Reviews Written By: A1PSVZBM894R5Hprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | Bushnell Falcon 7x35 Binoculars with Case | |
 | "Pretty good for their price" | 2009-08-11 |
| There is really no need to get binoculars that cost 5 times (or more) for casual use. These work just fine and I've owned one for a couple of years. If you get any higher magnification than 10X, they are difficult to handhold - so 7X is really the sweet spot as far as magnification goes. The other number refers to the exit aperture (bigger the number - more light gets into the binocular). These also work quite well in darker situations - letting in plenty of light and giving you a bright image. I've noted small differences when compared with an Olympus that cost about 8 times more - but really, for their price, these can't be beat..
The lenses are also coated and combined with a prism system (instead of mirrors), makes for sharper images. Only con is that this type of binocular is not pocket sized. However, its pretty comfortable to carry on your neck (neckstrap) For the reviewer who claimed that these were worse than toy plastic binoculars - well - just one word comes to my mind "clueless". They either had sphagetti on their lenses or were looking at birds through the wrong end of the binocular... | ||
 | Toshiba HDDR320E03X 320GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive | |
 | "Poor Quality - drive hum/vibration." | 2009-05-19 |
| I have a 2 year old seagate 160 GB portable drive and recently bought this 500 GB Toshiba. There is a world of difference between the two. I don't hear or feel the seagate run. Quiet and very reliable even after running all the time - for the past two years. The brand new Toshiba by contrast, has a vibration and hum to it. Essentially the drive platters are not finely balanced. This is very poor quality control on Toshiba's part and I don't expect this drive to last very long. I used to have the best experience with Toshiba products - but in the past 2 - 3 years this is the fifth time that a Toshiba product has proved to be significantly poor in quality. The first was a laptop that kept crashing - turned out that the heatsink was not screwed down correctly on the CPU (found out when I opened it up). The second was a laptop that broke its hinges (even though it was used very gently). The CPU cooling fan on this laptop also gave up very quickly. Both turned out be known problems when doing google searches. The third was their DVD player which stopped working after a year (and about 10 hrs worth of use) - and on Amazon reviews it turned out that others too had similar issues. The fourth is my upconverting toshiba DVD/Divx player - won't read most discs after about three years of very very light use (about once a month). I just cannot afford reliability problems with my data. Advise you to stay away from at least this product. | ||
 | Nokia 6085 Phone (Unlocked) | |
| "Great reception - Fantastic phone" | 2009-03-09 |
| The first feature a phone needs to have is strong reception. I own one of these phones from ATT and was so impressed got another one for my Dad in another country (Quad band phone helps here). I tried a Tmobile Sim card on the unlocked phone. With this phone, I could now get reception everywhere inside my house. Tried the same sim card on a Razr, a Sony-Ericsson, and a Samsung - and can get reception only near the windows. This point alone has me thrilled. I am impressed enough with its reception that I felt the need to write a review to correct the nonsense out there. Other pros - Very sturdy build (just like other Nokia phones). Camera is VGA but takes surprisingly usable pics with good color but plenty of grain if the light is low. Quad band phone - works worldwide. Built in speaker is good quality - works well as a speaker phone or for playing music. Interface is totally customisable (big plus for me). I can now access bluetooth menu via one keypress. Small in size. Flip design means screen and keys are protected by default. I put a 2 gig card in there - plenty of storage for all the videos, voice, and pics - and the phone can be told to use this memory by default (very convenient). Bluetooth works well with no issues using multiple bluetooth headsets from motorola and jabra. Voice recording works well. Bluetooth works smoothly - if you have a stereo bluetooth headset - this phone can be your MP3 player. Complete with customisable and preset equalizers. Light and small. Keys are large - easy to see - with solid tactile feedback. Loud ringer - very convenient. Good voice quality - both for the person listening to you and at your end. Cons - Does not have a standard mini-usb jack for data. Charging also uses a custom jack. This is the ONLY thing I hate about this phone. Doesn't "look" as good - but - what good are "looks" if the reception sucks (like my samsung)? Video is a jerky and pretty low rez - but you can shoot for as long as you want with the memory card. I only get 3 - 4 days standby with both my phones with some usage thrown in. Radio needs use of a stereo headset (my mono nokia headset did not seem to cut it - not that I have use for a radio). Screen was marginally better on the Samsung - but it rated a zero for poor reception. No headphone jack - so I can't use my existing earphones for listening to music. If you have reception issues - this is a phone to consider. It has all the features you will normally use in a small sturdy flip phone. Plus - everything works - and works well. | ||
 | Sony XDRF1HD HD Radio | |
 | "Pretty good with some flaws" | 2008-08-15 |
| First the flaws - 1) Runs warmer than normal. I find this part baffling. Why does a tuner in this day and age have to run this warm??. I am not sure how well the electronics will stand up in the long run to higher than normal operating temperatures. I might replace the top with a perforated metal sheet to improve its looks and give it some more ventilation. 2) Looks like a cheap clock radio with buttons on top. My radio is located on a shelf above eye level. If I can't find the remote, I have to bring the radio down to see which button to press. Buttons placed on top also gather dust - leading to "button malfunctions" down the road. It'd have been much better (looks as well as functionality) - if the buttons were angled at 45 degrees (or place them on the front). 3)On the AM band - I have so far received only ONE HD radio station. At least its the traffic+news station and not one where super-rich blabbers like Rush pout garbage. 4) For weak AM HD stations - like Radio Disney at my location - the radio switches to high clarity HD for a second or two and then switches back to noisy and distorted AM. This continues intermittently. Makes for an unlistenable experience. There does not seem to be a way to specify "analog only" for certain stations. 4) It takes an eternity to do an HD scan - so slow. 5) 20 presets on the FM band is too few (since stations typically have two channels - now there are many more stations to preset). 6) No auto fill of pre-sets after a scan. Would have been a convenient feature. 7) Loses all internal data after un-plugging from a power outlet for a few minutes - meaning I cannot swith it on and off with my main stereo receiver like I had originally planned to. Bad bad engineering. In this day and age - it is easy and cheap to use non-volatile type of ram. Positives - 1) On AM HD (for the lone station that I can receive right now) - the quality difference is dramatic. Even makes music on AM quite acceptable. 2) On FM - with the included antenna - modified slightly as per instructions on ham radio sites - I am able to receive many HD stations (all that I normally listen to), but haven't bothered to count how many. The analog tuner section is far more advanced than the one on my hefty receiver - so in general the sound has way less distracting distortion with an analog only broadcast. 3) When you tune into an FM station, the tuner first goes to the analog feed (if one is available) and then switches to the digital feed a few seconds later. Unlike AM, in most cases you won't note the difference. HA! So where's the catch? It seems to me that many FM stations may not yet have a high quality feed to their HD transmitter (basically a case of "garbage in - garbage out"). With an FM or sub-FM quality feed to the transmitter from the studio - HD will make no difference. 4) On some stations - you will hear the difference. The clarity just goes up. Much nicer. These radio stations probably have the required technology in place to feed a higher quality sound signals to their transmitter. 5)Tuner is very sensitive - google this tuner model and ham radio sites for some very informative reviews and hacks. 6) Front panel backlit LCD display is very clear and the song info is just great to have. Since it does have a good tuner (my main criteria), and the price is very affordable (especially with the HD radio rebate), this is a good buy and I'll give it 4 stars. | ||
 | Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 | |
| "Blows away the rest - best video AND audio" | 2007-12-11 |
| I used to not care much about Logitech - since I'd associated them with the cheaper type of keyboards and a 3 button clumsy mouse that I could not care for. I guess the company has really turned around and is bringing into the market great products at reasonable prices. Now when I see "Logitech" - I'm reasonably confident that I'll find something I like. I have a wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse (works flawlessly) and a speaker/subwoofer set - that also work rather well. This webcam though has exceeded expectations when used with Skype and a high power computer. Skype automatically detected that I have a "high quality webcam" and set me up for "high resolution" video. (UPDATE for those of you without dual core CPU's - Skype mentions that you need a dual core CPU - I tried a 3.2 Ghz hyperthreading pentium 4 CPU - worked flawlessly.) Costs less than what my CS330 Intel webcam did (and which I used all these years - since no other webcam quite gave me the same level of performance - a creative VGA webcam I tried gave me skin color that was dyed pink - awful). Until now that is - Whats to like - 1) Great image quality (good color, contrast, brightness). Its basically like a decent quality 2 MP camera. The color is a bit washed out at the default setting, but the saturation levels can easily be adjusted. 2) Has a mic that is extremely high quality and very sensitive. If a sound can be heared at its microphone - it will be transmitted to Skype with full fidelity. We are always being surprised by what the other parties are able to hear - like a baby sucking on the bottle - even though the baby is many feet away. 3) I don't know about "RightLight" but I do have to do manual adjustments to brightness/contrast.. 4) Captures video directly into WMV - if you need to. Video quality is quite good actually. Probably better than an SD camcorder. 5) Autofocus seems to work well. 6) I loaded the latest software/driver from Logitech site - clear instructions and everything worked first time around - no issues at all. You do need the software+drivers to make full use of the product. 7) Lens is much wider angle than my earlier webcam. Make a big difference. 8) Echo cancellation is perfect (Apparently Logitech software also has some kind of Echo Cancellation built in). 9) Used with Skype - we've had no problems with high resolution video half way around the world and we don't even notice a lag. Flaws and negatives - 1)The stand is flimsy. Unit topples over easily if kept on a table. I'll be modding the stand a little bit with a "heavy" weight. 2) If you place the camera alone on the table, the perspective is tilted because the mic end is lower than the camera end. Camera cannot rest horizontally. I'll be sticking some foam to the Mic end of the camera to make it rest horizontally instead of giving grandparents a tilted view of our home. I need to make the camera rest on a table sometimes - because of the stand issue (point 1 above). 3) Loading just the driver (sans software) - there weren't any options for camera adjustments. 4) Logitech webcam software installs itself as a startup. This is un-necessary and I'll now have to "disable" this rotten feature by wading through the registry. Why does software not give me the option of whether it should run anytime the computer is started? One star taken away for this issue! Inspite of the minor flaws - product exceeded expectations. I'd have bought this earlier if I'd known about it!! | ||
 | EuroBath | |
| "Does not work as well for us - read to know why !" | 2007-11-28 |
| I had high hopes for this product after reading all the glowing reviews. This is why it does not work for us - 1) Our tall (86 percentile) 7 month old fits rather uncomfortably on the side for babies 6 month and older. The protrusion to keep the baby slipping is real close to her body and she has to sit really upright and in no other position. A bit more recline is needed and the protrusion needs to be less wide. 2) Our baby is always trying to stand up - and the shiny and highly slippery surface means she falls down hard. A well designed product would have a non-slip surface! 3) The drain hole is tiny - takes a long time for water to drain out. Cheap - and highly over-rated. I'm looking for alternatives. | ||
 | Evenflo Expressions Plus High Chair | |
| "Inexpensive and works well" | 2007-11-28 |
| I bought this after reviewing consumer reports.
I've not noted any shortcoming since we've started using it. Seat can be easily cleaned - seat material is waterproof. Belts can be easily adjusted Seat height can be adjusted easily It does not tip over with a wide footprint Seat back angle is adjustable I don't care for the option to fold the legs and make the unit more compact, since I never use it. Only minor negative is that it required quite some assembling! I am not sure if I'd get anything more by paying more - almost double for the other top rated option out there.. | ||
 | Linksys CIT400 Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit with Integrated Skype | |
| "Works and Works Well" | 2007-10-16 |
| Now I can be on skype 24 hrs without having a computer cranking away.. I am seriously surprised how inexpensive this product is - its after all a small computer (the base station) and one has a cell phone like color screen. Light years more sophisticated than your cordless phone. Voice quality is great - even if your DSL is only 256K in an "emerging tiger" economy. I never have an echo or interference from other devices and range is awesome (its a DECT phone). However, calling via a high power computer definitely results in better voice quality than this phone. If you get two or more of these units - it is like having two or more phone lines - your housemate can yap on her account while you have your own independent login. Whats not to like - Linksys is not into making phones - so they got a few things wrong. 1) Cordless phones get dropped a lot. I've never had a panasonic break even after after multiple drops. This one is not built to take punishment especially with square edges (they will be the first to go). 2) Pressing the speaker phone icon does not automatically turn on the phone for dialing. You first have to press the call button and then press the speaker phone button to switch to the speaker phone. 3) The speaker phone is located in an area which contacts the table surface if the phone is laid flat. If you have the tiniest water spill on the table - it just gets sucked inside the speaker opening (trust me). Besides, the speaker phone sounds muffled with the speaker resting flat against the table. 4) The keypad is subpar rubber based (not tactile like good cell phones). They keys are illuminated but not the text on the keys. I really find this to be a shortcoming when I am trying to type out a name on skype and the room is dark. 5) The text on the keys are almost the same color as the keys - very poor contrast and make it very hard for the elderly to read what is written on them. Some keys - like speaker on/off are almost imposssible to distinguish. Beside - these are separate keys when one toggle would have sufficed. 6) Battery indicator is a joke - Green to Red only takes a short time and the unit keeps running on "low battery" for days after that. 7) Nothing much to say about styling dull grey and black - even I could make style it better.. I'll definitely still the unit again - it just works so well! Five stars with one star taken away for its ergonomics. One thing to note is that others (like Philips) have similar units. If everything else is the same and the ergonomics on those phones are better, I might consider the alternatives. | ||
 | Nikon D40 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera Kit with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens | |
| "Great Camera - Shady Quality Control" | 2007-10-16 |
| Lot of writeup on what is great about this camera - no use repeating the same points. Let me tell you what went wrong with mine. The first D40 shipped to me had a bright green dot and a line going through every picture (from the very first shot) to the bottom of the screen. This very obvious CCD defect should have been caught at the factory if Nikon QC had been upto it. I managed to obtain a second camera and briefly compared the first unit to the second unit. Turns out - the first camera with CCD defect also had an edge sharpness issue - especially the left edge - this was only noticeable when the same picture was taken side by side with the second camera. I first did a reset on the camera and took the test shots in auto mode. My colleagues at work were really surpised when I showed them the results. Center sharpness was comparable and I was making sure that the same point was in focus on both cameras. This is not the only problem I'm noticing with Nikon QC. My colleague also has a D40 but with 18-55 lens. The autofocus on his lens has stopped working and is going back for repairs. [Ken Rockwell is either lucky with his Nikons or the initial batches produced at the Thailand factory have better QC.] Going back to 1992 with my 35 - 70 mm kit Nikon lens that came with my N6006 - (yeah - I was naive fellow then) On this lens, the the aperture control diaphragm would get stuck in open position overexposing/ruining many a precious roll of film. The lens came back repaired from the Torrance Nikon facility under warranty. Few months later - same problem - many a runied pic - again repaired. 6 months later - same problem - this time Nikon refused to do anything saying that the extension to the warranty had expired! So not just quality - but their repairs can suck as well. Why I still bought the D40 - 1) Great exposure accuracy with the 420 pixel? RGB sensor. Other than this point, the other SLR's are quite comparable. I think I really got the Nikon for this reason. I can shoot at the sun through the trees and still get the exposure correct. Amazing. 2) I still have a bunch of compatible lenses (most NOT by Nikon but which are far better than the original Nikon "kit lens"). I can still use them in manual focus mode. 3) Nikon QC is really a hit/miss affair. This is my last go at Nikon - if the quality part does not pan out, I'll e bye bye my gear and switch over to someone else - now that I am not on a student stipend! 4) Quite cheap at the time I got it with the 18-135 lens (forums thought it was a price mistake - turned out to be not the case). I am no longer a fan of carrying a lot of gear and wanted an all purpose lens. 5) The lens is quite sharp (mount is plastic BTW). But quite a bit of light fall of at the edges (very noticeable sometimes), and geometric distortion at every focal length. Even faces look stretched when located at the edge of a photograph taken at 18mm. Note for those debating between an SRL and an advanced P/S Get an SLR for a hundred or two dollars more! In earlier days - Point and Shoots and SLR's used the same sensor (film) and results were often comparable. In the digital world, the SLR sensor is far far superior to your P&S sensor - it is as if you are using much higher quality film - (more sensitive, less grain, better dynamic range and better color rendering). There is almost no P/S using an SLR equivalent sensor. In addition, as technology gets upgraded, you can still use your existing lens and buy only the camera body a couple of years down the road. If you think a P/S can give you image stabilization on the cheap - an SLR can do even better by letting you use high ISO's with minimal noise. Plus you can always buy an image stabilized lens (or body - as with Pentax). If you have a kid in the house and take a lot of "instant" shots with available lighting - believe me - SLR is the way to go. They focus blazingly fast and if you know how to use the camera - no flash needed. Difference between a 6 mp and higher versions - always remember - there is a factor of 4 in there. To double picture size from a 6 MP camera, you need a 24 MP camera. The actual picture size difference between a 6 and 10 mp camera is really small. You won't go wrong printing 12X18 with a 6 mp camera. A five star camera rated two stars because of multiple quality issues that have been experienced. | ||
 | Toshiba SD-P1900 9" Portable DVD Player | |
| "Coarse screen, Bulky with battery attached" | 2007-08-19 |
| The screen is amazingly coarse - very low resolution. Any text will look splotchy. Picture quality should #1 on the list of criteria for a portable DVD player. After all we are looking at a pricey Toshiba and not a generic any name brand from China. The second aspect is that the player is rather thick and heavy with the battery attached - around 3.5 lbs and I've not measured how thick - but its almost like carrying a thick laptop around - except the screen sucks. The picture on the web site shows you the unit without the battery. However, the thick/heavy battery does last long - I used it for 4 hrs and it hadn't gone down by then. It did play back a couple of Divx/Xvid encodes I threw at it (unlike the SDP1750). For half the price of a cheap laptop, I certainly expected lot more - I really have problems with the lousy screen. I note that the SDP2900 does have a higher resolution screen (which is also larger). But for about fifty bucks more you could get a Celeron based laptop that not only will play back your DVD's - but do a lot more - unless you are computer challenged. Final opinion - Overpriced piece of junk! | ||
 | PANASONIC Noise Canceling Headphones RPHC300 | |
| "Disturbing hiss - does not come close to Bose" | 2007-04-17 |
| I had fair hopes for this product after reading reviews that claimed it to be a "worthy competitor" to the Bose's. No Way! That review which Amazon highlights - is totally misleading. There is a distinctive hiss which is not quite apparent in an airplane but very disturbing in a slightly quieter environment. However, that hiss does fatigue your ears after a while. When travelling Japan to SFO - my co-passenger had a pair of QC2's - we exchanged our units for a while! You can't even compare the NC performance of the two - let alone the sound quality. The Bose is way superior in every way - even comfort level. My RPHC300 pair is headed to ebay. Save your money - go for the other options out there! Probably the first panasonic product to dissapoint me this bad. | ||
 | Cyber Acoustics ACM-800 Noise Cancelling Headphones | |
 | "Lousy" | 2006-10-05 |
| I got these as a sad gift - The overall sound quality is quite bad (when NC - Noise Cancellaton-is turned off). Not much low frequency and minimal high frequency content. So purely as headphones - they fall at the bottom of the heap. With NC turned on, there is some amplification of the sound - so it sounds louder. The NC effect itself - well - its kind of works, but not much. Probably about 20 percent of the noise is taken care of. Don't even try comparing the performance of the Bose to these (I did so - using a co-passengers Bose QC3 - and it was a revelation - one works beautifully and this one barely does so). I plan to get a pair of Panasonic RPHC300 now (Since I don't have $300 to burn). I am curious how the NC effect is implemented for the left and right earpieces. There is no wire that connects the right side (with the battery and NC electronics) with the left earpiece. Go figure this one out :). I have some ideas - but that would mean this is not a stereo headset. Too lazy to experiment further with this piece of junk. The good thing is they fold quite well. | ||
 | Olympus FE-100 4MP Digital Camera with 2.8x Optical Zoom | |
| "Very good value - with picture quality to match." | 2006-05-02 |
| I got this camera for my Mom when Fry's had it on a One Day sale for a ridiculously low price. If you are a point and shoot person - give this model serious consideration and not the ones with more megapixel counts. More megapixels don't equate to a better camera. 4 MP is ample resolution for an 11X17 inch print. Plus the images are not as big (in terms of bytes) so the pictures are easier to manipulate and store, you don't need as big a memory card, and the simple fact that the pixels on the CCD are bigger leads to greater light sensitivity and less noise compared to the same size CCD with a higher pixel count. The five stars that I give it, takes into account certain factors - 1) Its low price - 2) Small size If the camera was priced twice as high, I would not buy it. But for its current price, it can't be beat. What I like - 1) Very easy to figure out the menu's. But my mom might still need help. 2) Small size (little like an egg). Easily fits in a purse or pocket. 3) Exposure and color balance is better than a Kodak EasyShare C330 that I was able to compare it with. 4) Uses two AA batteries and the battery compartment/lid is well designed (attention to detail). 5) Has optical zoom with the coverage required in 80% of cases -for additional 10% walk to your subject for 90% coverage. 6) 28MB of camera memory is built in - so you can use it in addition to the external one. Some shortcomings - 1) I intially had lot of low battery errors which went away after I switched to higher quality NiMH and used the camera for a while (the batteries were broken in before being used on the camera - so this is not a battery issue) 2) The lens opens and retracts rather noisily with a grating sound that is unpleasant to hear. 3) Uses XD memory card is proprietary to Olympus and Fuji cameras only. XD cost's a bit more - and you should factor that into the price when you purchase something. I hate it when manufacturers adopt proprietary formats. 4) The camera did not always figure out white balance correctly under artificial lighting and flash switched off. Not really a factor if you use the camera in the automatic mode only. 5) The mode selector dial on the side would move when taking in and out of a case - so it is possible to take pictures in the wrong mode accidentally. 4) Colors were a little on the yellow side. Other comments - The lack of viewfinder is not really a problem I think. The built in LCD works quite well and is somewhat visible even in the sun. The LCD is a bit small, but is quite sharp and works well for framing your subject. Hopefully the smaller LCD will be less prone to breaking. Its picture quality is not quite what my Olympus C-4000 is capable of, but it still takes pretty good images that represent the scene well. But then, the C-4000 is much bigger, and even now, an equivalent replacement would cost 2 - 3 times as much. Not quite a fair comparison. For its price the FE-100 is very good value and won't dissapoint you. I think it is the best in its size and price class. Much better pictures than a Kodak C-330 I have compared it with. In my experience, only Canon and Olympus really have what it takes to make digital camera's that take great pictures. But with a Canon, you'll spend almost twice as much. | ||
 | Canon ZR100 MiniDV Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom | |
| "Great picture quality, no noise, best bang for the buck" | 2006-01-31 |
| There may be "better" camcorders out there. Better in terms of more features. But it is unlikely the video or sound quality is much better than this one (in some cases actually worse). A 720X480 video frame (Mini DV standard resolution) can only accomodate approx 340 K pixels - therefore a mega or multi mega pixel camcorder will not improve your video performance one bit. And they cost least twice as much. I was looking for something really basic. I go for features (and use them) in a Camera - not a Camcorder. When was the last time you used the fancy video functions? Do you even know where they reside on the menu? This camcorder has all the functions you will use and some that you probably won't. Its sufficiently loaded in that regard. Performance - I faced NO noise issues. In a very quiet room, there is faint noise (when the auto gain circuit increases the mic sensitivity). However, under all my shooting conditions (when the auto-gain ramps down the mic sensitivity), this has not been a problem. My unit was "Made in Japan" - I don't know if this has anything to do with the "noiselessness" of the unit. The sound clarity is awesome - the mic is quite high quality - much better than my old sony 8mm. Video - WoW - very impressed. Clear and colorful - very close to what my eye sees. Very sharp as well. One can easily read text, see the veins on the leaves, the hair on the eyebrow - on closeups. No problem regarding sharpness and overall color fidelity. Reds tended slightly towards pinkish sometimes (minor). On a dark overcast day - video came out looking just fantastic. It wowed me/wife/dad - everybody. Low Light performance - On par with other camcorders out there. If you keep the lights in the room on (reasonably well lit), you can capture excellent video (great white balance) with little to no noise. None of the blue tinge that I observed with another brand under the same conditions. In a dim room, the video is noisy, but still quite viewable. It is important to note - that this camcorder has no worse performance than the others in its price range when it comes to low light performance. Ergonomics - easily fits in your jacket/pant pocket and the controls are well placed. I have no problem with the location of the menu button - as a matter of fact - that is where I think it needs to be! Very easy to manual focus but haven't done so - yet. Autofocus is snappy - no hunting. I don't care how tapes are loaded - from the top or bottom. How many of you shoot using a Tripod and need to change tapes halfway? The zoom speed depends on how far you press the zoom button - simply great feature. Not just one or two steps. You can go from very slow to very fast zooms. The unit can work as an analog to digital converter - something I plan to use - to convert my 8mm tapes to digital. The eyepiece viewfinder is color, does not flip, but very good otherwise. I use it a lot. The flip out display is apparently not the best out there, but I find it to be adequate - if not downright good. Batteries are charged "in camera". You don't have to take the battery in and out for charging purposes. On the other hand, charging a spare battery ties up the camera (unless you purchase an external charger). The supplied battery seems to last for an hours worth of shooting - works for me. One last thing - I have not seen mentioned in other reviews and I don't know how other brands perform in this regard. The image stabilization was just too good. While shooting video going through Golden Gate Bridge in a car(no zoom), the shots were almost professional in their stability. The exact same shots taken with an earlier camcorder without image stabilization are unwatchable. Note added later - Compared to a PV-GS150, the image stabilization on the Canon was definitely better. I'll cross compare other aspects with my friends PV-GS150 and report back! BTW - I don't miss it not having photo taking abilities. All camcorder still pics are horrible when compared to my digicam. Why bother? It does record hi-res 16:9 images (instead of the cropped ones). Maybe that'll be good for the future. One purchase that exceeded my expectations. Capturing - Using a cheap firewire card and included cable (together less than ten dollars), video capture using Ulead software and Win Xp was a breeze. Other software (Pinnacle 9) worked equally well at capturing. Camera could be controlled from the software interface. The file size was approx 12 Gig (DV compression) for 45 min worth of shooting. Video looks very good on computer monitor and on TV. Now to MPEG 2 compress and author a DVD.. | ||
 | Jabra SP100 Bluetooth Speakerphone | |
| "Not that bad with skype - in home use" | 2006-01-13 |
| In a quiet environment like my home, it works quite well with Skype. My folks claim to hear my loud and clear. I would have given it at least 4 stars but for other problems. I have not tried it in a car with a mobile phone. The unit as it arrived, would not turn on or charge up. The green light kept flashing. Strangely, this charging light is located under the microphone instead of at a more prominent location. I guessed what the problem was - many battery charging circuits refuse to charge up completely dead batteries (zero volts on them). I took the batteries out, manually charged them and finally got the thing working. It later turned out that one of the rechargeable batteries would hardly hold any charge - defective from the start - but instead of dealing with tech support, simply replaced with with other ones I had lying around. An irritating thing is that the device does not work on mains power unless the batteries can be charged inside. If the charging circuit sees an error, the entire device stops working. Now onto the second problem - One day I dropped the device onto the carpet. It stopped working - plugged it it - and the batteries would not take charge. Curious, I first opened up the battery compartment and the battery immediately fell out. It turns out the mild drop had bent and flattened the leaf spring holding the battery in place. If they had used a traditional coiled spring as the negative terminal, this would not have happened. While I managed to bend the leaf spring back in place, the metal now has enough stress that it will break on the next drop. Very stupid design. Jabra seems to have lost its way a bit - a headset I own is just going great - after a year! (see my other reviews) | ||
 | RioVolt SP150 CD/MP3 Player | |
| "Fine unit - mediocre headphones." | 2004-02-19 |
| I love my player and give it 5 stars. The supplied headphones are not that great - so the overall package gets 4 stars. Owned this player for a couple of months and I think that for its price its the best one out there. Nice backlit display, easy navigation and mine at least plays flawlessly. I got this player because it could play windows media in addition to mp3. I can get almost 20 hrs worth of music on one CD with windows media and it still sounds very close to the original. It plays VBR and CBR files (both mp3 and wma) fine. Remembers where it left off. Has user adjustable and preset tone controls - Very Nice feature. I hate when stuff I buy does not come with user adjustable tone controls. Sound quality is super. No complaints. No skipping problems. Haven't measured battery life with my rechargeables - but no complaints on this front. So - whats not to like? | ||
 | Pacific Digital U-30125 32x12x48 External USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive | |
| "Poor Quality Product - Zero Star Rating!" | 2003-06-02 |
| I regret purchasing this product. While the burn process goes through to the end without any problems, about half the CD's have errors such that some of the files on them cannot be read - no matter which CD-ROM I try. I have tried recording from 4X to 16X speeds (mine will never record at 32X) - and it is always the same story. I use TDK media rated at 48X - and its the same story with other branded media - they fare even worse. I sure have as many coaster as good disks. The coasters were made even when the drive was cool - it does get rather hot after a couple of operations - so this is another thing to keep in mind. While it does get hot, there are no cooling vents. I bought this product because I was very happy with an earlier Pacific digital IDE based CDRW - which was a rebranded Mitsumi CDRW. I had expected them to excercise similar care with this product and expected that they would have used a CDRW internal drive that had good performance specs and could write reliably. The CDRW drive is made by a company called "Cyberdrive" and they probably have a lot to learn before they can make a drive that can write reliably. I am very dissapointed and plan to stay away from a Pacific Digital product next time around. I advise you to do the same. | ||
 | Studio Version 8 Software | |
| "Its more like an alpha software - significant bugs" | 2003-05-19 |
| Ok - so my computer has plenty of HDD space (100 GB), 256 MB of RAM, a 1.7GHz P4 CPU, a newer VIA chipset and runs win2K with the latest service pack and so on. Radeon Graphics for video and Turtle Beach Sound. I can't remember when an installed software crashed on it - that is - till I installed Studio 8. You'd think the latest bug fix (updating it to 8.5) would have fixed the problems? Read on.... Now the problems - where do I begin? 1) Installing the MP10+ analog capture card was a nightmare - till I swapped PCI slots - a day wasted. 2)When rendering, the software sometimes simply quits. Thats it. No message - Nothing. And rendering is not a breeze - so you can imagine the frustration. 3) For my second project, the software rendered partway and then stops (does not matter which codec I am using). And this is a long continuing struggle. Since rendering is such a time consuming process, any experimentation takes a while. Deleting a couple of scenes in the beginning for example allows rendering to cross the point where it normally gets hung up - and then it continues on to the very end. 4) If I try to do Divx encoding of the videos, then the software does not work if I try to encode the audio in mp3. It has to be kept in PCM format. While it gives you the mp3 option, there seems to be no way of specifying bit rates for example. 5) I am not sure that audio and video sync properly - because I can hear audio for a second or two after the video has ended. 6) Many of the buttons don't have baloon help associated with them. 7) The interface is not standard windows interface - This means you will have to relearn buttons and icons. This is a very stupid thing to do - makes the learning curve steeper. Many times, the buttons are all over the place, instead of being bunched up in one place. The software sort of works, its relatively inexpensive, and includes a bunch of neat special effects transitions for free, I give it two stars. Else, I would have given it one. | ||
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