Hardware Block

Zygo writes "The Swiftech MCX462+T at 3dGameMan, a very solid and beautiful Antec case over here, Coffee and maybe even some ram at OverclockerCafe, the Logitech Cordless Optical MX700 over here, the DFI AD77 Infinity KT400 mobo over at PC stats, Coolermaster ramsinks at Mikhailtech, the Canon S230 here, another case review, the Tyan Tachyon 9700 Pro, 19" ViewSonic monitor, Vantec's Nexus NXP-101 A True Review, Freecom FX-1 USB-2 CD-RW at Blagged-HW, the Nexland Wireless ISB Router at LanAddict and to end the Icemat."

Comments

Intellesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

They re-review the Icemat purely because a new coloured version was released? Them Apple review sites must be pretty cluttered..

Glass Mouse Mat???

[md81544]

Hmmm... a glass mouse mat?? Am I the only person who slams his mouse down in frustration when everything in Windows suddenly stops? Hey! Bonus! Automatic wrist slitting when using Windows. It would certainly force me onto my Linux box more frequently.

Re:Glass Mouse Mat???

[robbieduncan]

Perhaps this is a problem for some people, but I have used one of these mats for over a year at work and have to say that it really is very good. Unfortunatly it messes up some optical mice (the newest ones seem to work OK).

Re:Glass Mouse Mat???

[tjensor]

Do the words "Tempered safety glass" mean anything to you?

You forgot a link in that quagmire!

[Motherfucking Shit]

The word "Coffee" should have pointed to www.starbucks.com...

Re:You forgot a link in that quagmire!

[JabberWokky]

No. Starbucks serves disgusting overpriced nasty liquids. I'd rather go elsewhere for coffee. And now you can, even if you live on the west coast (I drive a half hour in the morning for the best joe around).

--
Evan

ISB Router

[packeteer]

This router, in fact, is not actually a wireless router. It is a wired router with wireless ability added in using external hardware. I was not pleased with this, it felt like a hack of their wired router rather than a router designed with wirless in mind.

Wow, what an uninformed reviewer. When the reviewer noticed that the router had a PCMCIA slot in the back where a card plugs in to give it the wireless abilities he got scared and thought it was low quality. If you open up many other wireless routers you will find the same thing only you dont have the option to switch in a better card. Any home access point will basically be a wires router with a PCMCIA card with a coax cable running to the external antannea. Personally i would prefer it if on an AP gave me the option of switching out the card to one with a better antannea or if it broke.

Its really sad to see the current situation of internet review sites. Most of them are done by people with a bit of knowledge about computer but not much more than anyone else. The reviewer really should give more than just the opinion of any other end user. I realize that end users need to be heard otherwise the real consumer would not know what to expect but im tired of sites slamming or paising hardware because they dont know how good or bad it really is.

Re:ISB Router

[adamofgreyskull]

The reviewer really should give more than just the opinion of any other end user. I realize that end users need to be heard otherwise the real consumer would not know what to expect but im tired of sites slamming or paising hardware because they dont know how good or bad it really is.

Quite. The barriers for entry into the hardware review biz are negligible now and a lot of the small ones tend to be bands of friends blagging hardware on the pretense of reviewing it.

Re:ISB Router

[mrpuffypants]

no kidding, about 5 or 6 hardware review sites open up every week it seems

and with the internet blocking their real identity i'll bet that most of them are run by people still reading dickens in high school english classes.

as a journalist myself on some level, it sickens me that real journalists now have to compete with "jimmy @ 3Xtr3m3 h@rdware" for credibility.

Re:ISB Router

[evilviper]

Personally i would prefer it if on an AP gave me the option of switching out the card to one with a better antannea or if it broke.

I don't see how that would be possible.

More than just drivers, to be an AP, you must send the special, ``magic" code to the Wireless card to tell it to do so. So I don't see how an AP could even potentially allow swapping of cards.

Re:ISB Router

[JabberWokky]

Heck, most PCI wireless cards are a PCMCIA card socketed onto a PCI board.

--
Evan

Re:ISB Router

[twoshortplanks]

The card in the picture looks like a normal Lucent/Buffalo card. Adding an extra antenna requires you not to remove the card, but to simply plug one into the mini-socket that you can uncover by removing a tiny dust cover in the middle of the exposed block.

I've got a big 'lightsabre' type antenna plugged into my Airport at home (which also uses a lucent card.) I had to prise the nice Apple case off to do that (It now looks considerably less well designed ;-) ). At least with the reviewed router there's no unscrewing or removing of pannels to do something similar

Re:ISB Router

[Max Romantschuk]

The poor quality of hardware review sites is fortunately something some sites are aware of...

Also some follow-up here.

Re:ISB Router

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see a futher example of the uninformed doing hardware reviews!

Most AP's do their magic by putting a temporary tertiary firmware on the card when the AP 'boots'.

Obviously, not every card or every AP will just "work" when you change cards, but many people have successfully replaced the prism2 cards in their AP's with higher power (senao or demarctech) cards.

Re:ISB Router

[evilviper]

Well, I assumed people were NOT so dense as to think my statement applied to replacing a card with the same model/chipset/whatever. Thanks for setting a new, low-IQ record, here on slashdot.

Re:ISB Router

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a small review website. I would have to agree, with the exception of mikhailtech. most of these websites are incredibly poor operations. Several of them except money to do hardware reviews and almost all of them are indescriminate about "editor's choice" awards.

With Tom's Hardware in the situation is it, (Tom cannot enter the united states without getting arrested. Apparently he never paid any American advertisers over the last 4 years), HardOCP and AT are the last large, decent review websites left.

If you want to read about some low quality hardware a 16 year old got for free, check out V1p3r'Sup4Caf3H4rdw4re. If you want to read actual unbiased reviews, try a big name hardware site. Hell, you might even learn something.

AnandTech.com Editor

Re:ISB Router

[packeteer]

This lack of good reviewing makes me upset. Although there ar good sites out there its not a good situation untill i can read several well written reviews of one product on different sites. As a 17 year old student of High School i can understand that i am not the best person to review this hardware so i dont do it. If i want someone who doesn't know anything to tell me about computers i would ask almost any kid who has a computer in my school. In my science classes they have always forced us to use the scientific process and now i understand why. If only these review sites would use some type of controlled process to evaluate their hardware i would trust them much more.

15 links on the article's chest !!!

[jkrise]

That's way too many for such a short write-up. Now, for the bottle of rum Cheers

Logitech MX Series Mice

[fishbert42]

Tom's Hardware has a decent review of the new Logitech MX series of mice (MX300, MX500, MX700). About as in-depth as you can get with something as simple as a mouse, I think.

Re:Logitech MX Series Mice

[Acaila]

I managed to score one of the MX-700 for chrissy. A very nice mouse indeed.

Great for gamming too!

Course I still suck at CS. :( And now I can't use my mouse as an excuse.

Re:Logitech MX Series Mice

[mdwebster]

I bought one of those MX500's with some of my Christmas money this year. It's a very nice piece of hardware, very responsive and smooth. The drivers, however, as mentioned in the above review, in a word, suck.

If Logitech could turn out a set of drivers to allow you to program all 8 buttons that would work in games, this would be a nearly flawless device. As it stands, you pretty much have to sacrifice 3 of them and not install the Logitech button programming driver in order for games to work properly. The latest version of the drivers do tend to play better with games but just because they have a routine built-in to disable the button mapper driver (em_exec) when it detects a program requesting DirectInput.

Re:Logitech MX Series Mice

[Anonymous Coward]

I definitely have to agree that the MX300 is nice.

Although I would call it a 3-button mouse when the extra button isn't enabled - the scroll wheel click is the third (middle) button.

And the middle button works correctly on MacOS X, both with native apps and X11, which to me is one of the most important factors (besides accuracy). Apple really should be providing at least two buttons by default, MacOS X - even with just native apps - is so much more usable with a right mouse button...there are quite a few context menus and ctrl-click just isn't that convenient.

The only minor complaint - the scrollwheel scrolls down much more smoothly than up and sometimes the physical and logical steps get out of sync.

Long time PC/Linux user...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

but all i lust for in terms of hardware now is that amazing iBook with a 17" LCD...

_THATS_ a cool piece of hardware. and the best part, it already comes with Unix, so I don't even have to bother instaling linux...

Re:RPN

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, much of the world doesn't agree with you. It's called Postfix you insensitive clod.

Re:RPN

[Anonymous Coward]

That gets 14,100 hits...

but this get 14,700.

You could always ask the HP Muesum

Help!

[Dark Lord Seth]

MCX462+T? DFI AD77? KT400? S230? NXP-101?! FX-1!?! ISB!?!? NNNGGGHHHH!!!! TECHINICAL BUZZWORDS!!! %$#^$%!!! *toot*

Connection reset by nice men in white coats.

Re:Help!

[Taldo]

troll v.,n. To utter a posting designed to attract stupid responses or flames.

Not to totally nitpick or anything.... but the bold part would in fact make this a verb... ;)

Re:Help!

[Taldo]

GACKFRAPFNACGRNNNNGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok... just notice the v. part. My bad.

Friends don't let friends post before their fifth cup of coffee I guess.....

Re:Wow..

[TheRIAAMustDie]

assholes.

Re:no verbs

[SEWilco]

I'll help:

• Swiftech MCX462+T at 3dGameMan: The author is a quick techie at MCX462+T@3dGameMan.
• a very solid and beautiful Antec case over here, we can hope the judge will also think it is a good case.
• Coffee and maybe even some ram at OverclockerCafe, where male mountain goats get coffee.
• Logitech Cordless Optical MX700 more portable than the M600 now that they removed cords from the telescope.
• DFI AD77 Infinity KT400 mobo is a motherboard (model number can be simplified to "AD Infinity because 77 is irrelevant as part of Infinity).
• Coolermaster ramsinks for offering water to the mountain goats
• Canon S230 although "cannon" is spelled wrong, the Army does like how well it can hit a target.
• another case review (the lawyers were busy preparing cases)
• Tyan Tachyon 9700 Pro is much better than the amateur tachyons that almost slow below the speed of light.
• 19" ViewSonic monitor so you can monitor your ViewSonic feeder in the backyard more conveniently
• Vantec's Nexus NXP-101 is a great nexus for those who are not self-centered.
• Freecom FX-1 USB-2 CD-RW at Blagged-HW more popularly known as "FFUC-RW" at Blogged Fragged Hardwired.
• Nexland Wireless ISB Router routes your inverted BS automatically as it flies past.
• Icemat keeps your beverage chilled on your desktop.

Re: your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

I am that someone!

The Antec / Chieftech / Chenming cases

[(H)elix1]

The Antec / Chieftech / Chenming cases are all manufactured by the same folks. Good stuff, however. For building boxes, this is my standard non-rackmount chassis. No sharp edges, solid structure, good ventilation and fan placement. If you watch, these things go on sale often... The last chassis I picked up was for my bride - with 420w PS and a window, $75USD. Lots of color options out there too.

Not sure if this will link, but her are some better photo from newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=11 -1 25-132-01.JPG/11-125-132-02.jpg/11-125-132-03.jpg/ 11-125-132-04.jpg/11-125-132-05.jpg/11-125-132-06. jpg/11-125-132-07.jpg

What kind of Reviews are these?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont mean to pick hairs here, but these are some very poor quality reviews.

First of all, I have no idea why you picked the Ahanix Romeo case for linking. This case is almost 2 years old and on top of that it is an incredibly poor design. I am familiar with Ahanix's business tactics and I would not be surprised if Ahanix/ExoticPC simply paid for that review.

Second of all, what makes the Nexus 101 review so special? It is consistant with the other 200 reviews that rate the overpriced gargbage "very good". Vantec does not sell quality products, but they do not sway reviews unlike other companies. I have no idea why no one mentions the serve disapointments in the Nexus line. Personally, I think the 201 is a much nicer device.

Ok well, I suppose I better rip on the "brand new" antec case. This is a first generation Chenming case that has also been on the market over 2 years. Chenming is actually working on another revision of this case which should be out mid Q1. Why anyone insisted on reviewing hardware that is older than the website doing the review is beyond me.

Incredible.

Um, er, oh

[thatguywhoiam]

"The Swiftech MCX462+T at 3dGameMan, a very solid and beautiful Antec case over here, Coffee and maybe even some ram at OverclockerCafe, the Logitech Cordless Optical MX700 over here, the DFI AD77 Infinity KT400 mobo over at PC stats, Coolermaster ramsinks at Mikhailtech, the Canon S230 here, another case review, the Tyan Tachyon 9700 Pro, 19" ViewSonic monitor, Vantec's Nexus NXP-101 A True Review, Freecom FX-1 USB-2 CD-RW at Blagged-HW, the Nexland Wireless ISB Router at LanAddict and to end the Icemat."

Does anyone else think this blurb looks like the decription of one of the prop computers in the Sims?

'Zwoop Macrotic 1349/k GigaProcessor at 14.2 Ketaflops with Super HypWire MonstraDrive, Insana3 Radio-centric Flux Tachyon Coprocessor, Renticular magneto-sensing thermoptic camoflage, and 128X ZCDVD-RW.'

Right. Mine's grape.

I've got two of these

[legLess]

FWIW, I have two of these pieces of hardware, albiet slightly older versions. My Antec case is the same, but without the whiz-bang pretty features (panels, lights, whatnot). It's sweet - big, easy to work with, tons of drive bays.

I've also got 2 of the ViewSonic P95f monitors. The ones reviewed are P95f+ models, which are capable of a higher resolution, but with a slightly lower refresh rate for all other resolutions (stupid, IMHO). These are great screens, especially for the price. Perfectly flat, exceptionally clear and crisp.

for the record...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for the record, Antec did not design that case. Rather, a company called Chieftec designs and creates the case -- Antec, like several other companies, just slaps their name and sells the cases.

_
Click here for the best windows cursors!

Re:for the record...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Antec did the design of the front panel, right?

Re:for the record...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Chengmeng, a chinese based company designs and manufactures the antec case. Cheiftech manufacture's the rails or something that go on the OEM case.

Mouse batteries

[phorm]

It seems odd to me that the Logitech Optical mouse was only said to last about 3-4 days. I remember reading on other cordless opticals that they can last weeks or even months, but perhaps this is because they aren't using rechargable batteries. With NimH (sp) batteries I would have expected better performance.
Can somebody verify this? I was actually quite interested in this mouse due to the recharging basestation, but if it dies a lot quicker than others I'll just go with a non-recharging mouse on a Lithium-Ion battery.

Re:Mouse batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah, I got the mx700 for christmas.. the batteries seem to go dead on me within 48-72 hours.. I have spares in the wall always ready to replace the batteries in the mouse tho.

This is a fair trade-off though. This mouse feels great, and performs better than any other cordless optical mouse i've touched.. most of them have a very slight lag. If you keep spares on the wall and try to remember to put this thing on the base station every night..you will have no problems at all.

OT: Fifty eight -1+ posts on front page article?

[StupidKatz]

Excuse me, do you know what time it is? I think I just missed the Rapture.

MX700 Recommended

[gottabeme]

I have one and love it. I only had the batteries run low once, but I can't remember how long it had gone without charging. Many days, at least. Anyway, I just drop it in the charger once in a while, and it's always charged up. Usually when I go to bed I put it to bed too, but if I forget it's no problem the next day. Great mouse overall, only thing I don't like is the wheel is hard to press down. I ended up using the button behind the wheel for double-click instead of the wheel button.