Batlacit's stats
- Review count192
- Helpfulness votes907
- First reviewFebruary 13, 2016
- Last reviewMay 16, 2024
- Featured reviews0
- Average rating4.4
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- Answer count55
- Helpfulness votes96
- First answerSeptember 21, 2016
- Last answerJanuary 21, 2022
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Brew delicious coffee your way with this single-serve Ninja Coffee Bar system. It uses any ground coffee while bringing out the best flavor with advanced thermal flavor extraction technology. This versatile Ninja Coffee Bar system has a built-in frother that lets you brew, froth and drink out of one mug.
Customer Rating
4
What do you know, it works!
on September 28, 2016
Posted by: Batlacit
from Madison, WI
Okay, so first a disclaimer. I received this product for review purposes.
Which is probably a good thing, because when I first saw what it was, I really wasn't convinced that it was anything other than a coffee maker with a gimmick. There are just so many products these days that claim to vastly improve your food through some kind of culinary magic that, in the end, doesn't produce a perceptible difference.
But in this case, the gimmick (namely precise temperature control on the water) really does seem to have a noticeable impact on the coffee produced Not only that, it can be used to make a ton of coffeehouse style beverages that really do taste just as good as anything produced by a barista. What's more, I found that it actually requires less coffee to achieve the same relative strength, so there are some actual cost savings here that I never anticipated.
I also have to say I'm very pleased with the design ethic behind it. These days, single serve coffee makers all tend to rely on the k-cup, a horrifying invention from an ecological standpoint as it's managed to balloon our already absurd amount of plastic waste. This one, however, has none of it. The thing comes with a very nice and easily cleaned permanent filter, but if that's not to your taste it can be swapped out for another one or a paper filter.
As for ease of use, it supports a wide variety of containers, and really is just a question of pushing the right buttons to get it to work. All the parts are well labeled and straightforward. The integrated frother takes a little practice to learn how to avoid splattering liquid with it, but after a couple of accidents I learned it well enough.
That said, there are some downsides to this thing. The first is that this is definitely one of the bigger single-serving coffee makers I've seen. I don't really see any way around that, but the fact that they did their best doesn't change the fact that it takes up a lot more space than I expected on my counter. So if counter space is at a premium, you may need to take that into account.
The second has to do with one of the bigger features advertised for it - the ability to produce coffee house drinks. Sufficed to say, it provides the necessary parts (namely the concentrated coffee) but not much beyond that. The recipe book included has some great ones, but nothing about the device makes it any easier to actually prepare the drink. If that's what you're looking at this for, expect to have to practice a bit.
Which is probably a good thing, because when I first saw what it was, I really wasn't convinced that it was anything other than a coffee maker with a gimmick. There are just so many products these days that claim to vastly improve your food through some kind of culinary magic that, in the end, doesn't produce a perceptible difference.
But in this case, the gimmick (namely precise temperature control on the water) really does seem to have a noticeable impact on the coffee produced Not only that, it can be used to make a ton of coffeehouse style beverages that really do taste just as good as anything produced by a barista. What's more, I found that it actually requires less coffee to achieve the same relative strength, so there are some actual cost savings here that I never anticipated.
I also have to say I'm very pleased with the design ethic behind it. These days, single serve coffee makers all tend to rely on the k-cup, a horrifying invention from an ecological standpoint as it's managed to balloon our already absurd amount of plastic waste. This one, however, has none of it. The thing comes with a very nice and easily cleaned permanent filter, but if that's not to your taste it can be swapped out for another one or a paper filter.
As for ease of use, it supports a wide variety of containers, and really is just a question of pushing the right buttons to get it to work. All the parts are well labeled and straightforward. The integrated frother takes a little practice to learn how to avoid splattering liquid with it, but after a couple of accidents I learned it well enough.
That said, there are some downsides to this thing. The first is that this is definitely one of the bigger single-serving coffee makers I've seen. I don't really see any way around that, but the fact that they did their best doesn't change the fact that it takes up a lot more space than I expected on my counter. So if counter space is at a premium, you may need to take that into account.
The second has to do with one of the bigger features advertised for it - the ability to produce coffee house drinks. Sufficed to say, it provides the necessary parts (namely the concentrated coffee) but not much beyond that. The recipe book included has some great ones, but nothing about the device makes it any easier to actually prepare the drink. If that's what you're looking at this for, expect to have to practice a bit.
All in all though, I'm very happy with this thing, lost counter space notwithstanding. The size and skill requirement for doing anything more complex than basic coffee does mean it's probably best suited for serious coffee drinkers, but as someone who prefers tea (which this can also brew) I'm still quite pleased having it in my kitchen.
My Best Buy number: 2187428738
I would recommend this to a friend!
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Your household wants to play, stream and work online all at once. With this Linksys router, you can do it all without buffering or other interruptions. Use the Smart Wi-Fi app to get started, control, and monitor your home network from anywhere.
Customer Rating
5
Impressive speeds at a reasonable price point
on February 13, 2016
Posted by: Batlacit
from Madison, WI
I'd previously used a Linksys router that I'd been very happy with right up until it died of overheating. It was a very good router for everything I needed, but had a very poor design as far as heat dispersal went. It left me a little cautious with the brand ever since, so I was not expecting to be quite so impressed with this one!
First up, as you might imagine the first thing I was watching for with this thing was heat. I'm pleased to say that they obviously learned their lesson - the heat dispersal is vastly improved, and it's never gotten much more beyond "mildly warm" to the touch. The new case might not look as sleek as the previous designs, but it's far better in terms of performance.
The downside though is that this also means it's substantially larger. This occupies about twice the footprint of my old Linksys, and about 50% more than the router that replaced it. I'm more than willing to put up with that for something that gives me a substantial performance boost without making it prone to suicide, but it is something you might want to consider if desk space is at a premium for you.
Speaking of performance, WOW, the new AC standard is a step up in regards to speeds! Advertised rates go up to 1.3 gbps, but that's really just a measurement of burst speeds. In real world conditions you generally don't get anything near advertised rates, so once I'd set it up and made sure it was running cool I went and started running some benchmarks to see what I actually was getting. And it's very good indeed! On the 5ghz band I was easily maintaining speeds of about 900mbps. These routers really are to the point where they're comparable to a wired connection in terms of speed, and so far my attempts to get it to choke as far as reliability have been thwarted every time. The connection is fast and stable.
Going a little deeper, the router maintains networks on both 2.4 and 5 ghz bands. I'm liking this feature more than I thought, as it lets me separate out my devices into the networks best suited for them to make sure that routing speeds aren't negatively affected by a few older devices. This is made very easy through the highly customizable and very accessible router interface, which lets you be as technical or simple as your skill level requires. Some of my favorite features here include a prioritization system which lets rank the three most important devices on your network in terms of bandwidth priority, which is great if you've got a network under heavy load from a dozen bandwidth hungry devices but really just want to watch Netflix, and the very clever feature which gives you a dimmer switch for the onboard lights for the router, even letting you turn them off entirely! Were I still living in a place where my router was located in my bedroom this might have almost been a deciding factor alone in choosing this router.
The MuMIMO feature, of course, is a big selling point. I'm sorry to say I can't quite say for sure if it's all that it's made out to be based solely on my tests. Things were improved, yes, but not so much so that I can rule out the possibility that I'm just seeing the results of the higher bandwidth capacity. I give this feature a cautious thumbs up for now. It's probably not going to blow your mind on its own, but it certainly won't make your performance worse with multiple devices.
First up, as you might imagine the first thing I was watching for with this thing was heat. I'm pleased to say that they obviously learned their lesson - the heat dispersal is vastly improved, and it's never gotten much more beyond "mildly warm" to the touch. The new case might not look as sleek as the previous designs, but it's far better in terms of performance.
The downside though is that this also means it's substantially larger. This occupies about twice the footprint of my old Linksys, and about 50% more than the router that replaced it. I'm more than willing to put up with that for something that gives me a substantial performance boost without making it prone to suicide, but it is something you might want to consider if desk space is at a premium for you.
Speaking of performance, WOW, the new AC standard is a step up in regards to speeds! Advertised rates go up to 1.3 gbps, but that's really just a measurement of burst speeds. In real world conditions you generally don't get anything near advertised rates, so once I'd set it up and made sure it was running cool I went and started running some benchmarks to see what I actually was getting. And it's very good indeed! On the 5ghz band I was easily maintaining speeds of about 900mbps. These routers really are to the point where they're comparable to a wired connection in terms of speed, and so far my attempts to get it to choke as far as reliability have been thwarted every time. The connection is fast and stable.
Going a little deeper, the router maintains networks on both 2.4 and 5 ghz bands. I'm liking this feature more than I thought, as it lets me separate out my devices into the networks best suited for them to make sure that routing speeds aren't negatively affected by a few older devices. This is made very easy through the highly customizable and very accessible router interface, which lets you be as technical or simple as your skill level requires. Some of my favorite features here include a prioritization system which lets rank the three most important devices on your network in terms of bandwidth priority, which is great if you've got a network under heavy load from a dozen bandwidth hungry devices but really just want to watch Netflix, and the very clever feature which gives you a dimmer switch for the onboard lights for the router, even letting you turn them off entirely! Were I still living in a place where my router was located in my bedroom this might have almost been a deciding factor alone in choosing this router.
The MuMIMO feature, of course, is a big selling point. I'm sorry to say I can't quite say for sure if it's all that it's made out to be based solely on my tests. Things were improved, yes, but not so much so that I can rule out the possibility that I'm just seeing the results of the higher bandwidth capacity. I give this feature a cautious thumbs up for now. It's probably not going to blow your mind on its own, but it certainly won't make your performance worse with multiple devices.
There are really only a few nitpicks I can offer. While the case design is improved, there's still some niggling issues I noticed. First is the antennas. Like the rest of the router they're big, solid, and serviceable. But maybe a little too solid. There are pivot points allowing you to adjust the angle of the antennas for the best reception - but the resistance on them is pretty high. Higher, in fact, than the resistance of the screw holding them in their socket. The right antenna kept popping off on me when I was trying to make adjustments.
Second is that all of the link lights and status indicators are on the rear panel of the router, making them pretty much impossible to see. I understand this was probably to cut down on light pollution, but if you're already adding a dimmer switch, why not put them somewhere where they'll be visible without having to lift up the router?
And finally, there is the size issue. I don't think I've seen much in the way of small AC routers, and I think this is going to cause a lot of people some annoyance as we've all gotten used to being able to hide these things out of the way. There's really no hiding this thing. It's about the size of a lower end commercial grade access point. The performance you get in terms of speed over 802.11N is probably worth it in my view, but if you're looking for something you can hide behind a houseplant and don't have a lot of in-network traffic, you might want to stick with the N standard for now and wait for the AC tech to get a bit more mature.
Second is that all of the link lights and status indicators are on the rear panel of the router, making them pretty much impossible to see. I understand this was probably to cut down on light pollution, but if you're already adding a dimmer switch, why not put them somewhere where they'll be visible without having to lift up the router?
And finally, there is the size issue. I don't think I've seen much in the way of small AC routers, and I think this is going to cause a lot of people some annoyance as we've all gotten used to being able to hide these things out of the way. There's really no hiding this thing. It's about the size of a lower end commercial grade access point. The performance you get in terms of speed over 802.11N is probably worth it in my view, but if you're looking for something you can hide behind a houseplant and don't have a lot of in-network traffic, you might want to stick with the N standard for now and wait for the AC tech to get a bit more mature.
My Best Buy number: 2187428738
What's great about it: Accessible but still customizable, Great speeds, great range, decent price, light controls, USB 3.0 port
What's not so great: Larger than most routers, Antenna attachment points are too stiff,
I would recommend this to a friend!
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The Philips Hue HDMI Sync box adds premium surround lighting to your home theater by syncing your Hue smart lights with movies, music and video games. Watch, listen and play with more wonder and excitement as your lights dance, flash, dim and brighten with your screen. Requires Hue color capable lights and a Hue Bridge (sold separately).
I just bought the hdmi sync box but have a smart tv where Netflix and so on all apps are built in or downloaded to my tv. I only have a sound bar form the acr running. How or can I use the lights with out hdmi cable
You can't. You'll need to get a separate streaming device and use that instead of your Smart TV's built in apps. There's no way to make your TV output video to an external device over HDMI.
4 years, 5 months ago
by
Batlacit
Multitask comfortably using this HP Pavilion 32-inch monitor. The QHD resolution provides immersive visuals for gaming and a spacious work space. Enjoy consistent clarity and color from multiple positions thanks to the 178-degree viewing angle. This HP Pavilion 32-inch monitor features an anti-glare panel for better visibility in bright conditions, while the Low Blue Light mode reduces eyestrain.
Wall mountable - yes How can this be wall mounted? Please suggest a wall mount for this monitor.
The monitor ships with a bracket that can be bolted onto the stem that the stand connects to. The bracket contains a standard VESA mounting plate, though given the design it should be noted that it'll stand about 3 inches proud of whatever you attach it to.
Any standard VESA compatible mount rated to support the weight of a 32" display should be fine - though if you're looking to attach it to a mount you've already got it's worth pointing out that the mounting plate is going to be almost flush with the bottom of the monitor rather than centered like most are.
Any standard VESA compatible mount rated to support the weight of a 32" display should be fine - though if you're looking to attach it to a mount you've already got it's worth pointing out that the mounting plate is going to be almost flush with the bottom of the monitor rather than centered like most are.
4 years, 10 months ago
by
Batlacit
Acer Nitro 5 Laptop: Lose yourself in the absorbing multimedia experience delivered by this Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop. The Intel Core i5 processor ensures a lag-free performance, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card delivers immersive visuals on the 15.6-inch Full HD display. This Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop has 8GB of RAM for seamless multitasking.
Do you know the average fps on high setting on high quality games.
Depends on which games. I ran benchmarks for Rise and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Rise averaged about 45.4fps, Shadow only only did 19.2.
4 years, 10 months ago
by
Batlacit
The ASTRO A40 TR Headset + MixAmp Pro TR for PS5, PS4, PC and Mac is the premier audio solution for esports athletes, content creators and streamers. It meets esports athletes’ rigorous standards for audio fidelity, comfort and durability. The MixAmp Pro TR features Dolby Audio processing and enables lag and interference-free delivery of game sound and voice communication. The A40 TR arrives as an open-back headset featuring a swappable precision mic and customizable Speaker Tags.
I have started recording and upload my video games on PC but can not control how loud I am in the recording, will I be able to control that with this mic
Yes, this is one of the functions the amp offers.
4 years, 11 months ago
by
Batlacit
Use the Google Smart Light Starter Kit to control the lights using just your voice. Set up in a snap: just plug in Google Home Mini, screw in the GE C-Life smart light bulb, and download the Google Home app to get started. Then just say "Hey Google" to dim, brighten, turn on and turn off the lights."
Do I need the hub with the Life bulb & Google Home?
These bulbs do not require a hub to function. Everything's controlled through the Google Home system.
5 years, 5 months ago
by
Batlacit
Use the Google Smart Light Starter Kit to control the lights using just your voice. Set up in a snap: just plug in Google Home Mini, screw in the GE C-Life smart light bulb, and download the Google Home app to get started. Then just say "Hey Google" to dim, brighten, turn on and turn off the lights."
Does this light bulb do multiple colors?
No - it's a white bulb with a built in dimmer function only. Getting a bulb capable of changing color is going to cost extra.
5 years, 5 months ago
by
Batlacit
Use the Google Smart Light Starter Kit to control the lights using just your voice. Set up in a snap: just plug in Google Home Mini, screw in the GE C-Life smart light bulb, and download the Google Home app to get started. Then just say "Hey Google" to dim, brighten, turn on and turn off the lights."
Can I use this to turn off my lights while I am away from home? Also, do I get the starter kit and then multiple bulbs or do I need to get a box thing for each room? Thanks so much
You get only one bulb, but you can buy more bulbs individually without having to pay for the extra Google Home Mini. The system is also compatible with any number of other smart lighting products from Lutron, Phillips, or LiFX, so you can really build it out however you want.
5 years, 5 months ago
by
Batlacit
Accomplish tasks efficiently with this HP desktop computer. Its Intel Core i7 processor supplies plenty of power for video editing and gaming, and the 16GB of RAM lets you run multiple programs at the same time without performance lag. This HP desktop computer has a large 1TB hard drive for storing files and the Intel Optane Memory is a smart system accelerator that adapts to your everyday computing activities.
Can I add a solid state drive to the internal works of my HP 750-624
Shouldn't be a problem so long as you haven't used the available power and SATA hookups for anything else yet.
6 years, 2 months ago
by
Batlacit
Accomplish tasks efficiently with this HP desktop computer. Its Intel Core i7 processor supplies plenty of power for video editing and gaming, and the 16GB of RAM lets you run multiple programs at the same time without performance lag. This HP desktop computer has a large 1TB hard drive for storing files and the Intel Optane Memory is a smart system accelerator that adapts to your everyday computing activities.
What happens when the Optane konks out? Sounds like new tech down to materials. Wonder if it’s reliable.
The Optane memory is a supplement to the hard drive and system memory, essentially offloading the page file from the hard disk into a solid state memory module. If it fails, all you'd need to do is remove the module and the machine would continue to operate as any conventional setup.
6 years, 2 months ago
by
Batlacit
Make your home a more welcoming hub with this Philips Hue white ambiance A19 starter kit. Whether you desire a warm natural glow or energizing color tones, customize it just the way you like with the accompanying app. For parties, easily sync your lights to music with this Philips Hue white ambiance A19 starter kit.
Do I need this with Echo Plus? I bought it, or something similar for $149 but I’m thinking this includes a “hub” which isn’t needed with the plus model
That depends. The Echo Plus hub can interface with the latest generation of bulbs directly to control them, but only in a limited capacity. It can turn them on and off and adjust the dimming, but it can't coordinate and store complex scenes, make use of geolocation data and timers to control the lights, or apply over-the-air updates to the hardware. You do need the Hue Bridge for that.
6 years, 4 months ago
by
Batlacit