPU tasks to be completed without stuttering or delayed load times. This chip is also cooled with a stout copper heat sink and a fan that rarely spins up during normal use. I really appreciate the fact that the fan is here if needed, but that it doesn’t have to be spinning and making noise all the time! Finally, in this era of cloud storage and web application-based school and work programs, I find that the onboard 128 GB of eMMC storage (essentially a fancy SD card) is adequate for most users’ needs in 2025. In my opinion, many computer users today who have changed with the times have moved past the era where we had 100s of GBs of music libraries and photo albums all stored on local storage. Now life has moved towards music streaming services like Spotify Premium and YouTube Premium and cloud storage like Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud. As a quick aside, that is one of the things I am grateful for too: I can access my OneDrive storage from the Microsoft 365 app on this computer with ease! It even offers the option in settings to add and be able to manage your files on this computer via OneDrive. That is honestly so cool that Google has made the concession with the device that some users are just more entrenched in the Microsoft 365 suite and will be better suited using those programs than Google-based ones.
There are a few things where this Chromebook is definitely punching above its weight class. First of all, the keyboard, although it is not backlit, is one of the nicest budget keyboards I have typed on in a long time. Asus killed it with how tactile yet gentle these keys are while typing, and the eggshell texturing on them makes for a great tactility while I am rapidly typing. It is also a rather subdued “thonk” sound that these keys make as opposed to a high-pitched or plasticky “click”. This keyboard would be highly welcome in a library or other quiet typing environments. The webcam of this laptop is ridiculously good for a $600 device. It is 1080p and, frankly, looks better than my older MacBook Air camera with a very smooth 30FPS frame rate and good lighting as well! The physical privacy shutter is a bonus, too. The next part of this Chromebook that is outstanding is the screen. This screen can get respectably bright, which is great while typing in a brightly lit area, even outdoors in indirect sunlight! And counter to this, it also has an easy-to-toggle eyecare/blue light elimination night time screen mode, which yellows everything out and makes it easier on your eyes as you are winding down in the evening. Plus, the fact that the whole screen can fold down flat is nice for a variety of uses. However, the lid and hinge combo of this laptop is not super optimized, and opening the lid is a two-handed deal. Not a big problem, but some people may want to know that! The speakers on this laptop will not be winning any awards or filling a whole living room with dance party music, but they are reasonably loud and of high enough quality to manage their tasks. I am only picking up two bottom-firing speakers at the front of the laptop. The track pad on this laptop is in the goldilocks zone: just the right size, the right smoothness, and is easy to click in the appropriate positions for your typical springboard style trackpad with physical click and feedback. Gestures on it work well, like three fingers brushing up to show your app and window view of the desktops.
Some additional random things I love about this laptop and OS. It has excellent standby time. What I mean by that is I can confidently close the lid at night with the device unplugged, let’s say, at 97% battery, and the next morning when I open the laptop up, it will still be at 97%! This is something that is still sloppy and annoying with Windows OS-based laptops: you will close the laptop thinking it is going to sleep, but the next day it will practically be dead in your bag! Not so with this laptop. Having Gemini and the AI engine thereof built into this Chromebook Plus is absolutely awesome. I have recently become a strong adherent of AI assistants and use them often in both my personal productivity work and in my paid work. Having a simple app I can pop open on this Chromebook and start firing away questions with it is really wonderful, especially considering how this laptop is specifically optimized around AI implementation.
One of the BEST parts of this laptop is that I feel like Asus has finally listened to my bellyaching and others as well: they are finally using USB-C charging on one of their budget laptops! Not only that, but they gave us TWO USB-C ports on this laptop capable of charging the machine! That is amazing! This uses an included 45-watt USB-C charger that is compact and easy to transport, but it is so wonderful that it is not proprietary now, and that any appropriately powered USB-C charging method will work to top this excellent little ChromeBook off! This Chromebook is also equipped with a great range of additional I/O: HDMI 1.4, USB-A 3.2 with 5 Gbps connection speed, 3.5mm headphone jack, and a Kensington security lock on the right side! This laptop is ready to go “dongle-free” into your school and workbag unlike so many other ultrabooks and laptops these days!
Altogether, if you are in the market specifically for a Chromebook or just want to get into a highly featured and usable laptop computer in this price range and don’t have a specific need for a Windows or Apple-based computer, I think that you have found the right one in this Asus CX14 Chromebook Plus!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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With 16 buttons, an adjustable 12-button Key Slider, the astonishingly accurate MARKSMAN S 33K sensor, and low-latency SLIPSTREAM WIRELESS, the CORSAIR SCIMITAR ELITE WIRELESS SE MMO Gaming Mouse is legendary MMO gaming gear. Embrace wireless freedom and enjoy up to 150 hours* of gaming on a single charge. Control the situation during intense raids and boss fights with 16 customizable buttons and the patented adjustable Key Slider which puts 12 buttons in comfortable reach of your thumb. Also control your stream like never before with native Elgato Stream Deck integration giving you quick access to your most important functions.
Customer Rating
5
Excellent choice for Corsair fan MMO players!
on May 28, 2025
Posted by: Bren
I was very excited to review this mouse when it caught my interest. I have always been interested in trying an MMO-style mouse with the number pad on the side, but I was always dismayed when I would try them to find that my annoyingly stubby thumb really wasn’t a good fit on the majority of those I have tried. Enter the Corsair Scimitar Elite. This mouse has one of the single coolest features I have gotten to try on a mouse: you can loosen a screw on the bottom with an included high quality hex screwdriver and adjust the number pad back and forth on the side of the mouth to the EXACT place you want it! This feature alone, I think, is going to win the game for Corsair with MMO players. I myself am not a hardcore MMO player, but friends of mine who are some of the most exacting and finicky gamers I know in terms of every accessory in their gaming arsenal needing to be precisely on point to meet the demands of their competitive gaming. The adjustability present here is going to give those folks the kind of dialing in they will want to make this mouse fit into their ergonomics just right.
As for the rest of the build of the mouse, I like it reasonably well, but there could be improvements. I find that the overall feel of the mouse is to slick for my liking. This can be ameliorated with some skateboard tape or other grip tape available for mice online, but I would have liked some more texturing or stippling on some of the gripping surfaces of the mouse. This mouse is a brand-new release mouse as of the writing of this review in late May 2025, but I could not for the life of me get it to connect to the iCue software. No problem really since it is adjustable for DPI setting with the top middle button out of the box, and since the number pad comes already set to corresponding numbered buttons, so you are able to assign weapon slots and actions as usual on your game to corresponding number keys. But I will look forward to more customization as soon as the updates come out.
Overall, this mouse gets 5 out of 5 stars for the innovation and cleverness of design in consideration of the demographic of gamers Corsair is targeting with it. Corsair peripherals have been reliable in my experience in general, and I found that this mouse is a beautiful pairing with my Corsair low-profile keyboard. I highly recommend you give this mouse a try and get it customized to your needs!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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In competitive gaming, every frame matters. Introducing Acer's XV240Y gaming monitor - the Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution monitor that can keep up with your game play. Through AMD FreeSync Premium Technology, the game~s frame rate is determined by your graphics card, not the fixed refresh rate of the monitor, giving you a serious competitive edge. Plus, users can enjoy comfortable viewing experience while gaming via flicker-less, low dimming and ComfyView display. The design saves space on your desk and lets you place multiple monitors side by side to build a seamless big-screen display
Customer Rating
5
Gorgeous and affordable gaming monitor!
on May 9, 2025
Posted by: Bren
I am super happy with this monitor. It checks all the boxes I cared about and is really the perfect blend of features for a 24” monitor at such a great price! The 200hz refresh is so amazing. My 4070 super is able to pump out so many silky-smooth frames to this monitor at maxed out settings on 1080p resolution. This is great for esport games like CSGO and I have really enjoyed it with Overwatch 2 as well. I also have found that for an IPS panel like this, the black and gray shades are truly well defined and disparate in games like Hunt: Showdown 1896 where you really want to be able to make out different shapes and enemies in the darkness of night maps. I have also enjoyed connecting this monitor to my MacBook Air and MacBook Pro I respectively use for work and personal productivity. It behaves well with the Apple devices and I have had zero connectivity issues via HDMI to HDMI, HDMI to USB-C cable, or display port to display port on my gaming PC. Overall, from such a highly renowned and consistently quality producing monitor maker like Acer, this is a great buy. Don’t miss out, especially when this is going on sale!!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Upgrade your home network with the Deco BE68 (3-Pack) Whole-Home Mesh System, powered by cutting-edge Wi-Fi 7 technology for ultra-fast, reliable connectivity. With speeds up to 14 Gbps and coverage up to 8,100 sq. ft., this tri-band system ensures seamless performance in every corner of your home. Advanced features like Multi-Link Operation, 4K-QAM, and a powerful 6 GHz band let you connect up to 200 devices with unmatched speed and stability~perfect for streaming, gaming, and working from home. Equipped with a 10G WAN/LAN port, a 2.5G port, and a USB 3.0 port, the Deco BE68 delivers lightning-fast downloads, uploads, and data transfers. Setup is quick and easy with the Deco app, while TP-Link HomeShield provides enterprise-grade security to keep your network safe. Upgrade today and enjoy seamless, high-speed Wi-Fi without limits.
Customer Rating
5
A Wifi Set Up worthy of the Price
on May 4, 2025
Posted by: Bren
This TP-Link deco Wi-Fi Mesh system is truly, for all the testing I can do, one of the best options on the market right now for covering a large single family home, duplex, or small office building in a blanket of versatile, truly high speed Wi-Fi connectivity that is up to snuff for use in 2025 and likely many years beyond! The latest connectivity protocols and antennas are all here. Wi-Fi 7 is ready to go, full 2.4 Ghz, 5 Ghz, AND 6 Ghz connections! The 6.0 GHz band alone is something that makes this mesh wifi setup so worthy. For those of you not in the know, 6 Ghz has many benefits. Among the best are the faster speeds available (with the appropriate internet provider plan) for activities like 4K and 8K video streaming, online gaming, and more. Because 6 GHz is a newer connection protocol, there is likely to be way less congestion than on the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, given the scarcity of devices that currently can connect. There is also way less latency on 6 Ghz bands than even 5 Ghz, so it looks like a really bright future for your gaming and streaming needs when you have this Wi-Fi Router set up!
As for the setup and the physical Deco hubs, they are amazing. Each is capable of offering wired ethernet connection, local USB-A input for shared storage access across the network, and the three of them total can cover up to 8000 square feet of space! This setup is positively overkill for most single-family homes as it goes for coverage but is honestly what we were looking for in terms of future-proofing our internet and not having to worry about upgrading again for many years. Internet connection is one of those items on my list that should be something I don’t even have to think about in day-to-day life. Just able to connect my electronics and smart devices and go. With these set up, I have confidence I will enjoy this convenience for many years to come!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Snaptain P30 Pro is a 4K drone with GPS that uses brushless motors to deliver powerful power, smart flight and Return to home to make flying easier and safer, with a weight of less than 249g exempt from FAA registration. The new user interaction system and novice mode make use easier and faster.
Customer Rating
5
Fantastic drone for the beginner or hobbyist!
on April 20, 2025
Posted by: Bren
This drone is an absolute blast to fly and is honestly so much tougher than I could have ever expected. How do I know how tough it is? Well, I will get right down to business and tell you. Due to my user error and lack of judgment, I crashed this into the side of my house… twice, with hard falls from the crash from 6-8 feet up that resulted in it landing on the concrete. Trust me, I felt like a big dummy, and this drone–– praise be–– survived my carelessness! And not only did it survive, but I didn’t even have to replace the propellers! I am so beyond impressed that I just had to come right out with that information to let you know that this is indeed super tough! But now onto more info.
This is a great package for a drone. I love the included hard shell-soft exterior carrying case that is complete with preconfigured slots for the main components of the drone and even a handy and generously spacious zippered section for additional accessories like a wall adapter for your charging cable or even a portable power bank if that is how you decide to roll! The drone comes with extra propellors, screws, a screwdriver, and even extra controller toggle sticks for those uh-oh moments that come along. The setup was pretty straightforward with the included instruction manual, and I didn’t have too hard of a time getting it up and running! I just should have done my first flight in an open area like a field and not on my back patio… Yup. I know. I am just that smart, haha!
As for flying the drone, after toggling off the beginner mode, this is quite the acrobatic and fun little drone to fly for the price! One of my favorite parts about it is that it does not get excessively loud like some larger commercial-sized drones do, so I felt perfectly comfortable flying it around the park with my family and did not feel like I was disturbing anyone when it was up high and flying. I got about 25 minutes of total flight time with 15 minutes of it being recorded in 2.7K 30 FPS video, so I feel very satisfied about that! I am further satisfied that basic chargers and power banks work for charging both the controller and the drone battery. It does not require a high-wattage power delivery charger, nor does it use proprietary cables. Just good ol’ USB-C charger connections!
Some further info you might like to know, with some of this being obvious to people who really know drones well but perhaps not to others. First of all, this is not a toy. I would not recommend giving this to a child or irresponsible teen (or intoxicated uncle) as this is a legitimate drone that could cause injury, potentially lethal, in the right circumstances, and it is also able to fly high enough to interfere with air traffic and get you into massive legal trouble. So, fly responsibly. Next, this is not a “smart” drone. This means that it is not covered by sensors that will rescue you from your own carelessness. This does not have object avoidance or collision protection. What it does have are the basic and very handy features of being able to auto-land, return to home (where it last took off from), and it has a fail-safe power off feature on the physical controller that lets you completely kill power to the drone and let it fall back to earth in a dire circumstance. This also does not have any onboard gyroscopic camera stabilization capability. So, if you are recording in windy conditions or with a lot of movement happening to the drone, your footage is going to look choppy. Finally, a random piece of info is I had great luck with it with my very high capacity Sandisk 256gb micro-SD card. The recordings look great!
Overall, I am super happy to have this drone and glad to have it in my repertoire of fun electronics. I highly recommend you give it a try and hope you enjoyed the review!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Turn everyday tasks into something special with Vivobook 14, your essential tool for getting things done easier, anywhere. It~s completely user-friendly too, with its 180~ lay-flat hinge and physical webcam shield. Make all your days more enjoyable with Vivobook 14!
Customer Rating
3
Nothing spectacular about this laptop
on April 2, 2025
Posted by: Bren
I have long been an ASUS laptop fan. For example, their Asus Zephyrus laptops are some of the best blended-use gaming and professional laptops I have ever experienced. But this Vivobook… It just is not worth recommending at this price when the competition in this price range and a few hundred above has gotten so unbelievably good. I will be honest about what this laptop is: It is likely just Asus’s same $400 budget Intel Celeron or i3 laptop chassis, screen, and other core components built out with a few extra features and additional RAM that probably cost Asus maybe $20 more dollars total to add at the factory overseas, but you get charged many hundreds more without the benefit of an upgraded chassis, inputs, and ports. It is by no means a BAD laptop. It actually is quite serviceable and feels plenty speedy in 2025. So, if you got this laptop as a gift or for work, don’t despair; it will work for your needs. But if you are coming down to the wire on your decision-making on which laptop to buy, allow me to elucidate what I feel are some pros and cons of this device:
Pros:
-Lightweight and easy to transport with a compact charger
-Physical Webcam cover that you manually toggle in place.
-Good battery life, at least a solid 6-hour laptop with regular use on Best Power Efficiency mode
-Good temperature management (see fan noise in cons). Temps never exceeded 91 degrees Celsius during benchmarking.
-Excellent performance on web apps and productivity multitasking (Speedometer 3.0 score of 23.9, which is great in this price range!)
-Peppy CPU and GPU Performance on Balanced power mode:
-Geekbench 6 (GPU) OpenCL score: 11988
-Geekbench 6 (CPU): Single Core score: 2211 Multicore: 5434
-The Quiet Blue is QUITE a nice color.
-Reasonably fast SSD: 4287 MB/s Read and 1819 MB/s Write speed.
-Nifty trackpad with the ability to toggle a touch numpad on the surface. Nice for Excel spreadsheet or calculator work.
-12 GB of RAM is a better baseline RAM amount than 8GB nowadays, but it is also mentioned as a con below
-The keyboard has a nice texture and is pleasing to type on
-The keyboard has a better layout than previous Vivobook models; they removed the crowded page up and page down, etc., a row of keys on the far right and added them as secondary functions to other keys. This was a good choice in my opinion.
-Reasonably large SSD at 512GB. Plenty of on-device storage for most entry-level users.
-Physical Webcam cover that you manually toggle in place.
-Good battery life, at least a solid 6-hour laptop with regular use on Best Power Efficiency mode
-Good temperature management (see fan noise in cons). Temps never exceeded 91 degrees Celsius during benchmarking.
-Excellent performance on web apps and productivity multitasking (Speedometer 3.0 score of 23.9, which is great in this price range!)
-Peppy CPU and GPU Performance on Balanced power mode:
-Geekbench 6 (GPU) OpenCL score: 11988
-Geekbench 6 (CPU): Single Core score: 2211 Multicore: 5434
-The Quiet Blue is QUITE a nice color.
-Reasonably fast SSD: 4287 MB/s Read and 1819 MB/s Write speed.
-Nifty trackpad with the ability to toggle a touch numpad on the surface. Nice for Excel spreadsheet or calculator work.
-12 GB of RAM is a better baseline RAM amount than 8GB nowadays, but it is also mentioned as a con below
-The keyboard has a nice texture and is pleasing to type on
-The keyboard has a better layout than previous Vivobook models; they removed the crowded page up and page down, etc., a row of keys on the far right and added them as secondary functions to other keys. This was a good choice in my opinion.
-Reasonably large SSD at 512GB. Plenty of on-device storage for most entry-level users.
Cons:
-Plasticky construction
-Fingerprint-prone touchpad and keyboard deck
-Low-resolution screen relative to the price
-No touch screen at the price, which some of the Windows competitors offer
-Old Wifi Card (Wifi 5, not 6 or 6E, or 7)
-Loud fan noise that is present at higher workloads
-Non-backlit keyboard
-No USB-C charging despite low wattage requirement
-USB-C port is slow and not even Thunderbolt certified at this price
-The screen is dim and has bad viewing angles. It is really hard to see, for example, when it sits on a table, and you are looking down at it from above. At least the screen hinge goes a full 180 degrees to flat to help combat this issue.
-Awful speakers. Tinny and do not get very loud.
-12 GB of slow 3200mt/s RAM. Much of the competition at this price point has a minimum of 16GB of RAM.
-Fingerprint-prone touchpad and keyboard deck
-Low-resolution screen relative to the price
-No touch screen at the price, which some of the Windows competitors offer
-Old Wifi Card (Wifi 5, not 6 or 6E, or 7)
-Loud fan noise that is present at higher workloads
-Non-backlit keyboard
-No USB-C charging despite low wattage requirement
-USB-C port is slow and not even Thunderbolt certified at this price
-The screen is dim and has bad viewing angles. It is really hard to see, for example, when it sits on a table, and you are looking down at it from above. At least the screen hinge goes a full 180 degrees to flat to help combat this issue.
-Awful speakers. Tinny and do not get very loud.
-12 GB of slow 3200mt/s RAM. Much of the competition at this price point has a minimum of 16GB of RAM.
Altogether, this laptop is not unserviceable to use, nor would it be despised as a typical office-type laptop provided by a business to an employee. But it is certainly not a device that I would recommend to just anyone when there are so many good competitors at this price. If you are a longtime die-hard Vivobook fan, by all means, go for it! For anyone else, I would wait for a sale that better justifies the lack of features or look at competitor options to make sure you are getting the best laptop for your hard-earned dollars.
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+4points
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The Shark NeverChange Air Purifier delivers all-day clean air with powerful, long-lasting HEPA filtration. Watch your air quality improve in real time, and breathe easier as Shark's PureShield Anti-Allergen filtration captures dust, pet dander, smoke, irritants, and more. Plus, with up to 5 years of long-lasting filtration, you can save big on pricey filter replacements.
Customer Rating
5
The best nursery addition for PNW Smoke Seasons!
on March 25, 2025
Posted by: Bren
To say that my wife and I are thrilled with this amazing little air purifier hardly scrapes the surface of our satisfaction! This air purifier is one of those rare “they thought of it all” products, where you can tell that the engineers at Shark did their homework and put every conceivable convenience feature into this purifier! We live in the smoky Pacific Northwest in one of the worst places in the country for air quality during the summer fire seasons, so it was essential to us that we get an air purifier before the next smoke season to protect our infant’s developing respiratory tract.
The setup was incredibly easy. The included pamphlet can walk you through the steps for some extra guidance, but the stickers on the outside of the purifier are also quite intuitive and give you a general grasp of how to set it up. Among the steps is the often maligned and confessedly missed step that gets posted on social media pages: you need to remove the plastic packaging around the filter cartridge! Gratefully, Shark put a sticker that covers the display that explicitly states to do this, but people get careless and shouldn’t blame the maker if they forget to do this critical (and somewhat common sense IMHO) step. Another step that I love to have the option, whether you choose to do it or not, is to insert the first included odor neutralizer cartridge, contained in a foil package to ensure freshness. Given that we have ours set up in a nursery next to a diaper pail, we are gladly going to utilize this and are willing to buy additional odor-neutralizer cartridges that are available for super reasonable prices from various sellers. A full odor-neutralizer assembly (including the reusable lid if you lose yours for some reason) is available from the Shark website currently for $16.99. This is optional for use, though, if you are looking to minimize your upkeep. I appreciate that you can turn the amount of fragrance up or down. We have ours turned down to the minimum as it is a pretty overwhelming scent on high in a 120sqft room.
The outside debris defense screen is easily removable and washable and helps a lot if you have a shedding animal or if your purifier is going to be in a high-traffic zone where it is going to be exposed to a lot of dust, hair, or lint. We have our purifier on the ground on the carpet, which is, admittedly, not the optimal place to have it, but it works the best for our arrangement. As such, we are going to remain aware that we will want to routinely turn off the purifier and remove this debris defense screen to clean it and to do common sense maintenance tasks like dusting the room and vacuuming the carpet regularly to prevent particles from accumulating. The front ring does pulse red if the appliance detects you need to clean the screen.
I am a data guy, and I love the screen and colored ring that gives real-time readouts of the air quality and its improvement as it filters. I love that the light can be turned off for our infant’s nursery to reduce the amount of shining light in the room.
Overall, for the price, I feel that this air purifier cannot be beat. I am requesting one for my office at work, and for any room under 250 square feet without excessive air pollutants relative to the size, this purifier will be great! For private office rooms, bedrooms, and nurseries, this is a perfect fit! The only disclaimer I will give in my review is that I am expecting, as a person living in a smoky area with poor summer air quality, to have to change this “NeverChange” 5-year air filter, probably every two years or maybe annually, depending on how bad our summer smoke is. That is not a dig on Shark at all, but just to speak to reasonable expectations for places with really bad air quality.
Thanks for reading and I hope this review helps to guide your purchaser decision!
I would recommend this to a friend!
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From America's most trusted printer brand~, the HP Smart Tank 7001 is a smart, connected and refillable tank printer that makes printing seamless for the whole family with its high capacity and wireless connectivity. Create everyday color documents at a low cost with 3 years of Original HP Ink included in the box~. It's AI-enabled~ to intuitively adapt to your workflow, with wireless and security features that keep your multifunction printer up to date and secure.
Is it supported by Big Sur Op System? Does it work with airprint?
It does work with airprint! I am having no problems on my Apple MBP currently :)
4 years, 1 month ago
by
Bren
The Canon imageFORMULA R10 portable document scanner is simple to set up and easy to use, anywhere. Easily convert paper documents to searchable digital files, using the built-in software, to get and stay organized.
Does this product scan both sides of a document? Is this user friendly? Thank you
Yes, it does scan both sides of a document and a card! I found it to be extremely user friendly, I just had to be patient with the updates to the software and firmware upon first setting it up :)
4 years, 1 month ago
by
Bren
The Apex 5 gaming keyboard has hybrid mechanical switches that combine the smoothness of a membrane switch with the added durability, performance, and satisfying tactile click of a blue mechanical switch. It also has per-key RGB customization, OLED Smart Display, aluminum alloy frame, premium magnetic wrist rest, and more.
Can the key caps be switched out with other key caps
Yes! They are compatible with most Cherry MX keycaps! From Steelseries' Blog post on the hybrid mechanical switches, "Like a blue switch, it registers a keypress with a click at 2mm, bottoms out at 4mm, and requires 50cn of force to press. Because it is a mechanical switch, you can even put aftermarket keycaps on them"
5 years, 8 months ago
by
Bren
The PRO headset from Logitech G is designed with and for esports pros. Aluminum forks, steel headband, and memory foam and premium leatherette head and ear pads keep you comfortable through marathon training and competition sessions. Pro-G 50mm drivers deliver incredibly accurate audio with improved bass response. The advanced USB DAC has a five-band onboard EQ that can be programmed via G HUB software with settings from your favorite esports pros. Pro-tuned, detachable boom mic with wind screen and pop filter ensures your comms are crystal clear. Designed for PC.
do these work for ps4?
Yes, the cable will plug into your PS4 controller and be good to go for use for audio and microphone use, no problem!
6 years, 4 months ago
by
Bren
With its Bluetooth interface, this Logitech MX Anywhere 2 910-004373 wireless mouse enables you to pair with up to 3 Bluetooth Smart Ready devices simultaneously. Darkfield Laser Tracking technology allows operation on most surfaces, including glass.
Does this product work for gaming?
Extremely well, depending on your needs. I use it for battlefield 1 and Doom and I love it. The programable buttons work awesome. For RPGs you may want a mouse that has more programable buttons, depending on your style :) If that is the case, I recommend the one's below:
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(903)8 years, 9 months ago
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Bren
Razer Blade Laptop: Developed in partnership with Intel and NVIDIA, the Razer Blade delivers performance to run the most demanding games of today. Powered by an Intel Core i7 quad-core CPU, NVIDIA GeForce graphics processor and a 14" LED display, you'll be blown away by the immersive visuals of your games in crisp high definition 1080p.The Razer Blade features 6th Gen. Intel Core i7 quad-core processor. This ensures your games and media playback run with powerful processing performance anywhere, anytime.The Razer Blade features a high-performance NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU. This means you play games the way they were meant to be played, with fluid frame rates and rich DirectX 12 graphics, and in VR.With NVIDIA Optimus technology, the Razer Blade combines great performance and great battery life by intelligently delivering power only when you need it, and conserving it when you don't.
Is this with QHD or Full HD?
Razer Blade Laptop: Developed in partnership with Intel and NVIDIA, the Razer Blade delivers performance to run the most demanding games of today. Powered by an Intel Core i7 quad-core CPU, NVIDIA GeForce graphics processor and a 14" LED display, you'll be blown away by the immersive visuals of your games in crisp high definition 1080p.The Razer Blade features 6th Gen. Intel Core i7 quad-core processor. This ensures your games and media playback run with powerful processing performance anywhere, anytime.The Razer Blade features a high-performance NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU. This means you play games the way they were meant to be played, with fluid frame rates and rich DirectX 12 graphics, and in VR.With NVIDIA Optimus technology, the Razer Blade combines great performance and great battery life by intelligently delivering power only when you need it, and conserving it when you don't.
is this the newest one razer blade?
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.
How long does the battery last and can the ram be upgrade
Battery has averaged 2.5 to 3 hours under normal use and 1 hour or so with gaming (as should be expected in any gaming laptop, really). The RAM can be upgraded given you are patient and careful when you unscrew and pry open the back. 8GB of 2133Mhz RAM is what it has stock in one of the two available slots.
8 years, 11 months ago
by
Bren
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.
will programs be installed on the ssd before the hdd
Yes, they will be. By default to allow quick bootup and accessing times. You can select the 1TB "D" drive though when you are downloading. I keep all of my games on the 1TB drive and it has worked perfectly.
8 years, 11 months ago
by
Bren
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.