Comments for

Comment on Cheap HP Pavilion dv7-6b32us 17.3″ Notebook (Intel Core i7-2670QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HD) Best Price by Electronicmike93

Electronicmike93 — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:51:08 +0000

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

HP Pavilion dv7-6b32us 17.3" Notebook (Intel Core i7-2670QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HD), December 13, 2011

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: HP Pavilion dv7-6b32us 17.3" Notebook (Intel Core i7-2670QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HD) (Electronics)

this laptop is one od the best PC's that I have ever used. The sleek degign does not allow for overheating. Overall this computer is very fast and responsive. The only bad thing I have to say is the view angles. If you are not looking at the screen at the right angle the top corners seem dark but other than that this is a suberb laptop for the money!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comment

Comment on Cheap HP Pavilion dv7-6b32us 17.3″ Notebook (Intel Core i7-2670QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HD) Best Price by Nameless Moniker

Nameless Moniker — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:57:38 +0000

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Got a Great Deal on this., December 28, 2011

Nameless Moniker -

This review is from: HP Pavilion dv7-6b32us 17.3" Notebook (Intel Core i7-2670QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HD) (Electronics)

Like a previous reviewer, I also purchased this from Staples at a post Black Friday price of $580 after instant and other "Easy" rebates. I have owned this for about 3 weeks now and I just love it.
Coming from a 15.4" laptop I have to get used to the larger keyboard layout, but the feel of the keyboard is quiet and responsive. I have not used this for gaming, and considering it has the "basic" Intel HD chip I am not expecting much from it but for all other uses so far I have had no issues.

FAST - i7 Quad-core with hyperthreading, makes the OS think it is using 8 cores.

4 GB of Ram which is perfect for most people and HP was nice enough to use 1 4GB chip leaving upgrade space for another chip.

Video looks great, the screen is crisp and clear, and having Blu-ray with HDMI out is a huge bonus.

Coming from a Lenovo laptop with the crappiest sound I had ever heard on a laptop, this thing is friggin LOUD! You do have to initialize the Beats audio through the Beats Configuration and turn on the mini sub-woofer, but once you do it goes from sounding like a netbook to a something much larger than it is.

The Multi-touch touchpad is a nice feature, but I rarely even remember to utilize it. One annoying aspect of the touchpad is supposedly a "feature". The top left of the touchpad contains a small square that when long-pressed turns off the touchpad. Before I realized this "feature" existed I accidentally turned off the touchpad and had to recall keyboard shortcuts to get to the internet to google this problem which just entailed re-long-pressing that spot. Why one would need to turn off the touchpad I do not know.

While my last laptop always ran hot, even with notebook hardware control installed to under-clock the damn thing just so it would run cooler. This laptop seemingly never gets hot.

Battery Life - HP claims 5.25 hours. I call BS.. This thing lasts MUCH longer under general use. Internet, wifi, normal brightness, audio, spreadsheets, etc. No complaints whatsoever. The battery also acts as a mini stand which props the back of the laptop for a slightly better typing angle. The battery also has it's own push-button 4-light indicator of battery life so you can tell how much you have left without turning on the machine.

It is heavier than I am used to but I expected that coming from a smaller laptop.

Once I got used to it, the fingerprint reader works very well.

4 USB ports (2) USB 2 ports and (2) USB 3 ports.

Using oovoo, the webcam allowed for options up to HD video, but I could not test since the other party couldn't support anything greater than SD from my end. The video was acceptable (for a webcam) and the audio was good.

I intended to get a laptop with a better video card such as a mobile Radeon, but at the price I couldn't pass this up , and I am very glad I did not pass this up.

I was able to compare this to a 17" dv6 laptop which had an i5 Processor with Radeon graphics and this dv7 runs much smoother. Very pleased with this purchase.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comment

Comment on Cheap HP Pavilion dv7-6b32us 17.3″ Notebook (Intel Core i7-2670QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HD) Best Price by Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:09:32 +0000

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

Great laptop - runs cool, fast, easy to upgrade, December 4, 2011

Nathan -

This review is from: HP Pavilion dv7-6b32us 17.3" Notebook (Intel Core i7-2670QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HD) (Electronics)

I bought this laptop from Staples on Black Friday when they had it for $599, which I thought was a steal. I am very happy with the purchase.

The 17.3" screen is great and was a must-have for me. I have had a 17" laptop for a while and I wasn't going back! Obviously this makes it not quite as portable, but this sits at home most of the time and goes on trips with me. A 17" laptop is also a bit more difficult to find a carrying case for.

The fingerprint scanner was easy to set up and works very well every time I use it.

Having a blu-ray drive as well as HDMI is fantastic, as I can use this as a blu-ray player at home.

The speakers aren't quite as loud as I hoped, but they're certainly not quiet. I've just heard a lot of talk about Beats Audio and was hoping for a little more volume. It's very clear at full volume with 0 static sound, so that's a plus.

The keyboard is smooth and easy to type on and the mouse works well - as expected. One thing I'm not impressed with - multitouch. I have used a Mac multitouch mouse and they work very smoothly. This "multitouch" mouse is very spotty to the point of being almost useless. Do not consider the multitouch mouse a buying point - it rarely works properly. Even when it does work, the scrolling is entirely too fast to be useful.

The overall design is very nice in my opinion. I've read a few places where people complain of the silver rim being cheap looking, and while it's not solid and unbreakable I think it looks good and won't be easy to break unless you drop the laptop or are very rough on it.

The HD webcam quality is OK. I don't think I'd called it HD but probably a step under HD.

The RAM is very easy to upgrade and the model I got had 1 4GB DDR3 stick with 1 empty slot - a cheaper upgrade than if it had 2 x 2GB sticks. There is a spot for a secondary hard drive, but I was disappointed to see that it did not include a cable to connect the 2nd hard drive to the laptop. This will have to be purchased separately, and I was able to find it online for $32 shipped.

This laptop runs very cool. Obviously I always take care not to impede airflow from the fan (don't put it on a soft blanket, bed, carpet, etc), but this is probably the coolest running laptop I've ever owned.

The 9-cell battery has excellent life, but does stick out the bottom of the laptop - about the only styling cue of this laptop that I don't like. It is somewhat functional, though - allowing for more airflow to cool the laptop.

Overall, a great buy and I'm very happy with the purchase. It's a speedy, sharp-looking laptop which I suspect will give me years of computing.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comments (6)

Comment on Discount Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) RAID Network Attached Storage LS-WV2.0TL/R1 (Black) Best Price by Clicktician "Paul"

Clicktician "Paul" — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:48:16 +0000

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent UPNP/DLNA Video Server, March 4, 2011

Clicktician "Paul" -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 4 TB (2 x 2 TB) RAID Network Attached Storage LS-WV4.0TL/R1 (Black) (Personal Computers)

I purchased the Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 4 TB (2 x 2 TB) RAID NAS to stream videos to my home Linux settop boxes and remotely to my Linux touchscreen netbook via VPN. This LinkStation is DLNA certified so I felt very confident it would work with those UPNP/DLNA clients.

Pros:
- About the footprint of a small toaster and half the height.
- Cool temp and quiet operation.
- Consumes just 45 watts so a UPS on it will last a long time.
- Gigabit ethernet (my home net is Gigabit).
- Web Interface does almost everything.
- Preconfigured for Raid 0 (optimized for speed) and the XFS filesystem.
- Lots of built-in software to support squeeze and even a MySql server.
- Excellent streaming performance with Boxee Box and XBMC.

Cons:
- Drive noise is sometimes audible.
- Can't be initially setup without Proprietary client (see below).
- Settings not restored after a drive check.
- Start up and shutdown are a little slow.
- Sometimes "sleeps" so initial connections can take slightly longer.

Getting the LinkStation operational was a little challenging. The initial setup client is a Windows program. I keep a sacrificial Win XP box around for just such situations. I switched on the NAS for the first time, and installed my windows client on the same network. Unfortunately, the NAS defaults to an IP/Mask not compatible with my home network which made it unreachable. But the Windows client allows you to temporarily "zap" the IP to whatever you like, so that was the first thing I did - assign it an arbitrary unused IP on my home net (like 192.168.1.30 or something).

Next, I connected to its Web console and gave it a permanent static IP address and mask on my LAN so that I could always locate it easily.

Now that it was reachable, I downloaded the current rev of the firmware along with the Windows loader program. It found the NAS and upgraded it without incident. I was then able to connect from my Linux desktop via the web interface, and had no further need for the Windows client.

The web interface is excellent with lots of well-organized pages and menus to control every aspect of the NAS. The first thing I did was change the admin password, of course, and add a user account. Set the Windows Share workgroup. NTP time sync is oddly set to a DNS name in Japan which won't work. I reset it to the IP of an NIST server in Chicago (yes, it expects an IP address -- not a DNS name). It synched up fine. Then I went to the system menu and performed a disk check to auto-fix any drive anomalies. After that completed, I was ready to load data.

When you turn on the drive it doesn't start immediately. It must boot/shutdown like a pc does. Be patient. When the blue light on the front of the drive stops flickering, it's ready to use. The on/off switch has a 3rd position called "auto". This allows the drive to hibernate and to wake up when it senses a connection from the proprietary Windows client. This feature is useless to me as a Linux user, so I only use "on" and "off".

You can load data using a USB drive or the network. The USB interface loads all the data from the drive to a preset location. I chose to use the network because I wanted to organize and weed the data as I loaded it, and some of my files were too large to fit on my FAT32 formatted USB drive.

I can connect to the NAS using Samba from OpenSuse, Ubuntu, and Mint (and of course, Windows). But only after I figured out that I must use the Share Name "share" in the connection arguments, otherwise the connection hangs after the password prompt. File transfer is fast and flawless.

One minor annoyance, if you perform another disk check (I do this at least once a week), the Media Server is, of course, disabled. It must be enabled manually again via the Web console when the check completes. The Media Server gets an error on startup telling you to update something that always fails. You can ignore this -- it works fine without it. Shares are auto-enabled by default.

UPNP/DLNA video streaming is excellent. The LinkStation advertises itself via UPNP as expected. My video content is encoded as H.264 Mpeg4 with metadata interleaved every 500ms. I have a mix of resolutions at 480p, 720p, and 1080p. Both Boxee Box and XBMC play all perfectly. My Nokia N900 phone can see the LinkStation too, and play the 480p when connected by WiFi. The LinkStation does not do transcoding.

For remote access to my home network, I use NeoRouter Pro. I have 60Mb/sec down 5Mb/sec upstream service. The LinkStation doesn't have a client for NeoRouter and so cannot be exposed directly to VPN. UPNP/DLNA port forwarding is notoriously finicky, so I use a different approach. On my home NeoRouter gateway machine (Linux), I simply connect to the NAS using Samba (mount it... Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comments (2)

Comment on Discount Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) RAID Network Attached Storage LS-WV2.0TL/R1 (Black) Best Price by K.M.

K.M. — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:57:59 +0000

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

Solid NAS for RAID1 backup and file streaming!, January 26, 2011

K.M. (Alaska) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) RAID Network Attached Storage LS-WV2.0TL/R1 (Black) (Personal Computers)

I purchased this NAS for a mirrored backup of my data and to stream pictures, music and videos to a PS3 and a couple of laptops. It works great for these tasks. Setup was easy. I gave the NAS a static IP address, updated the firmware, changed the drives from RAID0 to RAID1 and setup a media server. It only takes a few clicks to change the RAID configuration through the web interface, but the actual re-sync can take hours. You can still use the drive during this process. It took 95 minutes to transfer 135GB to the NAS using a gig network. It bounced between 20-30 MB/sec, but the overall average was about 1.4 GB/min. Single file transfer rates are much faster, less than 30 seconds for a 1GB movie. That's plenty fast for me. Noise levels were on par with two hard drives spinning at full speed. The unit is silent at idle.

The PS3 and two laptops on my network (all wireless) see the NAS without any issues. Media Player and iTunes stream music from the drive without any lag. The PS3 takes up to 5 seconds to start playing a song, but that's a well documented PS3 wireless issue. Once playing there is no lag. Auto backups from two laptops and a desktop work great using SyncBack. I didn't install the bundled NOVAbackup software so I'm not sure how well that works.

For me the Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo is the perfect balance of price and performance. For 2 6 0 dollars you get a 1.6GHz CPU, 256MB DDR3 RAM, 512kb flash, Gigabit NIC and two 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives. Not a bad deal. The 1.6GHz QNAP and Synology enclosures are faster, but almost twice the price after you buy the hard drives. The less expensive D-Link, Iomega and Netgear dual drive enclosures are slower in the reviews I read. Similar to the older Buffalo LinkStation Duo.

Overall I'm very happy with this product and would recommend it.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comment

Comment on Discount Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) RAID Network Attached Storage LS-WV2.0TL/R1 (Black) Best Price by 35-year Technology Consumer "8-tracks to 802.11"

35-year Technology Consumer "8-tracks to 802.11" — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:05:22 +0000

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

Robust hardware. Not for the technologically faint-of-heart and DLNA not great..., March 23, 2011

35-year Technology Consumer "8-tracks to 802.11" (Mid Atlantic, USA) -

This review is from: Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) RAID Network Attached Storage LS-WV2.0TL/R1 (Black) (Personal Computers)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)

Seven month update: rating change to 4 stars (from 5 stars) for due to support web site usability for firmware and utility software updating (the utility software is for the Windows GUI environment; the firmware is for the NAS device itself).

Solid 5 stars for backup and network data access.

As part of a recent Windows re-install on my desktop computer, I checked for updates to the firmware and user interface utilities. It was relatively easy to find that newer versions of both were available on Buffalo's support site. The discovery, however, is where the "easy" ended.

In order to download the utility software, users must provide both a model number a serial number in a web form. If you no longer have the product box, you'll have to turn the unit upside down to find the serial number sticker (and you'll certainly want to power down the machine before doing so!). There are three separate bar codes and numerical labels on the bottom of the unit:
--the MAC address (labeled as such)
--a serial number (mixed letters/numbers beginning with the model name, and labeled "F-S/N"...presumably the serial number needed for the software download
--an unlabeled bar code with 14 numbers.
Surprisingly, the *unlabeled* number is the one needed to proceed with your download.
While this is very counter-intuitive, my call to their toll-free number was answered in one ring (and with just two voice menu options) by a knowledgeable tech who clued me in patiently and quickly on which number to use (the unlabeled one, of course!).

One the firmware and software was downloaded, the updates were painless.
-Firmware: extract the zipped download file, select the only executable file present, and enter a password when prompted (after the updater discovers the NAS on your network).
-Utility software was a standard application install in a Windows environment.

After purchasing this, I added a DLNA-compliant, Internet-enabled Sony HDTV to my hardware mix, I was looking forward to streaming video, images and music from the NAS to the TV and its connected A/V receiver. Beware: your total count of DLNA-enabled files is limited to 30,000. Trust me: exceed this and you will NOT have a happy DLNA experience. Get under that cap, and it's relatively straightforward to set-up the service on the NAS and access it via the DLNA-compatible device. The file count limit was found not in the NAS user guide (or elsewhere on Buffalo's support site that I could find); fortunately, it was clearly presented in --of all places-- the TV's embedded interactive guide.

DNLA bottom line: videos and music are cataloged and available for streaming with no problem...but it can't properly navigate designated images. Go figure. So: it works for 2/3 of the media categories its supposed to support.

Original review content:

If you take your data backups seriously, you might already have a big pile of external hard drives...and maybe some hard drive enclosures. This is probably a pile that grew as your digital music, photo and video holdings increased and the cost of mass storage decreased.

Transitioning to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution might help reduce your backup hardware clutter while offering access to your files from multiple computers in a wired or wireless network. Buffalo Technology's Linkstation Pro Duo WS-WV2.0TL/R1 is a strong candidate for such a backup and networked data storage solution.

But, be prepared before you plunge: this is not a choice for the technical novice. While most users can probably work through this machine's core functions without great heartache, before spelunking in even its most common options, you should already be confident in understanding how storage devices interact with wired and wireless networks, and be prepared to make fundamental decisions about disk file format and Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) setup options. If these skills aren't in your comfort zone: large capacity hard drives are very affordable these days. Just addd some more of the size you need to accommodate your current and near future holdings, connect them internally or externally, get them running with a decent automated backup application, and free up the brainpower you'd devote to NAS administration for other tasks:-)

If you feel you do have the technical cred to become an NAS maven, then read on.

Hardware:
The hardware for this unit is substantial. Two SATA hard disk drives (HDD) are mounted vertically in trays behind the removable front cover; no tools are required for installation or removal. Mine arrived with two... Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comments (6)

Comment on Sell OKGear 18 inch Blue Premium SATA III Round Cable 6GB/s Straight to Right Angle w/latch for Sale by None

None — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:43:01 +0000

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

GREAT, March 6, 2010

None -

This review is from: OKGear 18 inch Blue Premium SATA III Round Cable 6GB/s Straight to Right Angle w/latch (Electronics)

Ignore the other review, he doesn't even own the product. I use OKGEAR cables and they are great. They do the job perfectly, are inexpensive and they offer many options in terms of connectors and cable lengths. They are also well-priced and therefore deserve no less than 5 stars, that is, if you actually own one.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comment

Comment on Sell OKGear 18 inch Blue Premium SATA III Round Cable 6GB/s Straight to Right Angle w/latch for Sale by Eagle1010

Eagle1010 — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:45:36 +0000

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Quick Install, No problems, February 28, 2011

Eagle1010 -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: OKGear 18 inch Blue Premium SATA III Round Cable 6GB/s Straight to Right Angle w/latch (Electronics)

I purchased this Sata III cable because I needed a cable that would support 6Gb/s transfer rate for my hard drive. The plastic sleeves at the connectors seemed sturdy, the cable securely snaps into place and is not loose. Best of all, the cable arrived before the first date in the expected delivery range. All around good product.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comment (1)

Comment on Sell OKGear 18 inch Blue Premium SATA III Round Cable 6GB/s Straight to Right Angle w/latch for Sale by rsinj

rsinj — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:05:13 +0000

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent quality, excellent price, November 4, 2011

rsinj (NJ) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: OKGear 18 inch Blue Premium SATA III Round Cable 6GB/s Straight to Right Angle w/latch (Electronics)

I was looking for some inexpensive SATA III cables and stumbled upon these.

I'm using them in my mini-ITX with Crucial SATA III SSDs. They are nice/sturdy/shielded cables and provide good performance. Using Passmark Performance Test benchmark I am getting 260MB/s with the SSDs - which is pretty good, though still not above 3Gb/s of SATA II.

The length is a bit long for the mini-ITX case, but price/quality were my first two requirements - I coiled/stuffed the extra cable in nooks/crannies where possible.

The locking works well, though slightly difficult to get off - which is possibly a result of the small space I have to work with inside my mini-ITX.

For a standard ATX case/build these will be an excellent option.

I'll probably purchase a few additional just to keep around.

Update:
11/26/2011 - please don't use my throughput benchmark as basis for judgement on these cables. My 260MB/s is low most likely because I cannot run the machine in AHCI mode with the SSD. In AHCI mode, I know people are pushing 500MB/s with the Crucial SSDs.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comment

Comment on Low Price Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 3.0 Basics Portable Hard Drive – HDTB105XK3AA (Black) In Stock by White "CW"

White "CW" — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:03:47 +0000

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2 weeks and fail, November 9, 2011

White "CW" (Los Angeles) -

This review is from: Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 3.0 Basics Portable Hard Drive - HDTB105XK3AA (Black) (Personal Computers)

This cute little drive seemed fine for 2 weeks. Then sometimes the drive would go to sleep and not wake up until it was unplugged (not nice for Mac or drive). About a week later, the light on the drive started flashing constantly, then it started hanging my Mac. I have a lot of experience with portable drives and have never had one fail so quickly. Also this drive is not supported by Toshiba, so good luck getting it "repaired". I should have researched more on other sites, because this one has received scathing reviews on Toshiba's own web site. I usually purchase drives from Amazon, however I needed this drive immediately when I purchased it from Best Buy. Don't have the box anymore, so I can't return it and Toshiba doesn't support it -- ugh. Wasted money. Into the trash is goes.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Comment (1)