WARNING – NOT TRULY 3RD GENERATION, November 26, 2010

By

MWebb (Berkeley, CA) – See all my reviews

 

 

Please see Cisco’s response, below. I am glad Cisco has responded.

________________________________

I almost bought one of these until I read the fine print.

The “real” Flip UltraHAD 3rd Generation has 60 fps recording speed for better action shots AND electronic stabilization – two BIG features.

I can give up the 4 gb of extra storage on the “regular” model, but his “Black Friday” model blowing out at Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon strikes me as a “come on” – it omits the two essential features that make the 3rd Generation Flips of interest – the higher frame rate (60 fps vs 30 fps on this one) and the stabilization. Read the specs and blurbs on the REAL model you need to be looking at:
Flip UltraHD Video Camera – Black, 8 GB, 2 Hours (3rd Generation) NEWEST MODEL

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (19)

 

Handy camera, November 23, 2010

I couldn’t ask for an easier lighter more user friendly camcorder than this! This camera is so easy to use it’s amazing. Just point and shoot. Then preview your videos or upload to your computer. The Flip software for your computer helps you customize and make adorable movies to be burned to a cd and saved forever! This camer is so easy, I convinced my principal to purchase three for our school. Now kids make video projects! I even video taped our SGA speeches and created a movie with music and credits. Sure, there are plenty out there that can do all this, but for the price and the ease, the Flip is the bomb!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comment

 

Very deceptive by Flip, November 26, 2010

I double checked the specs on the Flip website – although the 1 hour and 2 hour Flips have identical names, they are NOT the same quality camera. The 2 hours has image stabilization and 60 fps (frames per second), while the 1 hour camera does not have stabilization and only shoots 30 fps.

I can’t stand it when companies pull stuff like this.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comment (1)

 

Perfect for infrequent home printing and scanning, January 15, 2011

By

B. Wueste (Boston, MA) – See all my reviews
 

 

I needed to replace an old HP deskjet that I’ve had for more than 5 years that finally decided to stop working properly. I did a lot of research online and quickly got very caught up with all of these massive all-in-one devices that had way more functionality than I would ever need. If you are like me and just need a home printer to print the occasional directions/maps, recipes, coupons, bills, etc., then this is definitely the printer for you.

Before you buy a printer online you need to go to a store and see just how large these all-in-one devices actually are. My wife took one look at them and told me there is no way that is going in our home office even if it also served as a micro fridge and coffee maker. The great thing about this HP 3050 is that it has a much smaller footprint than most all-in-one printers. It has print, copy, and scan functionality, but no fax. Who needs a fax these days anyways when you can just scan a file and then email the scanned document. Most devices don’t have a fax out capability anyways so unless you are operating a business out of your house and you receive a lot of faxes the lack of fax on this model should not be a problem.

The printer is not too heavy and it’s packaged really well in the box. Instead of being wrapped in styrofoam it is secured with recycled cardboard and wrapped in a reusable canvas bag that you can use for your groceries. It comes with a quick installation guide, as most HP printers do, and the set up went very smoothly with no problems. There is one piece of cardboard wedged inside near the ink cartridges that I missed, but the printer told me of my error and it was easy enough to remove.

Setting up wireless was also not a problem, but you will need to be familiar with your wireless network security settings in order to get the printer connected. An alternative is just using the USB cable, which is nicely included in the box. I haven’t played around with web printing yet, but it’s not hard to just plug the USB cable into my desktop or laptop and print what I need.

The only negative I can think of is that the printing is a bit loud, but unless you’re keeping the printer in the room with the baby crib the noise isn’t THAT loud that it would be a dealbreaker. Ink consumption so far is not noticeably different than my prior HP, but I don’t print all that much all that often so this is tough to measure for me.

Overall a high quality printer with all the functionality non business users would need with a smaller footprint and lower price tag than most other all-in-one printers.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 

Comments (25)

 

Dynamite, small-footprint computer printer!, November 23, 2010

By

John W. Bradshaw “jwbradshaw” (Allen, TX) – See all my reviews

 

 

This dynamic printer is small, easy to use, fast and produces a clean, high quality classy print, whether it is text or enlarged, detailed photograph. You can use direct connection (USB) or wireless connection. The instructions and disc that come with the printer make it a snap to set up and begin printer. Even the wireless was hands-free and automatic.For its size and versatility, this printer is unmatched in price and speed of delivert. Very highly recommended!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 

Comments (5)

 

hp6050 deskjet wireless all-in-one printer, October 29, 2010

HP Deskjet 3050 All-in-One Printer (CH376A#B1H)

I bought this printer to replace my old Lexmark that was very faithful but used very expensive ink. I wasn’t
interested in wireless, but wanted a new scanner also and this item was very well priced. The install was painless on windows 7 and took only 10 min. including tests. Printer, copier and scan worked flawlessly. my only concern
is noise when printing starts. I hear several bumps and grinds as printing begins and I hope this is normal.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 

Comments (6)

 

Excellent all-in-one printer!, January 24, 2011

By 

memoiai (USA) – See all my reviews

  

  

Upon opening the package I was a bit taken aback at how big and heavy this printer is. Compared to my (now relatively) small Canon Pixma ip6000d (which I love).

But this printer has filled a big void that the Canon could not: all in one printing AND instantaneous two-sided printing.

Installation: The installation and set-up is very easy. Just follow the instructions, install the drivers, and software, and you’re ready to go. Don’t forget, however, to readjust your settings in Control Panel–> Printers and Faxes (right click for properties) to a permanent model (i.e. I always have it set to two sided printing, minimal ink use, and print last page first) so that I get everything the way I want to, right away. If you don’t do that, then you’ll be stuck having to switch it manually every time you print it out of Word; which gets annoying real fast.

Design: This is a very sleek looking machine that looks very professional. The touch screen is really a smart-screen. Meaning: when I’m trying to choose options manually on the printer it only lets me choose those that are actually available based on all the previous steps I have taken to get to the current screen. However, I will not be using the touch screen a lot, if ever, as I can do everything right from my computer with the software provided, which is much easier and more convenient (both of the other printers I’ve had I’ve also avoided the more primitive screens).

Printing Speed: This is a very fast printer (it’s obviously not as fast as the monstrous and expensive ($25,000) laser printer at my former place of work), but it’s certainly the fastest inkjet I’ve encountered (a claim they boldly state). I print two sided pages all of the time, 1000′s of them, and I can’t tell you what and incredible relief it is to be able to have a double sided page come right out, instead of waiting for the odd pages to print, then sticking back the pages in the right order into the cassette in my Canon, and waiting for the even pages to print on the other side. If however, you print high quality pictures, I can’t say that this is that much faster than my Canon, maybe just a bit, but it is certainly better quality.

Scanner: I can’t say that the scanner is anything special here, it’s like anything else. The quality is top notch at the highest settings, but, as with any scanner, you might as well brew a pot of coffee while you get that high quality image saved to a hard drive that can hopefully sustain it (especially if you’ve got lots of images to scan); I see no reason to scan at the highest quality setting for most every-day page-text; and in this scenario it’s lightning fast. The biggest advantage of this printer versus a traditional lift-lid-scan printer is that, thanks to the feeder, you can actually go ahead and brew that coffee and do something else while the printer (without glitches so far) scans and the faxes and/or downloads to the computer and/or copies the paper/pictures/etc for you, without you having to sit there and manually input every single **** ****….bad memories…

Fax: The fax is just like any printer with a fax option; you simply enter in all of your information and away you go. A test fax was received and sent very easily, but without any additional flair. Did you seriously expect the scanner and fax options in an all-in-one printer to somehow be revolutionized in the span of the last 5 years (when I had my last all-in-one printer)? NOTE: A phone cable is included, BUT if you use DSL, make sure you have an extra filter, or get one from your ISP.

Paper (free sample comes included, yay!): This isn’t about actually the paper you use, but rather, the really awesome cassette system in this printer! There’s two cassettes! That’s one more than I had before and it made me feel giddy inside! Then, I realized, I only use one type of paper. Oh well, at least for some of you this will be important. I used to send a lot of mail and hated switching out the paper and envelopes, a printer like this would’ve solved that hassle. Again, so far, no glitches or jams; but this is actually the least you should expect as modern printers rarely glitch if they’re any good.

Ink (B/W and color included right away): Epson claims instant dry inks. So what? My experience with printers isn’t vast, but the two other inkjet printers I have (Canon’s ink only costing $2-$5 for a cartridge the same size as Epson’s), print dry as well as long as you use the right paper. And, too touch base on the whole cost of ink issue, Epson loses me here big time. I have been spoiled by my Canon, which has cost me over the last several years a grand total of $50 in ink ($25 of which is still sitting on a shelf, unused); and I print literally thousands upon thousands of pages every year. Roughly the same capacity ink cartridge ($2-B/W and $4-5- Color in Canon) runs you a whopping $28 for…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (25)

Good for Windows users. Not so good for Mac users., March 16, 2011

By 

Kevin Nicholls “jaded, aging hipster” (Milford, MI) – See all my reviews

  

  

  

For the sake of comparison, I have a Canon PIXMA MX870 multifunction inkjet with wireless connectivity that I’m using as a benchmark on the Epson WorkForce 840, since they’re competitive products in the same segment.

While Epson touts how much space you save on your desk with the 840, the space hasn’t disappeared, it’s simply gone up. The 840 is surprisingly tall. So much so that using it in an enclosed space may be difficult. Out of the box, I noticed that the unit itself felt a bit flimsy. With the exception of the flatbed scanner, everything from the ADF tray down to the paper trays felt as though they’d snap without much force.

Setup was quite simple, and it’s unlikely that experienced buyers would need to look at the setup poster to get started. Take the tape off, drop your cartridges in, and turn it on. The menu system is fairly logical, and getting the printer on my wireless network took about a minute. A minor quibble on this one: the 840 wants to spend upwards to five minutes calibrating itself when you first turn it on, and locks out the menu in the process.

The display panel was surprisingly crisp, though the touch-sensitive areas didn’t consistently register input. On both sides of the color LCD, you have a series of touch-sensitive “buttons” that light up when they’re relevant to the menu context. Although this was fine for most things, some of the icons were a bit cryptic in context. Overall, I found the interface to be a bit on the gimmicky side, and would have preferred a few softkeys instead.

Printing is everything you’d come to expect from Epson. Text was very sharp, bordering on “cheap laser” quality, and pictures looked almost impossibly good on “cheapest you can get me” copy paper. Without question, the 840 kicks out sharp black text faster than any printer I’ve used. But… mixed content isn’t nearly as fast. A good example here is the built-in ability to print out ruled paper and graph paper. The function is kind of cool, but a single ruled page takes an excruciating amount of time.

One serious oddity is the way Epson chose to deal with paper. They tout the top cartridge being versatile enough to handle any paper or envelope smaller than 11 x 17 you can imagine, and that the bottom cartridge holds an entire ream of paper. That’s great. Problem is, the 840 expects letter paper in the top cartridge, and there’s no way to set it to use the bottom cartridge globally. Yes, you can set it to use Cartridge 2 in the driver… unless you’re using a Mac. If you’re using a Mac, some applications allow you to hit the Paper Handling settings (and pick Cartridge 2 every time), but some applications don’t. On Windows, if you’re using this in a workgroup, every computer has to have the driver configured to use the “big” cartridge.

If you’ve got a Mac, that’s not where the pain ends. Scanning is reasonably fast for an all-in-one, and the quality’s pretty average, too. Want to put a stack of paper in the document feeder and have them scanned to your computer? No problem. Hit “Scan”, “Scan to PC”, and pick your computer from the network. Unless you’re using a Mac. While Canon multifunction printers have been able to do this for years, Epson can’t seem to do network scanning to Macs running Snow Leopard. Just to be certain, I downloaded the latest drivers from Epson’s site, to no avail.

For Windows users, the Workforce 840 is a solid multifunction inkjet. The materials are too flimsy for sustained workgroup use, but it’s definitely nice for a hone office user who likes the distinct look of Epson printing. For Mac users though, I can’t really recommend this. The drivers aren’t good at all, and you’re going to lose functionality out of the box.

Mac OS Lion Update – August 2011:
To anyone wondering, I’ve been using the printer on a clean Lion install for just over a week now, and basically, it’s the same. I still can’t scan to a Mac from the printer, and there’s still no way to permanently set a specific tray.

One thing that is worth noting though: getting the printer going on my Mac took no effort at all. The Lion installer saw the Epson printer on the network, and added drivers. I have to say, I was relatively impressed.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (17)

Epson Workforce 840 Best Printer ever!!, January 25, 2011

By 

Rodolfo Farinas Jr. – See all my reviews

  

I own this printer, i bought it from the manufacturer’s site directly since it wasn’t available at amazon at the time i wanted it.

This printer is awesome in every imaginable way you can think of. And it can help you save a lot of money of you really want the all in one capabilty. Read on and i’ll explain how an why.
First things first, the printer is way smaller than the HP Laserjet 2840 i own too, it’s not heavy at all, and it looks great. The text printing on this Epson truly looks like a laser printer. The color is fantastic to, i even print photos on glossy photo paper and they look amazing. The scanner is fast and very good too. It allows you to scan and print both sides of docs at once, no manual interference needed.
I was looking for a printer that would give me great photo printouts as well as it could be used as a work printer since i do print lots of documents as well. I also wanted to buy a Fujitsu Scansnap 1500 for fast double sided multisize document scanning capabilities, Well this epson gives me all that and much more, and for less than half what the scansnap costs. I use adobe acrobat pro to scan docs to PDF directly from the epson scanner(could not do this with the scansnap) and all that is done wirelessly, i can also fax any document right from my computer just like i print them.
Bottom line, for $200 you’re getting a very fast high quality printer scanner fax and both-sides copy machine as well as the card readers and a lot more, the ink seems to last, and this printer comes with the highest capacity cartridges, which seem to yield a lot. So now i solved my scanning, pc faxing and photo printing needs all in one small very good a nice machine. And i saved whatever a photo printer costs, plus the $430 for the scansnap s1500, and i get laser quality text as well as (N) wireless conectivity from my printer. What else could i ask for?

Note: My comparison with the scansnap s1500 are not based on web reviews, i actually bought a scansnap which i later returned since i get the same if not better results with this printer.
Also, i’ve owned canon photo printers and i still have a huge HP color laserjet 2840. So my comparisons and references are based on actual usage of all equipment mentioned.
My recommendation, buy this one and you’ll be very pleased.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (12)

Your New Office Assistant ! & MX870 vs Epson Artisan 810 Review, March 3, 2010

By

Roger Peter Marec (Riverside, CA USA) – See all my reviews

 

 

If you are looking at these reviews for the MX870, you are probably wondering what I was wondering… “What is the difference between the MX870 and MX860 and possibly also how does it compare to the Epson Artisan 810?” They are all top rated by Amazon customers for inkjet all-in-one printers.

They are all awesome! The Epson has more color cartriges, but I am not sure if that matters. I give the nod to the Epson on photo quality, but it might just be a subliminal issue of ‘more is better’. My last Epson printer was the Epson 785EPX and it printed amazing photos and graphics, and it also used 6 colors.

Both the Canon and Epson have beautiful quick drying inks. The Canon has a special black ink that is a pigment instead of a dye, which you might like since pigments don’t run when wet, so theirs is good for flyers and such. And, by the way, if you’ve discovered that you really benefit from pigment ink, look into the Epson Workforce 610. It is fast, and all its different colored inks are pigments. Graphics and text are outstanding, but photos a little lacking.

The Canon is a little slower to start printing, but once it gets going it is pretty fast. Both Epson and Canon models have an optional duplexer mode (prints on both sides to save paper – this feature significantly slows down print time if that is important to you) and an automatic paper feed. The paper feed on the Canon is fully integrated and two-sided, so it can copy/scan both sides of a document automatically as well. There are a few hiccups with the 860 on this that the 870 solves.

It’s a small pain to reload the reglar A4 8 1/2 by 11 paper in both machines in their lower tray. The Epson has an additional slot on its lower tray for photo paper that some may like. The Canon has an extra paper feed at the back of the unit that is great for printing envelopes, prints, or other types of paper, so you don’t have to change your main tray. The rear feeder should accommodate heavier papers and have a less likelihood of jamming because the paper comes straight through the machine with little bending. The projecting tray on the Epson looks and feels flimsy and most people seem worried about that, but remarkably I have never heard of anyone breaking it. The Canon has a cool feature… when you send it a wireless command to print, it automatically lowers its front door for the paper to be collected on, so you can keep the unit all closed up when not in use.

If you use OCR, and I love OCR (optical character recognition that allows you to turn your document scans into text files), you will prefer the Epson because it is integrated into their software package. Canons used to have OCR software, but have stopped in the recent year. Note: If you have Microsoft Office Student and Home version, its program ‘OneNote’ has OCR for you to use. Most people are totally unaware of it being there. By the way, OneNote is the best program on Microsoft Office. It is what keeps me from just using the free open source office software that is so amazing.

Price-wise, the Epson is about 100 more than the Canon. Amazon has some of the best prices. The newer Canon MX870 isn’t even available in most stores yet and probably will run about 50 dollars more than the MX860 for the next six months. Apple users will like the smoother integrated software application of the MX870 that was a small problem on the MX860.

Space-wise the Canon is bigger. Look-wise, the Epson is sharper with its shiny black finish, like a piece of fancy stereo equipment. The Canon has a neutral light beige look. Very officey with clean lines.

They both fax if you ever need that every now and then instead of having to run to your local print shop.

The user interface of the Canon and Epson are both easy to use in different ways. I sort of wish the Canon buttons weren’t so flush with the unit, but its not really a big deal. You will need to use the interface to copy and scan, but most print jobs you will want to do from your computer.

The Epson has some fun graphics software extra on it. Again, mostly ‘fun’ stuff. It also prints on printable CDs and DVDs. This could be important to you. It is the best of any printer at this. I don’t need it because I print on CDs using LightScribe on my HP. I like that look better if I am going to customize the CD face.

The Canon has some very useful proprietary software that you will love if you surf the Web and want to copy and print out multiple bits and pieces of articles with ease… even on the same sheet of paper. You can do this anyway with Windows, but Canon’s program is easier and faster.

Both Canon and Epson have ink cartridges that are separate from the print head, so it is easier to find third-party ink and save money. Third party ink is better than what it used to be, but the OEM (original equipment manufacture)…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (87)

 

This Printer is Easily Worth 3x This Price, You Can’t Beat It., May 14, 2010

By

Catherine Delfino (CT, USA) – See all my reviews

 

 

(note: I copied this review (my review) from when i reviewed it on canon’s actual site. No point in making a new review, just don’t want someone to think i’m a marketer or canon employee if they see this elsewhere)

This is my first and only All in one photo ink jet printer so its hard for me to compare to anything else. However, regardless whether or not I have something to compare it to, I can say that I am more than happy with my product.

I’ve had it for only a few days now, but i’ve already put it through you know what trying to test out numerous features and settings as well as using different products (trying different photo papers, etc.). So far, I can not find even one complaint. It prints brilliant photos ( I have noticed, photo paper brand makes a very noticeable difference as well), performs excellent scans and copying / faxing functions as well as it could.

I love the design of the mx870. When your not using it, everything closes up making a nice neat little package, unlike some other models where trays are popping out left and right. I also LOVE the “gun metal” color. It looks very sleek.

The wireless connectivity is just awesome and setting up the wireless connection was EXTREMELY SIMPLE. Took less than 5 minutes.

Another important note is that so far, the ink really seems to last. I’ve already printed NUMEROUS photos, all at max quality (most ink used), including many 8.5 x 11″ photos (which use a lot of ink due to sheer size), and the ink levels still say they are full!!!! Maybe too good to be true, hope its not a faulty ink level indicator lol (I doubt it).

Quality seems great. They made it very functional. When you open the printer to access the print head and ink etc, a handy little kickstand pops out and keeps it open for you to free up your hands. There are handy little red lights that light up when you install ink correctly. I guess I do have one complaint in this area though (if I HAD to nitpick); when your done placing something to scan and you go to close the bed, at first glance there seem to be some nifty “gas shocks”(?) that gently let the bed fall back down. This is a great and convenient idea, HOWEVER, not implemented entirely well because they work great right up until the last inch or so of closing at which point they “give out” and the bed slams shut. It’s possible mine could just be defective. Either way, its really a small complaint because I just gently assist the closing with my hands anyway, no big deal.

The on screen display is well suited, and easy to use. As gimmicky as it sounds, I even like the blue light up WIFI logo when you’re wirelessly connected, just sort of looks cool.

Finally, the included software is really good considering its simplicity. I have photoshop CS4 extended which will obviously blow any other photo tools out of the water. HOWEVER, i still constantly find myself using the included software instead! This is because it has really SIMPLE/QUICK but at the same time EFFECTIVE tools such as face smoothing. Just click a button, and the program automatically finds faces and helps smooth out wrinkles, or other imperfections. It’s quite a noticeable improvement, sort of how Nancy Pelosi was airbrushed for that magazine cover and she looked 20 years younger. It may sound cheesy, but once you use it and see how simple it is, I can’t imagine printing photos without it.

Now this isn’t a complaint, just something I can hope for in the future. Having a wireless printer is handy, but it would be even more AMAZING if Canon could come up with a way to make the fax wireless. I don’t see how this could be hard. Maybe wirelessly send the fax to the computer and have the computer dial out using the internet? Another option would be, considering most people have digital phone service nowadays through their modem, the printer could again wirelessly send the fax to the router which is already connected to the modem containing the phone line for digital phone service. With today’s technology, having the fax be wireless as well should be AN EASY problem to solve. This would make their printer TRULY WIRELESS and would be a class leader (though, I must say I would buy a whole new printer just to have such a feature, which is bad for my bank account).

Sorry for the wall of text, just trying to be as descriptive as possible and cover all angles for any people considering this printer.

One final note. Before I settled on this printer, I must have researched and compared other all in ones for 3 days or more. In the end all that research pointed to this printer, and now that I have received it and tested it, I can confirm it. Other potential printers included “somethingpro 8500″ (not allowed to say actual name, but you get the idea). That thing is more than 2.5 times more expensive and lacks many of the mx870′s features. Point is, not only is this printer…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (8)

 

After 2 yrs of shopping, Very Happy with this choice, June 21, 2010

By

Justin D. Turner (Gaithersburg, MD United States) – See all my reviews

 

 

I have been looking at all-in-ones casually for the last couple of years. After considerable research, I purchased the MX870. My old printer, a HP I purchased in 2000, still works well. With that in mind, here is what I was looking for in this purchase:

- Primarily, I was looking for a good scanner that could also replace my existing printer should it fail since it is so old.
- Easy to use scanning software
- Duplex scanning was desired
- Duplex printing was desired
- Separate ink for each color
- The ability to print in B&W even if a color ink is out
- Print speeds were not a concern – this is for home use
- Print quality was not much of a concern either – I haven’t had a color cartridge for my current printer for 4 yrs
- I don’t print photos, so printing on photo paper/borderless printing/etc. are not attributes I researched (in my opinion, it is just easier and cheaper to upload them to a service and have them sent to you. In the rare instances I need pictures sooner than that, I go to CVS, which I think is still cheaper than printing from home.)

So far the MX870 has lived up to my expectations.
- Set up was very easy. I would say it took 30 minutes, including unboxing and setting up the wireless (and I was taking my time).
- Scanning has been great. It scans really well from the feeder, and there are very easy to access options for color, dpi, etc. Last night I scanned a 25 pg document, front and back, and had no issues.
- The software does not seem to be a resource hog. You can select exactly what you want to install on the CD (just drivers, scanning software, photo software, etc). I think this is great. For my laptop and desktop, I needed the scanning software, but was able to opt out of installing the photo software for now. For my netbook, I can easily just install the drivers, and none of the other software.
- The scanning software is light on resources and easy to use. You scan something in, a window pops up so you can review it, rename it, etc. Couldn’t be easier.
- Print quality is fine. I have it set to print fast duplex by default and this results in a product that works for me. In the 4 days I’ve had it, I haven’t tried to print it on normal or best quality, so I cannot speak to those results, but judging by the quality of the fast, I would assume it would work for most home users.
- Copy is easy – no complaints.
- Print speed is a little slow. As I stated above, I’ve only printed on Fast, but this printer’s fast is definitely not any faster than my old HP – even with duplex printing turned off. If speed is critical, this may not be your best bet. For most home users I would suspect it prints fast enough for general use.

I’ll quickly mentioned the competition. Based on the criteria above, I was very seriously considering three other printers:
(1) The HP 6500 wired for $150 or wireless for $200
(2) The HP 8500 Pro wired for $200 wireless for $260
(3) The Brother MFC 6490CW – $200 on sale at Office Depot, regularly $300

(1) I decided against the HP 6500 wired because for $50 more you got wireless and duplex printing/scanning. I decided against the 6500 wireless because for $200, I could get the 8500 – from HPs better printer line – which even though it was wired, had more features and a higher quality scanner.

(2) I decided against the HP 8500 despite the fact that it is: (1) recommended by CNET, (2) discounted through my employer, (3) I have enjoyed my current HP for a decade. The reason I did this was simply because there are just too many bad reviews. I know there are a lot of reviews for it – almost double the amount there are for this printer – but they seem to be too recurring: bad printer heads, failing after a couple months, bad software, driver issues with Windows 7 and XP, and the list just went on. Before buying the HP, I would read not only the reviews on Amazon, but also the reviews on CNET and [...]. After an hour of reading “stay away” and “do not buy!” I imagine you’ll be as scared as I was.

(3) I chose the Canon over the Brother because quite simply because it was cheaper on Amazon ($146) than the Brother on sale ($199, currently back to $299 it looks like) and it is much smaller. Both have great reviews all over the web, so without any reason to pick the more expensive Brother, I chose the Canon.

I hope this review helps and I’ll update this review if I encounter issues (my expectation is a printer of this cost should last at least 5 years).

— UPDATE —
2 of the 3 color inks have now run out and it still prints black/grey with no problems. A definite feature in my book.

After a few months, I am happy to report I still have no issues with this purchase. The trial black ink is just about gone (comes with a small and large black ink tank) but overall, I…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (6)

 

Much better than the average all-in-one, October 27, 2010

By

E. Campisi “extrabooksalbany” (Baldwin, NY United States) – See all my reviews

 

 

I waited to try all four features of this printer before reviewing it – document printing, scanning, photo printing, and photocopying. Generally, this printer is a beauty, both looks-wise and operationally. There is a pop up screen with a very bright menu that also displays photos. You are supposed to be able to edit them right there, but I didn’t actually try that feature of this printer. The sleek, shiny, black rounded body has very cool back-lit buttons for all the functions right on the top. You can also control them from the computer. I found myself going back and forth between both, for both everyday functionality and the set up.

I have to say a REALLY great feature about this printer, which I didn’t expect to love as much as I do, is the wireless printing capability. You don’t have to keep this printer anywhere near your computer, just an outlet. If you have a laptop and like to use it in front of the TV, you will absolutely love the freedom it provides.

I would rate all of the individual features rate highly except the document printing. Here’s my review of the features from best to relatively worst:

1. Photo printing – prints either directly from your card (no computer needed technically). You can print up to 600 dpi with this. The photos are crisp and clear, and color is accurate. The only thing I didn’t like was the extremely rudimentary photo editing software. It is easy to use, yes, but it doesn’t do much. If you want to retouch your photos, use either Photoshop or one of the free pieces of software. I like Picasa even. That may be simple, but it’s better than this. Smaller printer paper loads from the back of the machine. Regular paper goes in a drawer in the front, which I really liked.

2. Photocopying – I find it’s a relief to have a photocopier for the occasional document that needs photocopying. Here you’ll have a color copier too. The colors also rendered accurately here.

3. Scanning – I tried a document and photos (you can scan your signature and then cut and paste it into letters, btw, which is a nice touch if you’re sending out cover letters online). It did a great job on all kinds of documents, as well as my signature. Remember though that you can only print at 600 dpi with this machine, which may be a deal killer for a handful of people. The photo scanning wasn’t quite up to the quality of the photo printing however. I scanned in a photo of my mom, and boosted the contrast slightly. The picture came out warmer and less detailed than the original photo. You can correct this on Photoshop, but in my opinion you shouldn’t have to. Again, I was a little stymied by the fact that the photo editing software was so rudimentary – but if you have different software you should be able to work this out.

4. Document printing – this printer comes with two black cartridges – one is much larger than the other one and is just for printing. I have a small laser printer and am spoiled by it, so that is the caveat. First, the documents print out very slowly. It takes a while to prepare itself to print, and then when it does start to print, it’s pretty slow. That was actually the only thing that disappointed me about this printer. The document quality is very good, but in my opinion doesn’t reach the near-laser quality that some of the HP printers do. Considering this is an all-in-one, you can’t kill it for that issue. However, because of that and the slowness I wouldn’t recommend this printer to anyone who regularly does things like college term papers, or other things where you print out large documents on a regular basis — the lack of speed would drive you crazy. I also liked my resume better on the laser printer, naturally. But the slowness and lack of laser-like crispness are what killed one of the stars on this rating. There was a cool thing about printing though – the front door automatically pops open when the printer starts. I liked that.

I would say that this is an excellent printer for people who want really good photo printing, need scanning and photocopying capability, which are also good, but don’t have large print jobs on a regular basis. The user interface and the beauty of the thing itself make it a complete pleasure to operate. Never thought I’d be saying that about a piece of electronic equipment. The ink cartridges are kind of small, so that’s another consideration unless you can find a good, cheap dealer on E-bay.

Installation – this is one where you have to be ready. Plug and play this is not. You have to load the printer head, the printer cartridges, and keep going back and forth between the computer and printer screen (which gives you directions) to set it up, no matter what the directions say. Give yourself an hour, because it may not go that smoothly. I actually had no problems – already had a wireless router and didn’t have to go through what some others have, but it was tedious and I did…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (4)

 

Once you go Canon, you can never go back to drug store prints., October 6, 2010

By

John P. Thiel “John T.” (Astoria, Queens, New York City) – See all my reviews

 

 

We (my wife and I) printed up a photo which we already had in a frame because we wanted to send it to someone and were absolutely astounded by the quality difference which came out of this printer versus the professionally produced ones from the photo counter at CVS we had been using before. The photos from this printer are bright and true to the colors, contrast, and brightness of the actual subjects we shot–our pet rabbit of 11 years in this case who died last November. The Canon prints aren’t just slightly better, they are very obviously better.

But just to make sure we weren’t fooling ourselves, we then printed the photo again on the cheapest grade photo paper, and again on plain (multipurpose) paper. There was no notable quality difference in the images coming out of the Canon on these three types of paper, and they all far outshined the prints from the photo counter.

So then we printed again, using the same make and model of photo paper on both the PIXMA MG8120 and our other Canon printer, the MP495 (which costs only about $79 compared to the MG8120 which sells for just under $300). While the image quality in terms of sharpness was better than the MP495 on both the MG8120 (of course) and the Kodak system used at the photo counter of the drug store, the lower price MP495 prints were still brighter and truer to color than the photo counter prints.

OK, so now the question is, is it worth it to buy the MG8120 over the MP495? It depends on what you’re into. If you’re really into photography or even just an avid snapshot photographer, then absolutely you should get the higher priced MG8120 featured on this page; but if you want prints which are still excellent–and I mean ‘excellent’–at an incredible bargain price, then get the MP495. Both are Canon PIXMA printers, and they both blow away getting your photos done at the drug store, or Wal-Mart, or wherever it is you’ve been comparatively wasting your money on professional photo printing until now.

We have since reprinted every single digital photo in the house and they are all shockingly beautiful–like going from analogue TV to 1080p Hi-Definition.

OTHER FEATURES: Of course, the MG8120 also has a lot of features it’s lower price cousin does not such as: a preview and system screen and ports for various kinds of input devices and cords most notably. You don’t need your computer to print with the MP8120.

It’s also multilingual–including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean (which have completely different writing systems of their own), but also a lot of languages you don’t usually find options for on electronics devices like Croatian and Polish.

Add that this printer also has a paper tray included in the bottom, whereas paper has to be fed in the back of the MP495.

BOTTOM LINE: If you’re buying a printer for school, then get the MP495 which will far exceed your needs for an incredibly low price; but if you’re running a small business or you’re some other kind of heavy user of a wireless printer/scanner or you’re really into photography, then you should treat yourself to the MP8120–which is still a remarkable deal for all that it does at the high level of quality it delivers.

Either choice will have you never going to an outside source for your printing needs again.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (4)

 

SB, February 9, 2011

By

Shari L. Brewer “Mtn Goat” (North Cascade Mtns.) – See all my reviews

 

 

I loved the scan features for photos and slides, also the print quality of the ink. However, it appears that 30 copies of black and white word documents eat up the ink. At the cost of close to $100 to replace all the cartriges this printer is not economical at all. I have looked into bulk ink but cannot find the where tos or how tos. If Cannon wants to sell this kind of quality printer then they need to make the ink economical and last thru at least a ream of paper.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (15)

 

Great value — especially when you install an SSD!, April 30, 2011

I’ve had this laptop for nearly three weeks, and think it’s great!

Summary:

Pros:
- Lightweight
- Clean and understated design
- Sturdy: most surfaces are made of metal (only the bezel, hinges, and a few bottom panels are plastic). You can easily lift it up by the corner with one hand.
- Battery life is good (7.5+ hours with mixed usage). Also, no “battery bulge” in the back!
- Battery is removable
- Trackpad has a nicely configurable driver (Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Mouse > Device Settings > Settings…)
- Value; saves enough money for an SSD compared to a competing system like a Macbook Pro (see below)

Cons:
- Screen isn’t great. (It isn’t bad, though — just narrow in vertical viewing angle).
- Black color means you might be tempted to clean the keyboard/trackpad a little obsessively.
- Industrial smell coming from the vent in the first few days of ownership (now gone)
- When closed, the lid depresses a little when you apply pressure to the middle. I suggest keeping the included fabric insert thing to protect the lid from keyboard scratches. (Note that keyboard scratches also occur on other notebooks, including the sturdy Apple Macbooks, so I’m not taking off any points).

Overall:
I’m giving this laptop five stars because it represents a great value. I paid $835 for the system, and replaced the hard drive with an Intel X25-M 120GB SSD ($175). The total cost of my system therefore was $1010, which puts it in entry-level Macbook territory.

(Note that the SSD is very easy to install — you unscrew two panels in the back, swap the drives, and clean-install your operating system).

Why the SSD? With the SSD plus Sandy Bridge processor, performance is superb — startup is fast (15 seconds from button to login screen, plus 8 seconds from login to loaded desktop). Programs launch quickly, and shutdown is quick as well. I’d say the stock system with the hard drive is a bit imbalanced (processor is too fast for the 5400 RPM hard drive) but at least it comes with plenty of room and doesn’t cost much. With this configuration, program launching and startup are slower, and you are stuck with bloatware, but the computer still operates reasonably fast.

–

Comparisons with other systems:

Compared with the Air, the R835 (with SSD installed) gives you:
- more storage space (120GB SSD on my R835 vs. 64GB for the $999 11″ MBA model)
— with SSD, similar bootup times (23 seconds for R835 vs. 15 seconds *see 6/2/2011 edit* for MBA) and wakeup times (both about 2 seconds)
- a better processor (core i5-2410M vs. a core 2 duo) and more memory
- longer battery life + removable battery
- a DVD drive, USB 3.0 port, eSATA, VGA (no need to carry a dongle around)
- 0.9 or 0.3 pounds more weight (vs. the 11″ and 13″ MBA models, respectively).
- about 0.25″ more thickness

Compared with the Macbook Pro (13″ entry-level model), you get:
- $190 in savings (with SSD in the R835) or $365 savings (with stock HDD)
– With SSD swap, you get performance gains compared to the MB. With the default hard drive, you get twice as much storage (640GB vs. 320GB, both 5400 RPM).
- Removable battery
- Similar metal build quality (Macbook pro feels a little sturdier, but weighs 40% more)
- 1.3 pounds in weight savings (!)

Compared with the plastic Macbook (13″ $999 model), you get:
- Metal build quality
- an SSD (for about the same total cost), or $165 in savings + 390GB more hard drive space
- Better processor (two generations ahead) and RAM (4GB vs. 2GB).
- 1.5 pound weight savings (!)

So, I saw no reason to go with the Macbooks when I could get superior performance and save money, weight, and battery flexibility with the R835.

Compared to other PC systems — It’s thinner and slightly less expensive than the Lenovo x220 (but isn’t as rugged and has slightly shorter battery life), and is very much cheaper and has a better processor (but has an inferior screen) than the Sony Z series.

In short, the R835 makes its Apple competitors look seriously overpriced (or under-featured, depending on how you look at it) and costs less than its PC competitors.

–

My evaluation of the unit:

I liked the design — it’s quite sturdy (with its metal construction) and light (3.2 pounds). It doesn’t feel as “dense” as the Macbook Air, but it’s sufficiently sturdy and light enough, such that you can lift it by a corner with one hand. Also, it certainly breaks a threshold in thinness, so it certainly *looks* thin. The CD/DVD drive makes a great “but wait, there’s more” parlor trick!

(The design also appeals to me because it’s pleasantly different from the Macbooks’ design. In my Econ class, it looks stealthy and elegant compared to…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (79)

For the weight and price, I don’t see how you can beat it, April 14, 2011

By 

T. Boehnlein (Dayton, Ohio, USA) – See all my reviews

  

I love this notebook. My last one was a 6.5 pound beast of a Dell that I carried around for four years and got 2 hour battery life if you were lucky. This is such a huge improvement.

PROS:
The battery life is excellent. Only if I am doing really demanding computational tasks do even think about plugging it in to the AC adapter.

The weight is fantastic. A lot of people I’ve showed it to can’t believe how light this notebook is. My bookbag is so much lighter now. Even the AC adapter is way lighter than my Dell’s.

The CPU power is more than sufficient as is the RAM at 4GB.

The trackpad is a good size. I don’t think you could ever make a trackpad too big. It also has multi-touch and gesture support.

I was able to play L4D2 with this machine at medium settings. Much more than I was expecting given the graphics on here.

For the price, this is such a great notebook if you need something that is really light and still has a full blown mobile CPU.

The build quality is really good. Just a little bit of flex under the DVD drive. Everything else feels solid.

It has USB 3.0 and you can charge through USB even it the notebook isn’t on. That’s great for a gadget geek like me.

It also has HDMI, VGA and eSATA. So many ports!

CONS:

They just released the R830 series which offers faster CPU’s and a docking port. If you have the money to spend, look at those instead. The i7 CPU R830 is actually rated at over 11 hours. They also have an SSD options too.

I am going from a 1920×1200 15.4″ on my Dell to this 13.3″ 1366×786. It’s been kind of a shock for some of my programming related apps that require lots of screen real estate but haven’t really noticed the difference for everyday home and office tasks. I am also going from matte to glare so that has lead to a couple new problem with reflections but nothing too bad.

Two finger scroll is not as smooth as I wish it could be but it’s still very usable.

No bluetooth. Again, look at the R830 series.

Maybe this isn’t the perfect notebook for you for whatever reason, but you really need to consider it if you are in the market for a new one.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (2)

Cool laptop with a few minor issues, April 8, 2011

By 

B. Le (San Jose, CA USA) – See all my reviews

  

what initially got me into the portege series was the aesthetic. it has a very simple and clean look. I’m not exactly tech savvy as I don’t keep up with all the latest processors and whatnot, but for all the praise and hype about the new Sandy Bridge processors, this laptop seems decently quick. doesn’t blow me away compared to my several years-old core duo desktop or even my 1-2 year-old, $500 toshiba satellite. overall, I like it a lot because it’s big enough that hopefully it won’t give me carpel tunnel syndrome, but small enough for easy mobility, which is good for a student.

since I’m not doing any hardcore computing and just using it for a few basic functions like browsing, streaming movies, programming, etc, it satisfies me (but then again I think any computer in this day an age could pull those tasks off). unfortunately, even for those basic functions there are a few issues that Toshiba can improve on:

1) the keyboard keys CLACK… really loudly. typing in the library or in class will probably stir up a ruckus. clackity clackity clack. not that big of a deal though, I guess.

2) I don’t know where everyone is getting all these claims about a 9 hour battery life (even cnet said they were able to get something like 7 hours in their tests) when I’m running the laptop in ‘eco’ mode with 77% battery life left and only 4 hours and 11 minutes of claimed life left. a second later, I have 76% batter life left but only 3 hours and 41 minutes left??? I’m only on my battery’s second charge but I’ve been noticing these really sporadic projections and it’s really annoying.

3) the track pad straight up sucks. I’m not a fan of mac at all, but when my girlfriend had her 13.3″ macbook, one of the things I found coolest was how easy it was to surf the net. the 2 finger scroll feature they had was super cool and some other functions included: three finger swipe up to open a new tab, three finger swipe down to close a page, three finger swipe left to go ‘back’ and right for forward, two finger tap to function as a right click [extremely useful]. comparatively, you can’t really set any three finger functions to your own liking, the two finger scroll is really jittery – if it manages to detect your fingers there is no sensitivity and can go insane and jump entire pages at any given moment. overall it’s pretty frustrating to use the multi-finger features.

4) could be a part of gripe #3, but the two clicker buttons for the track pack are stiff. I like to use the tap function because my thumb would probably get sore if I used the clicker too much. yes, it is that stiff.

other than that, it’s really light and powerful enough that I can use it without getting frustrated and just looks awesome which is good enough for me. I would give this laptop 5 stars otherwise and while a 2-star deduction might seem harsh, I feel these basic attributes could have easily been included and are prerequisites to just being a decent laptop. I mean, how expensive could it be to develop and include a good track pad?? overall, laptop seems sturdy and reliable and I’m looking forward to using it

update: an issue with the r705 series was that the fans would get really loud or that the laptop would get hot, but for either case, toshiba has remedied the problem on this model. the laptop stays extremely quiet even after I have been using it for 6 hours with just one break. it does warm up when in my lap on top of a blanket, but on a desk it doesn’t heat up at ALL.

4/25 I’ve had the laptop for two or three weeks now but since it’s my backup/extra I’m really taking care of it and haven’t used it that much yet. Mostly for school and not for browsing/videos pretty much. But one thing I noticed today was a little clacking noise that’s from the chrome hinge, which is loose. I have no idea how it could have gotten loose as I’ve used the laptop probably less than a total of 7 times and it’s only been handled with the utmost care. REALLY annoying because for a $900 laptop, this really shouldn’t be an issue.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (9)

Amazing Gaming Laptop for the Price!, September 3, 2011

First off, I am a HUGE gamer, and finding a decent enough laptop that can handle new games with ease for a price easy on the pocket is definitely difficult.
This, my friends, is probably the best one you could find.
My old laptop I bought 3 years ago and had for 2-and-a-half years was an HP Pavilion dv7 that was one of the higher-end models for about $1100. It worked very well, even with an integrated video card, but after having it replaced 4 times under the warranty, I decided it was time to move on.
I searched high and low, and was originally going to buy the now top of the line dv7 model, but figured I couldn’t afford it.
Then, I found this one, and I just knew it was perfect.

AMD’s A8-3500m may seem like a lower-end quad core processor compared to Intel’s i7, but it by far makes up with it by having a very strong gpu. That by itself is rated to perform as well as a Radeon 5650, which isn’t too shabby. The processor runs very well compared to my old Intel 2.4 dual-core, but if you’ve been on an i7, or even an i5 quad-core, you’ll notice the difference in performance.

Throw in a dedicated 1GB Radeon 6750, and you’re looking at a hefty bit of graphics for games and media. For all those wondering EXACTLY what you can throw at this thing, I can play Witcher 2 on all high settings with all effects turned on at MAX 1600×900 resolution and it runs beautifully. I haven’t tried the ultra settings yet, but I have a feeling that’s where it would start to stutter. Borderlands, Arkham Asylum, New Vegas, Just Cause 2, and Sims 3 all run outstandingly well. EDIT – I RECENTLY PURCHASED ALIENS VS. PREDATORS FROM STEAM, WHICH IS A GAME CAPABLE OF BEING RUN IN DX11. THE GAME RUNS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING IN DX11 MODE WITH MAX RESOLUTION AND SETTINGS, EVEN IN MULTIPLAYER/ONLINE MODE, AND MY INTERNET REALLY SUCKS.

Now for the pros and cons.

PROS: AMAZING graphical performance. Compared to the high-end dv7 model with i7 and Radeon 6770 for $1100, you get more graphics power with the A8.

AMD’s Catalyst control center offers a lot of performance and power-saving options. You can enable/disable Cross-fire (Which utilizes both the graphics power of the processor and the dedicated card) and tweak a lot of the graphics settings, such as anti-aliasing and anisotropic levels. (My boyfriend has an i5 desktop, and his options for performance and power-saving are very limited.)

You can set the range for the clock speed you want your cores to run. You can lower it all the way down to 800mHz, from 1000 to 1300mHz, at 1500mHz all the time, or however you want. The intervals are set from about 100-200mHz and you’re free to play around with it all you want. You can even set separate ranges for when it’s on AC power and when it’s running off the battery. Very handy if you use the battery a lot and aren’t using graphics/processor-intensive programs, or if all you do is intensive stuff. The auto-clock seems to run very well and quite consistently. (My boyfriend’s i5 will jump from 1.5 and stay at 3-4, even if all he’s running is Skype. It seems to bounce all over the place.)

You can set which programs you want to run at high-performance and which you want to run at power-saving levels. It’s very easy to figure out, and I picked up how to change settings fairly quickly. A new user can easily customize their settings.

64-bit Windows 7 runs smoothly and quickly…for the most part (More on that in cons). Startup is fast, and desktop loads even quicker so long as you don’t have any startup programs other than the ones needed.

Beautiful, clear, 17″, 720p, 1600×900 display.

640GB hard drive runs quickly, even at 5400 rpm.

The disk drive is whisper quiet. After two laptops with noisy/vibrating drives, it’s extremely nice.

The built-in webcam works EXTREMELY WELL in low light, and even if there’s no light on at all! Even with the screen dimmed, or on a dark background, it still works terrific.

The speakers sound really nice, but you can’t tell that there’s even a subwoofer on the bottom of this thing. There is definitely some bass to it, but any home speaker system could outdo it. They don’t sound too much different from my old laptop’s speakers, which I thought sounded pretty good, too.

Keyboard takes a bit to get used to, but I really, really like it. It feels very comfortable to type on and the keys are responsive. My only gripe is that the arrow keys are oddly sized, with the left & right being very large and the top & bottom are squished and small. The caps lock key also lights up when active, but the num lock key doesn’t. Not that big of a deal, but I thought it was a little inconsistent.

Multi-gesture touch pad, which is somewhat responsive. EDIT – I ALSO WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT WHILE TYPING, IT’S NIGH IMPOSSIBLE TO SWIPE YOUR HAND OVER THE TOUCHPAD. IT’S VERY NICE FOR…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (45)

 

NICe, August 28, 2011

Took me a long time to search to internet for a good a8-3500 laptop. This was the best one for the value and 100$ off of retail as well. Some things to consider.
1.Energy efficiency 11w idle – 20 average docs,webs, bursts to 60w load i think.
2.High end video card HD 6750M/6620g almost rated class 1 but rated at top of classs 2 [class 1 cards usually 1000$ range higher] and its 1600×900 resolution. Now thats nice combo, while others are lower resolution. This is by FAR best graphics+ resolution + efficient processor.
3. Plays lot modern games on High settings.
4. Amd cata suite says crossfire mode, havnt really messed with it. Laptop has sticker that says as well.
5. Battery lasts long anywhere from 2-9 hours depending on tasks. Games usually tend to drain battery in all laptops.
Cons
1. Vga+hdmi TOO CLOSE together cant run 2 monitors. Just bought for dual monitor with extra usb monitor total of 3.
Had to slice up my vga cord for it to work, since the head is to bulky. Works fine
Using samsung xl 2370 22″+ Acer S273HL bmii 27[hdmi works awesome doesnt screw up resolution]. They dont sell small head vga cables.
2. Annoying HP icon Lid light(bright white) always on when plugged in, cant be turned off or in bios[bios is generic, not much to customize], was hoping to turn off to make it more efficient energy.
Trackpad lights up as well, prety neat.

Other thoughts
Didnt realize this laptop was so BIG. Since its max resolution (1600 x 900).
Its shiny and silvery.
Wanted to buy the MX series clocked at 1.9×4 cores.
Not much BLOATware, easy to remove. Only bloatware is norton. I already gave
up on antivirus programs, havnt caught any virus’s in long time on any of my machines, easy to catch and remove.

EDIT : 12/3/2011 Little side note PC Gaming. Can play Skyrim 1080p on my 27″ monitor and a tv show on my tv only using
60% cpu usage, thats prety crazy I thought coming from laptop. Skyrim works on high quality but you need to tone down antialias/anisotropic Sample rates. Cross fire mode works GREAT. Only game I found enjoyable lately.
My poor intel i7 desktop gaming pc just built, collecting dust lately.

Other note, good to do a little research on AMD dual gpu chipsets, not all laptops are the same, while some have slower ones, while others have faster ones combined. AMD GPU/CPU chipset is awesome and its really energy efficient when its compared to my desktop [200+watts] while laptop at 45 watts at most with gaming.. I feel bad for intels HD Graphic chipset, VERY SUCKY! compared this, intel is best at CPUs while AMD owns BOTH graphic gpus + Cpus NICE COMBO! Intel laptop processors are nice if you’re going to plan on using CPU intensive programs mainly.

Final note
BUY IT FAST its selling quick, I barely got my order in, bad habit of waiting, usually end up being sold out for me. EDIT: That was dumb, they restock this quite a bit…

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comment (1)

 

Smooth Styling, August 24, 2011

Great laptop for the money. The specs are more than enough for the average user. The laptop power settings make it incredibly simple to manage your power correctly for whatever tasks you need to complete. There wasn’t a bunch of junk software loaded on the machine and the beats audio is fantastic, you won’t find better laptop speakers. I’ve just begun to really findout every feature of the laptop and am extremely satisfied with my purchase

My one and only pet peeve about this machine is the awkward battery shape, its great for setting it on a desk or table, but it is a little weird when the laptop’s on your lap

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comment

 

Well rounded features with high build quality, May 26, 2011

By 

T. McKendry (WI, USA) – See all my reviews

  

I’ve broken this review into sections with a number rating out of 10 for each. There’s a pro/con summary at the end.

===============

Keyboard: 9/10

Excellent size, layout and tactile response. The black on black chiclet keys look sharp, modern and are comfortable to type on. Typing is also relatively quiet and unlike a lot of other Asus laptops, there is very little flex. I love the minimalist look and that there are no superfluous media keys. The keys themselves are spacious and the lettering is slightly over-sized. The only thing missing that would make it perfect to me is back lighting.

===============

Touchpad: 7/10

Performance is smooth and accurate for standard navigation & left/right clicking. The pad is spacious and the left/right click rocker bar works as it should. Two finger scrolling works really well, but the other multi-touch functions (zoom in/out, rotate) are buggy and only work half the time when I try. The chrome left/right click bar looks great, but finger print oils show up after awhile so you’ll want to wipe it down regularly.

===============

Display: 7/10

The LED display is bright and colors are vibrant/accurate. However – I was disappointed by the viewing angles when watching video and find that it’s necessary to sit directly in front of the screen to avoid degradation in picture quality. Also, the screen is very reflective, which makes it difficult to use this laptop outdoors or in a position where lights are behind you.

I would have preferred a resolution higher than 1366 x 768, but I was aware of this limitation when making the purchase, so no points lost for that. The Asus ‘Splendid Utility’ that allows you to switch between different color viewing modes (Normal, Theater, Vibrant, Soft, etc) seems useless. Everything but ‘Normal’ mode looks muddy or discolored to me.

All in all I think the display will be fine for most people but it isn’t amazing or something that stands out impressively from the competition.

===============

Audio: 6/10

As with most laptops, the speakers are not very impressive. Audio is tinny and there is very little bass when I listen to music or watch movies. The placement of the speakers in the front of the chassis slanting down doesn’t help matters. If you plan on using this laptop for watching a lot of movies or listening to music, you’ll definitely want some headphones or high quality portables to use.

===============

Speed and Performance: 8/10

This little champ has handled just about everything I’ve thrown at it so far. It streams media from my home server flawlessly, with no lag or stuttering in the video. Online streaming via Netflix, Hulu etc also works great. Windows/Menus/Programs/Media Center are quick to open and everything feels very snappy. Photoshop opens quickly and performs well for 4GB of RAM. I encoded a couple of videos using Handbrake and it performed comparably with my core2quad desktop.

Drive access sometimes slows down in explorer if I’m heavily multitasking, but nothing abnormal or excessive. The product description overview says this has a 7200 rpm drive, but it is actually a 5400 rpm drive as stated in the expanded technical description. I will most likely upgrade to an SSD & 8GB of RAM at some point.

There was a ton of bloatware preinstalled. I was actually concerned at first because the system ran really slow after initially booting up and even froze up a couple of times as I tried to remove some of the crap. However, after rebooting & finally getting everything off, I updated Windows to SP1 and everything ran fine after that.

I wish they included a real recovery disk with options to leave off extra programs instead of storing it in a hidden partition as a bundled package. I’m thinking of just doing a clean install with one of my Windows 7 Professional disks and buying a license key before the 30 day activation is up. Although this laptop runs perfectly 95% of the time, there are odd moments where it hangs on something, and part of me thinks it relates to the buggy behavior I experienced while trying to remove some of the bloat. Perhaps some registry changes were made that is interfering. I don’t know.

===============

Build Quality & Form Factor: 10/10

Despite the compact size and plastic chassis, this laptop feels solid and well made. I love the black colors and brushed faux metal look of the palm rest and cover. The shiny bezel around the LCD panel attracts fingerprints and dust, but it looks very sleek/modern when wiped down. You can’t really see it in the photos, but the plastic around the keyboard has a faint glitter effect that looks cool.

I also love the easy access to the hard drive & memory bays – which is typical with Asus chassis…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (10)

Nice laptop with some juice, May 27, 2011

Just got this laptop 2 days ago thanks to amazon prime shipping.

I needed a small and light laptop with some juice and purchased this laptop.

Pros:
-Sandybridge CPU, very fast and snappy.
-G520M with optimus. I love this technology, as it saves a lot of battery. You can choose what program to use with the discrete or integrated video card. I’ve only tested counter-strike source and I got up to 150fps, ranging around 50-70 average on High settings!
-Keyboard looks very nice and clean and feels good to type on
-Not too heavy, something you can carry around with you.
-Build of the laptop is very good, wish they would put the same material thats on the palm rest to the case. (Oil resistance)
-Battery life is VERY good! So far I get around 8 hours (Surfing, Gaming, Install programs, Movies, Brightness at 30-40%)
-Touchpad is good, but clicker attracts oil!!
-Nice and quiet, no vents on bottom, doesn’t get burning hot.

Cons:
-Speakers are very dull. No clarity at all, nor its loud. I can live with it but would prefer to have headphones on.
-Resolution is at 1366×768, but it looks fine on at 13″ laptop. Viewing angles arent great and can’t really see outdoor.
-Finger print magnet on the cover.
-Webcam could be better.
-No USB 3.0
-Not 7200RPM HDD like advertised
-ASUS BLOATWARE

So far I’m satisfied with my purchase, battery life is good, moderate gaming when needed, sandy bridge, build is nice and its not too heavy. I plan to use this laptop for some business work/ personal entertainment. If you can deal with the cons, this laptop is for you!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comment

Surpassed all of my expectations, July 8, 2011

By 

I. Mazin – See all my reviews

  

Where to start? I bought this laptop for college next year. My budget was limited (hooray minimum wage jobs!) and this seemed like a good deal for the price, so I thought why not?

I had greatly underestimated this laptop.

This review will talk about what other reviews don’t talk about, and that is software. The default install has plenty of bloatware, so I installed a blank install using the product key on the bottom of the laptop. Then it came to install the drivers from the CD Asus supplies you… there were a lot of files. I think in the end I ended up installing nearly all of them.

The Asus-branded software offered is hardly bloatware. Asus Fast Boot is a great feature which lets you install as much crap as you want, and still have the computer start up fairly quickly. The Bluetooth drivers are the best I’ve seen in any device, period. You can use your computer as a headset for your phone, you can use bluetooth headsets/phones with the computer, you can browse your phone via bluetooth in Windows Explorer (and not in some crappy manufacturer software). It made bluetooth functionality about 50x more useful to me. Scene Switch is great for people who want to use this for both work/school and home. Asus Splendid lets you correct the colors for the display.

So is the display really as bad as people say? Personally I think it’s blown out of proportion. The reviewer which gave the screen a 7/10 is fair: the viewing angles aren’t the best, though the color reproduction is pretty good. In “Soft Mode” with Asus Splendid, the display’s colors look just as good as my desktop’s Samsung monitor. I like glossy screens so no complaint about that.

The build quality of the entire package in general is phenomenal, and the keyboard is pure bliss. No backlight though. Oh well.

Performance? Amazing. Even in “battery saving” mode, you have more than enough power to do anything you want, watch 1080p content, etc. Funny story: I ran the laptop on integrated graphics only (I messed up the driver install) and I couldn’t tell until I tried opening nvidia control panel, and no such thing existed. As far as gaming, the most intensive game I play is Team Fortress 2. The integrated graphics run it at medium/low, and the dedicated card runs it at absolute max at 20-30fps, and if you turn filtering down to 2x or 4x, you get 30-60 fps. I have AA and AF both at 2x and I don’t experience slowdowns.

Speakers are a disappointment. My eee pc (900HA) has better speakers.

So, to upgrade this laptop, I’ll also be buying an SD card (for ReadyBoost) and an extra 4GB of RAM. The plan is to be able to run AutoCAD, and also the Adobe Creative Suite. And seeing how it’s performed so far, I don’t think I’ll have an issue with it.

I’m probably going to made a video of this computer for youtube over the weekend, so look forward to that?

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comment (1)

elegant yet powerful, November 21, 2011

If you’re a gamer and you refuse to drop a bundle of money on overrated Alienware rigs, this is what you should aim for. The power on this machine is simply phenomenal! With the hardware it currently possesses, it’s enough to run any game on the market at the highest level of detail.

Pros: Lightning fast, lightweight for a gaming laptop, more bang for buck, runs cool and stays silent, beautifully designed, includes nice bag and gaming laser mouse with purchase.

Cons: Touchpad is a little sketchy (I’m sure if you’re gaming, you’ll either used the included gaming laser mouse or use your own), shell can scratch very easily.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (4)

This system is Fricken awwwwwwsome, December 2, 2011

The good:
12 gb of ram
bluray drive
17.3″ screen that looks bigger
intel second gen i7
usb 3.0

The bad:
it comes with the nvidia 560gtx instead of the 570 or the newer 580
its no light weight. you don’t want to carry this around all day.

if you are like me and go to lan partys then you will enjoy not having to drag around a case, monitor, keyboard, etc….
i put in 16 gb of ram and it was easy there is one big cover on the bottom with a screw that gives you access to the ram and hd’s.
the next thing i will do when i can afford it is put in a ssd drive
my windows 7 experience index on this system is
Processor: 7.5
Memory: 7.9
Graphics: 7.2
Gaming graphics: 7.2
Hard Drive: 5.9

what sort of disappoints me about the numbers is i have a older laptop with a 460gtx that gets the same numbers (graphics).
so must be a setting or something slowing it up.
the hard drive speed will get better when i put in a ssd or if i can figure out if i can raid 0 the drives.

when i got this system it was between the MSI that has the gtx570 and this one.
i heard the MSI has a better warranty but don’t matter if you can’t get a hold of them, and that has been my experience with MSI.
i had bought 2 motherboards in the past for systems and needed tech support for both. one had to flash the bios because the with out it the board would not recognize the cpu. the second contact was a bad mobo. both times could not get a response from MSI.

the one thing i cant understand why laptop makers still do it is put in vga connectors i would much rather have 2 hdmi ports on the system.

but over all i am pleased with this system and would recommend it to anyone, with or with out the changes.

Overall Summery:
Great system
Some areas of improvement
Not meant to be carried around much.

Who should get this system?
Gamer’s

it runs
battlefield 3 great
crysis no problem
skyrim with ease
cod wm3 great
wow lol ya i play it runs great

this does out perform some of my friends gaming desktops

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (6)

Awesome Laptop for the Price, November 25, 2011

I don’t know how I could have gotten a better laptop even if I had spent more money.

Graphics: Awesome
Screen/Video: Awesome
Keyboard: Excellent (takes some getting used to)
Fan Exhaust: Excellent (blows out the back not down)
Mouse: Excellent
Startup: Excellent

I am extremely pleased this computer. The screen is huge and the processing power is perfect. I play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with maximized graphics. I’m unsure of the FPS because I’ve never felt the need to check. It plays so smooth. I do restart the computer after about 6 hours of playing. I did have one issue with the cursor twitching but the restart fixed it.

Startup is very fast. Windows 7 takes about 30 seconds from hitting the power button to having all startup programs finished.

Keyboard is excellent. The keys need to be pushed slightly harder than I’m used to but that may be due to my hand position. The mouse that comes with it is responsive and I have no complaints. I really like the fan exhaust design. The heat blows out the back of the laptop not the bottom. The styling is cool and I also like the rubberized finish. As stated in other reviews, it does not smudge easily like glossy laptops. Although it does smudge but I haven’t tried to clean it yet, I’m sure a damp towel will take care of it.

I travel with it a lot and the backpack that came with it is great. It is a brick to carry around if you worry about that sort of thing.

The touch pad was very sensitive but I just turned it off when a mouse is plugged in. I have not tried the Wifi yet. I haven’t tried the BlueRay player yet.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comment (1)

Excellent sound and vibrant picture!, August 9, 2011

We wanted to upgrade our old DVD home theater system and were looking for something with great sound. The Sony BDV-E780 certainly delivers – we noticed an immediate improvement in the quality of audio from our old Samsung system upon inserting our first CD into the system. We were blown away by the entire experience as we watched our first Blu Ray. The picture and sound were movie theater quality. Really an amazing buy.

Appearance-wise, the system looks very nice. The main unit is a nice glossy black with sensory buttons. The onscreen display in minimal and looks nice. Most of the detailed options are displayed on your tv screen.

Initial set-up was easy enough with color coded cables and a walk through upon turning on the system. There is even a self calibrating microphone, which helps the speakers calibrate to meet your needs based upon where you typically sit to watch movies. The manual is quite long, however, so I imagine advanced customizing of the system to your preferences can be a little more complicated.

The wireless surround sound is a great addition. You should know that it is not truly “wireless” in that there are wires that run from the rear speakers to an amplifier. That amplifier can sit anywhere behind your couch and connects wirelessly with the main unit. In other words, it is only wireless in that you do not need to run wires from the front to the back of the room.

This is a great purchase and one I am sure we will enjoy for many years.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (13)

 

Great mid-range home theatre, slightly flawed, September 23, 2011

By

Laird A. Popkin – See all my reviews

 

 

I’ve had this unit for a few weeks – pretty much had to buy some surround system to watch Star Wars on Blu Ray, and I picked this one. There’s a lot that I really like about this setup, and a lot that was pretty irritating about it, though I’m hopeful that with a little working around problems, it’ll work out great.

Things I love about it:
- Very easy to set up. Everything connected the obvious way, so I had it set up in 15 minutes, without bothering to read the manual.
- The included sound check (with microphone) is great – it made it painless to get levels adjusted. All it takes is connecting the microphone, picking the menu item, and listening while it makes each speaker hiss in turn for a few minutes. Much easier than using a manual meter, playing a test CD/DVD, and crawling around configuration menus.
- UI is well designed, easy to use, and looks good.
- The DVD player is physically quite nice looking.
- The apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) work well, and cover all of the major services that I use.
- And it sounds great.
- And it works fine with my LG TV, including 3D.

Things I don’t love about it:
- The firmware update crashes if you update before using the Blu Ray player to actually play a Blu Ray disk. Note that when you turn the unit on, it prompts you to update the firmware. And best of all, when it crashes it does so on a screen telling you that it’s downloading the update and warning you never to turn off the power while updating. Of course, the only way to recover is to ignore the warning and unplug the player, then ignore the prompt to update and play a Blu Ray disk, _then_ update the firmware. Then it’s fine. But having Sony screw up something so fundamental, so completely, doesn’t give me any confidence in the rest of their engineering. And the fact that they have had this problem for a long time without fixing it, or even putting a warning sticker on the unit, tells me that they would rather sell you something that you can’t use than risk losing a sale by warning you, or spending the money to fix it. But once you get the firmware updated, the unit is fine.
- The remote sucks. It has too many buttons, and is symmetrical with tiny labels, so I’m constantly hitting the wrong button. I’ve got to get a replacement remote.
- The DLNA media player is very picky about media formats, so (for example) it won’t play MKV files that I’ve ripped DVDs onto. My LG Blu Ray player (which was otherwise pretty boring) played a much wider range of media formats. So now I’ve got to get a better media server, to accommodate Sony’s limitations. Or get a media streamer.
- There’s no list of apps in the manual, on Sony’s site, etc. And you get whatever Sony gives you. On this front, I like the Roku much better – it has tons of apps, I can configure it to get what I want, etc. So despite being slightly redundant, I use the Roku plugged into the Sony.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comment (1)

 

Quality System for a few months, then developed a mind of it’s own !, September 9, 2011

By

Andrew I. Munro Sr. (Park City, Utah, United States) – See all my reviews

 

 

Having recently moved, my old 2.1 system was no longer sufficient and running wires was a total ‘no no’ !!
This system seemed to have the best reviews and actually had the wireless rear speaker device included, unlike some other systems that trick you into buying and then you find you have to fork out another $100 for the wireless transmitter !
Set up was easy and immediately it recognized the wireless speakers without any issue at all.
I was familiar with the interface as my old BluRay player uses basically the same. Netflix and all the app’s work great. I have a wired Ethernet system throughout my house so cannot comment on streaming speeds via a wireless connection.
My only negative would be that the speakers are SO light, that they are easily knocked over by my kitty kats and when cleaning. Also because they don’t feel substantial, one thinks they would sound crappy, but actually I have no complaints about sound at all. Not a crackle from the wireless speakers, you’d think they were hard wired.
It has 2 HDMI inputs, if you want more you could always attach an HDMI hub.
For the money, I don’t think you can go wrong.
Nice to see Sony producing quality gear again !!

12/26/2011 : Well I am eating my words from this earlier review. Over the past few days this unit has developed a mind of it’s own ! While you are sitting watching the TV through an HDMI input, it will randomly switch from the HDMI 1 input to the HDMI 2 ….or the disc tray will open occasionally, for no apparent reason. I replaced all the HDMI cables, the same thing happens.
Thankfully Amazon (as usual) are being great and have a replacement already en-route. Let’s hope it has a longer life than this one….stay tuned for updates and again a BIG thank you to Amazon.

1/12/2012 : Received replacement and this one does not switch between HDMI inputs on it’s own, BUT it goes through phases of the Disc tray opening and closing continually for no reason, when you’re not even watching a DVD/BluRay. I have read this is a known issue. Plus the volume will turn itself down or up to the max, again, all on it’s own. Whatever happened to Sony meaning quality and reliability ?
I am going to try one more replacement as there is nothing really similar out there with the same features. Of course it’s back ordered until February (maybe because Sony are fixing the issues). I will update you in a few weeks.

1/17/2-12 : Well I think this is a lesson for everyone and should be in the description of the unit on Amazon in BIG bold letters, credit to jbhop, another purchaser, who posted that he had the same issue, caused by interference coming from his Plasma TV and to move the unit at least 3 feet away from the TV. Sure enough, so far, so good and I sincerely thank jbhop for his help.
This only seems to be an problem with Plasma, so if you have LCD/LED you should be fine.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

Comments (3)