Asus UL30A-X5 Black Friday Deals!. Product: Asus UL30A-X5 List Price: $729.00 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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Just received my Asus UL30A-X5 yesterday. After grand review, and a try-out with an Acer 1410, I decided that I wanted a full-sized chiclet/island keyboard and the larger conceal. I'm already quite cheerful with my decision. At the < $700 impress point, this is an suited notebook.

Pros

- Keyboard. A pleasure to type on.

- Touchpad. It drags at first, but once you gather some finger oil on it, and change the pointer hasten, it's one of the best that I've traditional. Very mild two finger scroller. Succor for customized two and three finger click.

- Mask. Brilliant and easy to read at 30 degree angles.

- Battery life. Yes, it will do over 10 hours.

- Weight/size. 1 lumber thin and very light.

- Body. Appreciate the brushed sad metal inspect on the case.

- Asus facial recognition login. Didn't mediate that I would care, but it's nice to have the computer log in, without touch, when I'm sitting in front of it.

- Asus FastBoot (not the BIOS snappy boot) . This lets you configure which programs load during startup and which load after. Speeds up the boot quite a bit.

- Decent speakers. Not ear-destroying, but top-notch for the size. Remarkable better than most netbooks.

Cons

- Placement of touchpad. It collected registers my palm as I'm typing even at the coarse setting. Downloaded the unique touchpad driver, but that didn't fix. Peaceful looking for a solution. This is by far the most frustrating spot. UPDATE: The TouchFreeze utility seems to almost fix the state.

- Case mild shows fingerprints.

- Web cam is outrageous res and has exertion in obscene light (haven't tried different drivers yet) .

I recently purchased the Asus UL30A-X5 through Amazon and am very glad with my decision. Let me first commence by briefly explaining what I was looking for in a fresh laptop, as I hold that will give the reader better information when deciding if this laptop is moral for them. I am currently a student on a budget and was looking for the following: 1) Less than $700 in mark, 2) Shroud size between 13-14", 3) Windows 7 already installed (I didn't want an older computer with Vista that I would have to manually upgrade to Procure 7 myself), 4) At least 320GB HD, 3 GB DDR3 RAM, and a Pentium Core 2 Duo SU7300 equivalent or greater processor, 5) Thin and light, and 6) 4+ solid hours of battery life. Although a netbook offers a minute size and easy portability, I didn't want to sacrifice power and performance for everyday tasks. On the other hand, I also didn't want a stout "desktop replacement" laptop that would be a hassle to carry around or difficult to hold with me anytime I was away from home. In summary, I wanted a laptop that offered a ample combination of power, performance, and size for my money. With that being said, here is my impression thus far after 2 days of using this computer:

Pros:

-Performance: Able to smoothly and efficiently handle everything I have wanted to do to this point. It is even faster than my 3 year conventional 15.6" Dell Inspiron that I originally paid $1300 for at the time.

-Size and Weight: Couldn't be happier with the sleek leer and light weight. It looks even better in person than in the pictures.

-Quality: Some people may assume you are sacrificing quality for a laptop with these specs for under $700. I assume this computer is built very well, and would argue it stands up to the grand more expensive or name-brand models in the same class.

-Warranty: The accidental protection warranty offers an extra fraction of mind, which is also something not often included without an additional cost in other laptops.

-Keyboard: Very easy to spend, titanic produce!

-Mousepad: I cherish the textured touchpad on this model. It is difficult to peek in the pictures, but the touchpad is actually not a old "pad", but a bunch of slight dots that track the movement of your finger. Also, I really like the extra features such as being able to scroll up or down a page by using two fingers anywhere on the pad.

Cons:

-The only thing that I am not too wrathful about is the itsy-bitsy (or "smaller" when compared to my larger laptop) mouse buttons below the touchpad. This might be something that fair takes a diminutive getting primitive to, but it is more difficult to click the buttons than on my older laptop. Again, this is my first 13.3" laptop so it probably unbiased comes with the nature of a smaller laptop and I will derive feeble to it with time, but it's honest something I wanted to point out if you are transitioning from a substantial laptop to a smaller one.

Overall, I couldn't be happier with my bewitch. Certain, there are better laptops on the market as some will argue, but only if you are willing to use $1000+. This computer definitely earns "5 stars" and I judge anyone who is looking for an affordable, ultra-portable laptop with much performance will be very blissful as well.

I really esteem this computer despite the facts that it has some issues. I really like the attain, it's very thin, less than 1 dash, but by no means is thinner than the macbook air. The casing is very sexy, it looks very nice from all angles. The keyboard is unbelievable, the only quandary is that it has a shrimp flex but its not the kill of the world I can type aesthetic well. The most annoying thing might be the touchpad, whenever you type and you have your hands positioned conclude to it, the touchpad might register some click while you type. A lot of people are talking about the battery life of this computer that it won't even arrive 10 hours, I can confirm I bag 11+ hours on this lappie, Windows 7 is great more energy efficient than Vista (note: I tested under wireless off, lowest conceal brightness, power saving mode, word 2007) . I really indulge in the mark point its less than $700, which is the perfect trace for the performance.

PROS:

- Stylish, very sexy looking.

- Keyboard feels improbable.

- Multi-touch track pad works well

- Hasty compared to a netbook (C2D, 4GB DDR3)

- Battery life 11+ hours

- Colorful Logon, very nice chilly feature

- Tremendous hard drive 500GB

- LED shroud has nice viewing angles

- Very light and portable

- The charger is very minute and portable too.

- Loud quality speakers from itsy-bitsy size

- Warranty, 1 Year of accidental Damage

- Note its a deal!

CONS:

- Fingerprint magnet (inside and outside)

- Loud Hard drive (a small annoying)

- Tiny flex on the keyboard

- ASUS bloatware

- Intel GMA4500MHD, where's the UL30A-VT? can't do gaming

- It doesn't cook, do laundry, or cleans my room.

This computer is perfect for students, and travelers. Recommended

Henckels 35666-000 Black Friday Sales!. Product: Henckels 35666-000 List Price: $530.00 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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Got my Pro "S" 7pc. plot for Christmas and haven't looked benefit. In the course of researching the 4- and 5-star and Pro "S" knives, I was informed that the only incompatibility is the handle material. The Pro "S" is the same as the 4-star with a more durable material for the handle. At an additional $20 cost for the whole situation, it seemed worth it.

Anyhow, these knives gain short, EASY work of anything. I esteem the paring knife...cloves of garlic submit from a mile away, slicing cramped things is like cutting through a cloud.

The chef's knife is fabulous. I was a shrimp miffed when I read that the 4-star spot had the Santoku, but I'm not terrribly petrified. For chopping "billowy" stuff like cilantro bunches, etc., the pronounced "rocking" action of the chef's knife is clearly preferable to me.

The boning knife does it's job well and I rob it for butterflying steaks, chops, cutlets, etc.

The utility knife does a radiant job on tomatoes, bagels, etc.

The scissors I haven't conventional great yet...not clear what to spend it for besides snipping the string off of butcher packages. They are silky calm to exhaust, though.

All in all, I am very gay I have this place. My sisters have the $60-ish Delicate Edge Henckels International station which is poor...they HAVE been using it on a GLASS cutting board (!) but really they ought to effect better than the pulling and ripping I had to do last night with some red peppers.

These knives are FAR AND AWAY in a different league than those and I couldn't be happier. Got my Polypropylene cutting board and I am off to the races.

I'm not an expert in the kitchen, but I wanted a pleasant position of knives. I debated between this and the 9 portion status. The 9 pc. spot adds an 8" bread knife and a 6" utility knife to this station, for more [$$$]. I opted instead for this position, and purchased a bread knife (actually the 9" French bread knife) . Instead of the utility knife, I bought a carving fork through launch stock to complement the carving knife. Total cost was about the same as the 9 pc. region.

Do a miniature searching on the Internet; you will regain plenty of tutorials on how to hone your knives, how to sharpen them, and how to utilize them correctly. I had never really mature friendly knives before, and now I actually witness like I know what I'm doing. These knives wipe dapper easily; don't end your investment by putting them in the dishwasher.

Incidentally, I understanding I would never expend the utility scissors, and I win myself using them all the time.

I bought the 4-Star place, and instantly returned it and got the Pro-S instead. I was dissapointed with the handles of the 4-Star, the plastic (IMHO) diminished the aesthetics and the "feel" of the knives. I learned that the 4-Star's "burly rat tail tang" is very different than a right "paunchy tang" found in the Pro-S. The rat tail tang reduced the weight and the sense of handling that I eventually ended up getting from the Pro-S series handle style (fat tang, riveted, and heavier) . I like seeing the tang!

The blades in both of course are helpful - but if you like a heavier handle and if you like to "gape" the fat tang (the rat tail tang is embedded/invisible in the plastic handle of the 4-star) go for the Pro-S.

Best to actually believe and compare both styles before you order. I have a friend who loves the lighter plastic handle, so I guess its a matter of personal preference.

PS - the Pro-S was only $20 more (I got it on sale, but even when not on sale they are comparable) . I DID like getting the Santoku with the 4-star (but it was the tiny 5 travel one rather than the 7 walk) . The Pro-S does not arrive with the Santoku, so I will have to lift one............

Clarion CX609 Black Friday Sales!. Product: Clarion CX609 List Price: $399.99 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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I purchased the CX609 for my 2008 Nissan Frontier. Having high demolish audio systems in my past two cars, I initially was going to impartial leave my truck stock, but then I got a unusual phone (Samsung Omnia) on which I can store 16 gigs of music, and the Bluetooth audio bug bit me hard. I picked this stereo because it does everything I want it to do (I will discuss the functions in detail later) and it's Double Din, so it fits perfectly in my flow. In fact, its worth noting that I didn't need an install clean kit to fit this into my sail. Despite Crutchfield telling me I'd need a $20 Metra kit, I found that all I needed to do to install the chassis was to unscrew the 2 brackets from my stock HU and screw them onto the Clarion. Clarion's install instructions clearly justify how to do this for Nissan and Toyota vehicles, although I did not employ the thin spacers that the instructions said to consume. Didn't need them as the stock and fresh HU chassis were both exactly the same width (I occupy Clarion makes the stock HU) .

The main reason I bought this unit was for the Bluetooth abilities, and because in addition to hands free functionality, it also supports A2DP Bluetooth audio streaming, so I can play music from my phone factual through the stereo with no wires. I am really impressed with this technology. I did some testing with a CD burned from MP3s, and with the fresh MP3s streamed via BT. I honestly can't hear the contrast. When connected, the HU controls the phone by changing tracks, pausing, playing, stopping, and it also can FF/RW through tracks, which is something my BT headphones can't do.

The CX609 works well as a hands free unit as well. When a call comes in the HU pauses the music and rings through the speakers. I ran the microphone up through the A pillar and headliner and popped it out next to the device light/sunglass holder. This is about where a stock MIC is found on a Frontier with factory BT, and it works fabulous. Everyone who I've spoken to says they can hear me better on the HU than on my phone. The MIC pick up can be adjusted easily from 1-5, but I found the stock level of 3 too soft, and my preferred level of 4 is objective a bit too sensitive. I fair need to snort at a normal conversation levels rather than "yelling" into the BT which is what I often tend to do. Once connected, the stereo is ready to seize calls in any mode. To commence calls you are supposed to be able to browse your phonebook on the stereo (I haven't loaded mine yet, and might not bother), or you can enter numbers directly, or of course employ the phone, which is how I do it.

However, all is not perfect. My major gripe with the HU is also Bluetooth related. The HU can be dwelling to auto connect to the phone, or do it manually. Autoconnect works broad, and if you want to listen to the phone moral away, it handles everything for you. The jam is that if you are listening to any other source, it goes to Bluetooth mode every time you turn it on as soon as the phone connects, and you need to switch befriend to your passe source. If you shut auto connect off, it stays on the previous source, but to connect you need to switch to BT and go through a menu to rob the phone as there is a disconnect button, but no connect button. If you don't connect it, you don't win hands free capabilities if you gain a call, so its kind of a no-win. For now I impartial let it connect (which it does VERY swiftly) and then switch to another source if I don't want to listen to the phone.

The attatched USB cord is very cold and allows you to connect your ipod up without an adapter (haven't tried it), or creep in your thumb drives and stream music off of them. I plugged a Kingston 4gb micro SDHC chip into a thumbdrive adapter, loaded up some albums, and plugged it into the cord (which I snaked into my glovebox), and it works grand. The read hasten is almost instantaneous, and it navigates folders easily. Very frosty.

The stereo works shapely, although as the less than stellar FM sensitivity specs would suggest, it doesn't steal up stations quite as well as the stock stereo, but out on the road its pretty. In my basement garage I was able to capture up all the stations I would query, although 1 came in scratchy until I pulled outside. It does not have RDS or HD radio, which would have been nice, but you can program region titles which in a blueprint is better because you don't demolish up with your stations named incorrectly the diagram many RDS receivers do it.

CDs play beautiful. I haven't tried an MP3 disc yet since I have the phone and USB port, but it does read track titles off my CDA discs... wintry.

Overall sound quality is salubrious. I collected have stock speakers so I can't say for certain how well-behaved. The preset sound schemes didn't please me, but the custom function works well. You can place your extreme, mid, and high levels, and for each you can engage the frequency center and Q ratio (I possess this means how wide your adjustment is) . I occupy lows can be space at 50, 100, or 200. mids at 500, 1000, or 2000, and highs at 5000, 10000, or 15000. Q settings are .7, 1, 1.4, or 2 for each. I grasp smaller Qs. While it's nowhere come as nice as the 12 band EQ I had in my last vehicle, it does work resplendent well. It also has a Bass Expander and BBE processing - but only for CDs and MP3s. I wish you could utilize BBE on everything.

The point to is ok but not as high demolish as it could be. The color on murky hide looks noble in some of the colors, but not all. My interior lighting is amber but the amber looks poor on the reveal, so I region it to Red which I derive is easier to read. Ford owners with green illumination would like the green, and blue looks cold but it doesn't match my car. You can customize your color (R0-8, G0-8, B0-8), but most colors are pre programmed. My HU is mounted legal at 30 degrees, so I need to crank the disagreement to be able to read it at that angle... but it works.

The remote that comes with it does enough, although it wont navigate menus which might be more useful than anything. Warning... when installing beget positive you pace the MIC into the factual port. It also fits in the remote port which is the same size. I made that mistake and only figured out the predicament after the MIC and IR remote both didn't work. This suggests to me that the IR remote may not function if you hook up a steering wheel adapter... although I can't be positive.

Overall, for $230 + $25 in harness and antenna adapters, this radio is an affordable unit that really does the trick, especially if you want to acquire a stock leer. You can salvage powerful flashier units in a single DIN, or go with a touch hide DVD player for more money, but to have a radio that looks like it came in the vehicle, but does stuff that most factory radios cant, glimpse no further!

Overview - the mammoth Blue-Tooth sound quality, the nice factory ogle, and ease of basic expend (due to button layout) are the main reasons why I would recommend this product.

I basically wanted to add Blue-Tooth, USB, and MP3 player AUX in to my factory stereo, and this unit did the job (it says that it can control an I-Pod plugged into the USB input but I have not yet tried this) . This unit looks objective as well-behaved as a factory installed unit in my Toyota Sienna. The basic operations are easy to spend (because they provide enough loyal buttons that you are not constantly stuck reading a context-sensitive-menu while you are trying to drive) .

Music audio sound quality is blooming, I did not need a unit with a colossal amp, (I tranquil have the factory speakers installed) so this unit is expansive for my purposes.

Blue-Tooth - My mic is placed next to my garage door opener and the phone quality when using Blue-Tooth is astronomical (all cords were completely hidden so it looks professional) . The pairing process was a bit clunky, I had to read the manual as it is not intuitive. I have only 1 phone paired to this unit and so far everyone I talk to says that it sounds estimable from their waste, and I can hear them perfectly.

Playing MP3 songs via the USB input is very advantageous, this player displays the folder name when you recall a folder which makes it easy to rob what folder of music you want to play (the no-name price stereo in our boat does not prove folder names, so I really delight in this unit in this respect) . We removed MANY of our CDs from our car since we already have them loaded on our USB stick, that will relieve hold our CDs from getting scratched.

Radio - Sounds as pleasant as my factory radio for AM/FM stations. One desirable feature is the ISR (Instant Set Win) button, program your approved dwelling to this button and you switch to that residence with a single button press (as opposed to doing "source engage" until you are at radio, then pressing "Band" to decide AM/FM, and then choosing your preset 1-6), so this is a nice shortcut for the 1 position that you listen to the most.

The explain - one of the nice features about this unit is also its worst feature. The helpful fragment is that it lets you decide from many different demonstrate colors so that it will go nicely with any vehicle, what a icy feature. The awful news is that the explain is simply not colorful enough, this is the reason that the unit did not pick up 5/5 stars. During the shiny daytime the present appears washed-out, and I ended up picking a vivid reveal color instead of the note color that matched my vehicles color plan.

I purchased this unit and installed it last night in my 2005 Nissan Pathfinder. Took me 4 hours because I soldered all the wires for the wire harness instead of crimping. I ended up buying it from [...] because it came with all the distinguished installation parts for free, plus I found a coupon code at [...] and knocked the label down $20 so it was Amazon.com pricing with [...] parts. The Bluetooth handsfree is awesome and works lovely obedient. I have the Garmin Nuvi GPS installed in the fling (best Nissan upgrade ever!) and unbiased do the mic leisurely the GPS, sticking out a puny towards the driver. I appreciate the iPod/iPhone integration (I have the iPhone 3GS, my wife has the 3G, and we both have iPods) . I was upgrading from several failed FM transmitters so the quality is obviously a billion times better.

Pros:

-I like the simple leer of the unit as it is not overly flashy and doesn't observe overly expensive.

-It can mimic the color of my other dashboard instruments which is a broad sell for me and the reason I picked this unit over the better-looking Pioneer model.

-iPhone/iPod integration is vast, you can spend Bluetooth or the USB dock connector. Both sound tall.

-Sounds substantial!

Cons:

-The construct is nice but not as chilly as Pioneer's double DIN units but they don't mimic the lunge illumination color.

-Setup and menus are a limited awkward. You need the manual to know what BBE-MX or S-CTRL is referring to.

-There is a camouflage saver that I accumulate a miniature distracting. Maybe I'll rep frail to it.

-The unit doesn't fit flawlessly into the Nissan Pathfinder double DIN hole. Luckily [...] included some minor well-kept pieces to maintain in most of the gaps.

-The instructions were not originally written in English and therefore it takes a bit to figure out what they are saying.

Overall I am very contented. I even called [...] tech succor line to double check some wiring (10 contain time @ 8:00pm MST) which was nice to have instead of unprejudiced guessing. I'd recommend it to a friend. The coming weeks will allow me to work out any other imperfections in the unit.

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Purchased this place based on other reviews. Very happy with quality for the note. Cushions are a itsy-bitsy light in color for outdoors, but otherwise very overjoyed.

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This was the only document (not photo) scanner I could obtain that fit my runt cabinet next to my desk chair. I wanted to sustain the scanner off the cluttered desktop. It was reasonably priced and fit perfectly. Since I only utilize it once in awhile, I push it to the abet of the shelf and utilize the front for things more frequently traditional. Image quality is sterling and setup was very easy. I never need to feed in multi-page documents, so I can't comment on that. It is the perfect low-cost, uncouth profile scanner for me except for two irritating problems: 1) It has a strong tendency to feed sheets in twisted, even when I adjust the plastic guides or try to guide with my hand, and 2) despite the OCR button being configured to commence in Microsoft Word, the ABBYY reader always sends it to Excel instead. I have had to reconfigure the button every time I exhaust that function. Even though the indicate shows that Word is the application to be opened, Excel always opens up the first time, so I have to reconfigure and set aside Word as the default and then it opens up Word that one time, but the next time it will be Excel again. This is unusual because I never chose Excel for any of the buttons; I have no conception how it decided to always expend Excel. The OCR itself has always been 100% honest. The photos and other images I've scanned have always been astronomical with no problems, and the apt application opens with those. It also copies directly to my printer without opening any program - a really handy feature. Have in mind that this is a sheet feed plan and won't handle a book or beefy item. All in all a lovely apt capture for someone without a heavy usage need.

Edit 7/13/09: My wife recently veteran this to scan dozens of ragged letters and postcards from her college year abroad. It jammed from reading in bent a couple of times, but there was mostly no predicament with the feed. The OCR did extremely well (on the printing, not the handwriting) and the application fed it to Word every time for her, not Excel. She was extremely tickled with its performance. It seems to have largely cured itself of the two problems I mentioned, although not entirely. I reflect the feed problems may have something to do with the type of paper, so it may not be a spot for you.