Tagged - review

ATI EyeFinity Review – Different Monitors Sizes and Resolutions

Monday, May 24th, 2010

I picked up another monitor for productivity reasons – but I already had a 1680X1050 (22″) & 1920X1200 (24″) screen. I’ve picked up different monitors over the years and never bought them as sets. The 3rd monitor is e-IPS 1920×1080 (23″) – because I knew I wanted to start moving to IPS technology. The other 2 are obviously TN panels.

While doing all this, EyeFinity was not the priority. The priority was more screen space to work with. However, since I had the whole setup basically, why not mess with EyeFinity?

I had to set all of them at 1680X1050 since that’s the lowest resolution out of the bunch. That gives me 5040X1050 – which looks horrible out of games. I was pretty much expecting everything to be horrible since like I said, all 3 are different monitors, and the LG screen has these horridly big bezels. So, by far not the best setup for something like EyeFinity.

After getting in game however, everything looks good. I’m shocked. The bezels don’t bother me -  I’m shocked. I was able to get the other 2 to line up with my 24″  – I’m shocked. My games are more immersive and I’m enjoying myself a lot – yet again pure shock.

So what does all this tell me? You don’t have to have the perfect setup to get EyeFinity enjoyable or working right. I’ve looked and I’ve looked – but I have yet to find anyone running EyeFinity with different monitors and resolutions like me. I am thinking about switching the 22″ and 24″ screen out for 2 more 23″ IPS Dell panels, but that is far into the future. At that point, I’ll have something to compare against and see if it’s really that much better than my current setup.

Lots and lots of people think EyeFinity is just a gimmick – well I really have to disagree there. After going EyeFinity – I don’t want to go back. I don’t think you can say anything until you’ve experienced it first hand for more than a few days. As you can see, I was very skeptical of the technology and thought it would completely suck. I was wrong.

Sure, it’s a somewhat costly setup, but if you need the monitors for productivity anyway, you can’t go wrong. Let me tell you, 2 monitors is 100x better than 1 and 3 seems like the sweet spot for me.  Sure, spaces are cool, but if you need to see a bunch of things at once you can’t do that with spaces. (also remember that one panel must be DisplayPort or you need an active display port adapter for the 3rd monitor)

Conclusion

After having this setup for awhile – I can safely say that EyeFinity is awesome. Game play is just so much more immersive – and fun. It’s really really hard to form an opinion without experiencing it first hand which is going to be a drawback for this technology to spread. Also, yes I know that Matrox has had this technology for quite awhile – but you have to buy a $300 device on top of the $300 video card which makes it even less accessible to the mainstream audience. So ATI has done something magical – introducing videocards capable of driving 3 displays (FINALLY) and combining 3 monitors into 1 display – all wrapped into a highly powerful graphics card. I won’t be switching to nVidia unless they implement similar technology.

Picture taken before all monitors were lined up correctly..

Knoll Life Chair Review

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

I’ve only been sitting on this thing for 5 or 6 hours, but so far I notice it’s about 9000x more comfortable than my old chair. Comfort may not actually be the “right” word for the chair. It’s more like I can sit in it and not have my back screaming in agony. I work from home so I spend many many hours in my computer chair. For the first time in a long time, I’m not hunched over looking at my computer screen. I’m actually sitting upright. That’s what these ergonomic chairs are made for, to make you feel comfortable with good posture, and not hunch over everything and feel like crap.

I really have NO idea why I didn’t get an ergonomic chair earlier. I’ve been on the computer for extended periods of time since I was about 10 years old. Always using crappy wal-mart chairs, that were NOT designed for what I was doing. Even when I did have money, all of it went to processors, video cards, speakers, monitors, and nothing went to my chair. The chair remained a POS from wal-mart at all times.

Now that I’m 19, I’m starting to feel some back issues develop. Those 9 years on wal-mart chairs for countless hours are starting to take hold. However, I think with this chair those problems may go away completely. (Only very slight pain from leaning over all the time has developed)

Anyway, the best way to describe the feeling of sitting on the Knoll Life Chair is “good”. Mine has adjustable arms that go up and down and side to side, which I would recommend. I think these are “High Performance” arms. Adjusting the height of the arms along with forward/backward and side to side really comes in handy depending on how you’re sitting or want to sit in the chair.

The seat moves forward slightly depending on how you sit on it, and you can slide it forward or backward as much as needed. You can of course lean back in the chair as well, and adjust the tension.

Overall, I have to say I’m super happy with this chair, it’s the first time I’ve felt comfortable sitting at my desk in years (No joke.) Even though I did not pay retail for this chair and bought it at an eBay auction, I think it’s actually worth the retail price of $808.

I was actually very scared of ordering a chair online without trying it out in person, and the only reason I got the knoll life chair was because of the auction and I didn’t want to pay more than $400 for my chair. Unfortunately, there really aren’t any shops nearby that sell “performance” task chairs. I was going to get the steelcase leap, but so far I’m glad I didn’t. This chair seems perfect for me. I really like the breathable back, and steelcase doesn’t have that.

Conclusion

Finally, a chair I WANT to sit on.

Update

6/16/10 – After sitting on this chair for a few months, I can form a more full opinion. My opinion hasn’t really changed – it’s still the best chair I’ve ever sat in. :) My back has not hurt since getting this chair. It makes the couch seem uncomfortable due to less ergonomic support :) Has also shown no noticeable wear, usually by now a $100 chair would have plenty of wear.

Definitely worth every penny.

Oral-B Triumph 9900 Review

Friday, December 4th, 2009

This toothbrush is priced around $100+ or so. You might think that’s a bit expensive for a toothbrush :) However, if you really want to keep your teeth clean this one will do it. I picked it up only because I’m sort of worried about my teeth in the long run, I have a sensitive tooth and a cavity that has been filled already. (Note that I use sensodyne toothpaste at all times) Of course, I have no insurance to go to the dentist as much as I want (nor can I really go to the doctor) I will probably be picking up some “minimal” insurance that will cover catastrophic problems soon.

So anyway, I think the investment is worth it if you have a reason for it. On with the review…

Compared to a “cheap electric” is there really a difference? You bet! The thing spins like crazy and you can feel the plaque being removed, the smart guide shows me which area of my teeth I should be working on, and how long I should brush my teeth. I have a feeling I was never brushing my teeth for 2 minutes before :(

After brushing I can definitely “feel” a difference. There’s no plaque anymore, it just tears it right off. That’s a HUGE thing right there. My cheap electric never did that nor did any manual toothbrushes I ever used.

If you’re thinking about whitening more than overall teeth health (Which I’m more worried about the health of my teeth rather than whitening) it does help to whiten your teeth. I had lots of stains from coffee/cigarettes and it does seem to help remove that stuff fairly easily. I struggled with it with my old electric and the stuff wouldn’t come off, however with this one it started to come off almost immediately. A lot of it was just tar that was stuck there so it probably just needed something powerful enough to take it off.

So, overall was it worth the investment? Yea, I really think it was. I mean I spend crazy amounts sometimes on computers and other “junk” that I really don’t need, it’s just a good thing to spend a little cash on personal hygiene sometimes :)

Logitech G9 Mouse Review

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

First of all, the scroll wheel on my Razer Diamondback gave out on me. I mean, the mouse still worked but the scroll wheel was completely messed up. It wouldn’t scroll at a certain point in the wheel. I thought about just buying another Diamondback since I enjoyed it so much, but I decided to try something different.

Up until this point, I thought the Razer Diamondback was the greatest mouse in the world. Today, that vision has been shattered.  Today I received my Logitech G9 laser mouse. When I first plugged it in, I wasn’t very impressed with the feel of the mouse. Never fear! The G9 comes with 2 grips! I just popped in the slimmer grip and instantly loved the feel.

New problem, I felt it was too light. What do we do about that? Well we just pop in a few weights of course! That’s right, the G9 allows you to customize the weight of the mouse to your liking. At first, I popped in 4 4G weights, but I thought that was a bit heavy. I removed 2 4G weights and it seemed like that was the sweet spot for me.

Gah, the LED light is red. I don’t want it to be red, I’d rather it be blue. Wait, the G9 allows you to customize the LED color! All I had to do was open up the Logitech SetPoint software and set the LED to be blue. Wallah.

Yet another problem! I didn’t like how slow the cursor moved across the screen. Yet again, the G9 has a solution for me. I can set the DPI on the fly, I found I liked the DPI just below 3200DPI. Of course, for gaming it will be a bit different and I can just set it to my liking in game.

Click click click click.. Bah, wouldn’t it be cool if you could just spin the wheel once for long page documents? Wow, the G9 thought of that too. You can switch to free spin mode by pressing a button under the mouse.

Some other features include horizontal scrolling via the scroll wheel and of course the back/forward buttons on the side of the mouse.

At this point, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself, or rather the mouse. It’s customized to the point where it’s everything I want, and more. You can customize further, like adding in macros and adjusting how much the scroll wheel scrolls, and plenty more. It’s all there in the SetPoint software.

There’s one thing that stops this from being a perfect mouse, and that is the fact it doesn’t have SmartShift. I would love if the scroll wheel automatically went from the regular click click mode to free spinning mode by itself. Unfortunately, only the MX-Revolution has this feature.

Still, I am very happy with my purchase, and if you’re in the market for a great mouse you should definitely check out the G9. You can buy it here: Logitech G9 Laser Mouse