Top Product Reports

Lenovo Y510 Notebook Our Rating:

There are not many negatives when it comes to this laptop.  It is sturdily built and has a lot of great features.  Several of the most prominent features that sets this laptop apart from others are its touch-sensitive media pad, its “frameless” screen and its built-in Dolby sound system.  This is also a great bang-for-your-buck buy.  The retail price for this laptop is under $1000 and is not much more if it comes with discrete graphics.  This is a very good price considering the specs: Intel Dual Core processor (1.8GHz), 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 8600M GT (optional), and a 250GB hard drive to boot, quite large to come standard with a laptop.  This model also features a glossy 15.4″ widescreen LCD.

The only negative to find with this laptop is the battery life.  On power saver options with screen brightness turned all the way down, the max this laptop will last is two hours, but do not usually count on that.  And the battery is only a 6 cell which is not upgradable.  However these are small negatives when you consider how much this notebook has to offer for the price.

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Logitech G5   Our Rating:

This is by far one of the best gaming mice on the market today.  It has many customizable options and is very comfortable to use.  This mouse has up to 9 buttons: right and left click, middle mouse down, right, and left, two buttons near your thumb, and two buttons below the middle mouse.  The last two buttons have a default setting of the mouse’s sensitivity which is a very nice option for gamers when you need to adjust quickly.  And, the two thumb buttons can be mapped to any function in most games, a very handy click for games such as World of Warcraft.  The last cool feature about this mouse is that it has two sets of weights which you can insert into a tray into the mouse depending on your preference so it can be as light or as heavy as you like.  This mouse retails at $49.99, which compares very well against it’s Razer competitor.

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Canon ImageCLASS MF 4150 Our Rating:

The Canon ImageCLASS MF 4150 MultiFunction printer simply is one of the best values in its category.  A medley of awesome features not expected on a device of this price range also serve as very pleasant surprises.  Offering duplex printing, automatic document feeding, and a miniature bypass tray so you don’t have to remove your standard paper to print envelopes or index cards, the MF 4150 is a must-have for any home or small office.

We’ve been testing out this machine for nearly a month and it has yet to jam or malfunction.  The print quality is superb and pages print quickly with a surprisingly minimal warmup time.  The controls are very easy to use for making copies or sending faxes, both physically on the printer as well as in its software.

In conclusion, we have yet to see a reason why anyone would not want to buy this printer.  So, if you’re thinking about heading out to the store to grab one of these, our best advice would be to hurry up!

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Linksys WRE54G Wireless-G Repeater Our Rating:

Want better wireless signal in your house? This is exactly what you need. This device homes in on your wireless signal from your router, and then boosts it, extending the range of your wireless network.

The product itself is a small box that can either be mounted right on the outlet, or used with a provided cord and mounted on the wall, or simply set on a surface. Once mounted, all you have to do is aim the antenna straight up. Then you just hold down the auto-configure button, and it will configure itself to repeat the strongest wireless signal it can find that is not secured. If your network is secure, you must connect it to your network or use the software on the provided CD.

This is where we dock a star from the rating. The software didn’t work right at all for us. It is supposed to give you the ability to further configure your product, and to confirm that it is connected to the correct network. It also is needed to connect to a non-secure network. However, every access point scan we did failed, yet we could auto-configure to multiple networks. This was tested on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Furthermore, the software is not Mac compatible.

Once connected to your wireless network, this product significantly increases your signal strength. It increased our signal by over 300%, and we can get an almost perfect signal from one end of our house to the other - before this, we could not get signal at all in the basement, or in many areas of the house. In addition, the internet speed is retained great throughout the house. We recommend getting one of these if your wireless network range needs a boost, or you just want a more reliable wireless signal.

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Apple Remote Our Rating:

The Apple remote is a necessity for your Macbook or Macbook Pro, iMac,or Apple TV. With this tiny remote, you can have the ability to control your computer and applications on your Apple computer.

The Apple remote features only 6 buttons: volume control up and down, skip left and right, play/pause, and menu. In a media application, this remote controls all of the normal functions in that application, making it simple to control your music or movies from right in front of your computer to all the way across the room.

The menu button pulls up the Front Row application on Apple computers. This gives you access to movies, music, videos, podcasts, and photos in an appealing interface, all navigated with the remote. In the Front Row, you can also access features such as the top 10 music videos or top 10 songs in the iTunes store, movie previews, and more.

Not only is it a media controller, but a presentation controller. It can also be used in other applications. Additionally, it can play media applications in a Windows Boot Camp partition.

The remote has a long range, and has a long battery life. It also is very light and small, yet large enough to not lose it easily. It works great, and is essential to get the most out of your Apple computer experience.

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