Showing posts with label htpc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label htpc. Show all posts

11/03/2012

HP Pavilion a320n Desktop PC (2.40-GHz Athlon XP 2800+, 512 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive) Review

HP Pavilion a320n Desktop PC (2.40-GHz Athlon XP 2800+, 512 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I just bought the a320n about three days ago and I really like it a lot. It may be because I went from an HP with a Pentium 3 856 with 256MB SD RAM to this computer, however, it came with a lot of the things that I wanted in a computer. I don't use the computer for anything really complicated, I just like to download stuff, write papers, do powerpoint presentation and other meaningless things. But the computer came with a lot of useful stuff like Norton Anti-Virus, Microsoft Money 2003 (Microsoft Works), and it also came with Quicken, which was kind of convienient since I'm about to enter the realm of dealing with bills and getting a constant paycheck and with my growing interest in the stockmarket. Anyway, It came with the necessary stuff, like a good AMD processor, not the fastest one, but it is powerful enough to deal with everyday computations and a little more. What does make a difference is that HP excelled in upgrading stuff that was more important, like 512 MB DDR RAM, 120 gig hardrive, and USB ports all over the place. I thought this was excellent because it kept the price down and I was able to afford the 17 inch flat panel from HP, the F1703. All in all, it's not the fastest computer out there, but it is definately worth it for anyone just using for there home and school. I looked at one from Dell that had what I had, including 17 inch flat panel monitor and the computer itself, and it came out to a little more than 1400 dollars, I bought the HP (with monitor) for 1223.

Click Here to see more reviews about: HP Pavilion a320n Desktop PC (2.40-GHz Athlon XP 2800+, 512 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

As the midlevel model in HP's wide-ranging a300n series of desktop computers, the HP Pavilion a320n Desktop PC represents a happy medium between upscale performance and affordability. Though it doesn't feature state-of-the-art amenities such as a DVD writer or an Intel Pentium 4 Hyper-Threading processor, it is more than ready to handle most any home, home office, leisure and business application.
Driven by a reasonably efficient and cost-effective 2.08 GHz AMD Athlon 2800+ CPU, the Pavilion a320n Desktop is not blessed with top-notch processing speed. It does, however, feature quality components elsewhere that help keep the unit faster and more capable than expected. HP has added 512 MB DDR SDRAM memory, so multitasking is not a problem. It has equipped the system with an nVidia GeForce4 MX graphics card with 64 MB of dedicated video memory to allow you to blaze through all but high-end 3-D games and 3-D graphics packages. And it has included a massive 120 GB hard disk so you'll have plenty of room for programs, games, and a full multimedia library.
Other key amenities include a CD-RW drive for playing and burning audio and data discs, a DVD-ROM drive through which you can play DVD movies, and a 7-in-1 digital card reader for accessing memory cards from PDAs, digital cameras, and the like. In its stock configuration, the system does not support DVD writing.
HP has clearly built the Pavilion a320n Desktop to meet current and future expansion and connectivity needs. The unit features five high-speed USB 2.0 ports (one of the front) for exchanging information with external devices such as digital cameras and scanners, two FireWire ports (one on the front) for fast interaction with digital camcorders, front-mounted microphone and headphone ports, two available PCI slots, one available AGP slot, and a six-speaker surround sound audio controller. Communication options include a 56K modem for low-speed dial-up surfing and a 10/100Base-T Ethernet interface for high-speed e-communications. An HP multimedia keyboard with hotkeys and a PS/2 mouse with scrolling wheel complete the hardware picture.
A monitor and speakers are not enclosed, thus allowing you to select from the wide variety of choices available today.

Buy Now

Click here for more information about HP Pavilion a320n Desktop PC (2.40-GHz Athlon XP 2800+, 512 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

Read More...

6/22/2012

Panasonic BL-PA100KTA Ethernet Adaptor Starter Pack Includes two HD-PLC (High Definition Power Communication) Review

Panasonic BL-PA100KTA Ethernet Adaptor Starter Pack Includes two HD-PLC (High Definition Power Communication)
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I researched competing products from DLink and NetGear online and read numerous reviews. Any of the HD-PLC products should perform similarly in the same situation. Before deciding on a powerline Ethernet product be sure to understand that the quality of your home wiring and the distance the signal must travel all can affect the performance of the product. Poor quality wiring or very long electrical runs may limit performance.
What I liked most about the Panasonic product is that the kit which includes two units is preconfigured, so it works right out of the box without any special configuration. I didn't have to install ANY software to get my network running. I plugged in one unit to my Internet router, and the other unit into a power outlet in a nearby office. Once I connected the Ethernet cable, I was up and running. It was really that easy.
One nice thing with this unit is that you can run a speed test from the unit itself, with the front LED's displaying the estimated network performance. This was handy as I tried different outlet combinations to acheive the best performance. As a side note, I found that plugging the "Master" unit into an outlet as close as possible to the breaker box yeilded the best results. By putting the master as close to the break box as possible (electrica wiring distance) I was able to get a much better signal. I have the master unit in a downtairs room that is about 40' from the breaker box, and the secondary unit in an upstairs office that is about 65' feet from the breaker box.
Note that any powerline Ethernet product is susceptible to interference from other devices. Pay attention to the manual regarding the types of devies that can cause interference, and avoid ever pluggint the device into a surge protector, since that will greatly limit performance.
An additional nice feature of the Panasonic unit compared with DLink and NetGear is that the unit has a power cable. This allows me to plug it into "hidden" outlets, and then place the box in an easy to reach location. Both the NetGear and DLink products are a box that plugs directly into the outlet. This makes them more difficult to access, especially if you want to look at the box to see what it is doing. I like that the Panasonic can sit nicely on the corner of my desk and I can see the lights. I also suspect that the Panasonic will operate cooler since it can be placed in locations where there is air flow all around the unit.
Performance will vary by house and situation. I have a gigabit network switch that connects my machine directly to a server. When I copy a 50 megabyte file to my server using Windows XP, it takes 8 to 9 seconds to copy a 50 megabyte file. Running the same 50 megabyte file copy to a machine on the HD-PLC network connection took about 27 seconds. This seems to be pretty good performance overall. Note that "speed test" is only as good as what is being tested. My test was a real world test under Windows XP copying a 50 megabyte ZIP file.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Panasonic BL-PA100KTA Ethernet Adaptor Starter Pack Includes two HD-PLC (High Definition Power Communication)



Buy Now

Click here for more information about Panasonic BL-PA100KTA Ethernet Adaptor Starter Pack Includes two HD-PLC (High Definition Power Communication)

Read More...

4/21/2012

Zoom ZDTV Wireless Keyboard 9005-00-00F Review

Zoom ZDTV Wireless Keyboard 9005-00-00F
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
The ZDTV is a great wireless keyboard/touchpad for those who want to sit on the sofa while controlling a computer connected to a TV. I have three TVs of varying ages in my house, each hooked up to my main computer. I was looking for a wireless keyboard with a long enough range that I could use it to control my computer while sitting in front of any of them. This allows me to have one Blu-Ray drive in my computer, no need for extra DVD/Blu-Ray players, no need to worry about the different NetFlix/Hulu/YouTube/... streaming "standards" popping up as extras on different set-top Blu-Ray players.
Pros:
+ Great range. As long as you place the USB receiver (about the size of a USB thumb drive) in a location not blocked by the metal of your computer's case, printer, refrigerator, etc you can go a fair distance, even with walls in the way. Once I dug out an old USB extension cable and used that to put the wireless receiver on top of my case I was able to go about 50 feet without trouble.
+ Great functionality, even WITHOUT Windows 7. I have this hooked up to a computer running Windows Vista x64 with no ZDTV drivers or software installed. It is picked up as a standard USB keyboard, so I am even able to enter my BIOS password with it, before any operating system even boots up. It will work with any computer/operating system that can handle a USB keyboard and mouse. Even without Windows 7 I was pleasantly surprised that the specialty buttons along the sides of the touchpad correctly start up Windows Media Center, Windows Media Player, your default web browser, Play/Pause, Stop, Mute, Volume Up, and Volume Down. (The Magnification and Magnification Level buttons require the Windows 7 only software to work.)
+ Standard sized keys. Many wireless keyboards aimed at the HDTV/Computer market are "compact", trying to make the entire keyboard smaller but using keys that are a tad smaller than standard. For touch-typists this can easily through you off, especially with those farther out towards edges. The ZDTV keyboard uses full sized keys so touch typing does not suffer, and although it is a fairly thin keyboard with shallow keys, the depth of travel of the keys is very good, which also makes it feel like you are typing on a standard desktop keyboard even though it is a fair bit slimmer.
+ Large, deep touchpad. This is one of the larger touchpads I have used. Having a small touchpad with a netbook isn't too much of a hassle, but when setting a wireless keyboard on your lap, controlling a big screen TV with a fairly high resolution that is several feet away means that a larger touchpad allows you to have more stable, precise control of the cursor. The touchpad is also recessed a bit, helping to prevent the user from unintentionally moving the cursor as they type due to their thumb or palm brushing against the surface of the touchpad area.
+ Multi-touch touchpad. The touchpad has a right and left button under it, but it also uses mutli-touch in an interesting manner. A single tap acts as a left-click (double-tap for double-click, double-tap and slide for dragging.) A two-finger tap acts as the middle mouse button. A three-finger tap acts as a right-click. A two-finger vertical movement will act as a scroll up/down.
+ Energy conscious. It runs off of four AAA batteries (I use rechargeables.) It automatically turns itself off after a few minutes of non-use. Unlike other wireless keyboards there is no on-off switch. Using the touchpad will NOT wake it up, but ANY key press (including SHIFT or FN, safe ones to use since they won't trigger any program to do something unintended) will wake it up.Cons:
- No Caps/Scroll/Num Lock indicators. This is not a huge negative, but it can be an annoyance at times. I have a standard keyboard connected as well as the ZDTV wireless keyboard. Toggling Caps/Scroll/Num Lock with one will also do it to the other. My standard keyboard has a number pad, so I tend to leave Num-Lock on since I do a fair bit of work with spreadsheets. If I switch to the ZDTV keyboard and do not disable Num-Lock then suddenly U becomes 4, I becomes 5, O becomes 6, etc. This became quite annoying at first when I was trying to use it to put in a password and didn't realize what was going on (a U and a 4 both appear as a * in that case, so I didn't realize what was going on for a while.) Pressing Fn-NumLock on the ZDTV keyboard will toggle Num Lock for both keyboards so you can correct this without going back to the main computer, but it would be nice to have some form of Cap/Num/Scroll Lock indicator on the ZDTV keybaord.
Well, I guess only one con, so that should be "Con", not "Cons" ;-).

Click Here to see more reviews about: Zoom ZDTV Wireless Keyboard 9005-00-00F



Buy NowGet 58% OFF

Click here for more information about Zoom ZDTV Wireless Keyboard 9005-00-00F

Read More...