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Toshiba HD-A3 1080i HD DVD Player HDA3 Review and Price Guide

November 21, 2007

The Toshiba HD-A3 high definition DVD player is an inexpensive way to enjoy the clarity of HD movies at home without breaking your bank account.

Yes, it only goes up to 1080i resolution. Well, if you have a 1080i TV then you are all set. Even so, your budget may not allow for a 1080p DVD player. If you are set on 1080p resolution don’t go for the Toshiba HD-A30 1080p DVD player. The quality in 1080p is so poor you would be better off buying the HD-A3 and having some change left over.

This is a perfect entry level high definition DVD player. If you have been wanting to get into the HD DVD’s then this will be a great start. Plus, with the exception of the HD-A30, Toshiba always makes great DVD players. I still own two Toshiba DVD players. I think the quality of parts and assembly is top notch and that makes for a great appliance even years down the road.

Price Comparison

$169.99

$279.98

$199.99

$299.99

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iRobot Roomba Discovery 4210 Robot Vacuum Cleaner Review and Lowest Price

November 15, 2007

The iRobot Roomba Discovery 4210 is a cool little robot that adjusts to any floor surface in your home. Just imagine never having to worry about vacuuming the floor again! Let’s face it, most people don’t like vacuuming. It’s a chore. We would much rather be doing something else like watching TV, surfing the net, watching the paint peel on something, etc.

So, you hear about this little robot and think you can make your vacuuming worries disappear? Not exactly. In fact, it may be more work than you think.

It is not a mindless device that you never have to touch. You have to interact with this robot. It doesn’t empty the trash bin itself, it doesn’t start itself, it doesn’t charge itself unless you buy the drive-on home base feature, and it will sometimes need it’s brushes cleaned.

It is a hands free vacuuming machine that gives you time to do other things. It does pick up dirt just like a regular old vacuum cleaner, and it will be a nice addition to your home.

Some of the features include dirt detection and convenient infra-red cliff sensors, adjusts to any floor surface, 2-hour continuous cleaning, edge-cleaning side brush, virtual wall for confining to designated area, rechargeable APS battery, and comes with a 1 year warranty. I almost forgot to mention. It also comes with a 3-hour charger, 2 virtual walls, 2 air filters, and remote control.

Conclusion

This is a neat way to vacuum your floors. However, don’t expect to never have to hassle with this thing. The same maintenance applies with this as does with any vacuum cleaner. Other than that you literally don’t have to be home to have your floors cleaned. It really will free up your time and is especially nice for the elderly and those who are disabled. This is a great device that gives you back more of your time or, if you are not physically able to push a vacuum cleaner, will lend the helping hand you need. Plus, it’s a great conversation starter. Highly recommended.

Price Comparison

$129 - $207 $249.99 $279.99 $299.99

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Apple MacBook Pro MA895LL/A 15″ Notebook PC 2007 Edition - Review and Where to Buy

November 14, 2007

I recently discovered something called a MacBook Pro. I had heard it was fast, sleek, power packed with tons of features like only Apple could provide. Get this, someone actually told me that I would trade in my PC laptop after checking this MacBook Pro out. So what did I find? Did I trade in my PC?

Well, I did find a power packed laptop only 1 inch thick when closed. Sure, this thing has a ton of features like, 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4 MB shared L2 cache, 2 GB RAM 677 MHz DDR2 SD-RAM (PC2-5300), a 120 GB Serial ATA hard drive, a slot load 8x Super Drive, 1 FireWire 400 port, 1 FireWire 800 port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, an ExpressCard / 34 slot, a DVI output with VGA support, a built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet adapter, built in 54 Mbps AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless adapter, built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor and a 15.4 inch widescreen display capable of 1440 by 900 resolution, just to name a few. But really, even with all of these features, would I want to trade in my PC for this thing?

Well, it’s not that I was not tempted. I mean, this thing has it all. Coupled with simplicity and ease of use of OS X, not to mention no more blue screens, and it offered a promise of stability, simplicity and reliability that no PC has offered me so far. It’s an awesome platform. Not perfect but so close. And with all of the Windows Vista problems too, who would want to go PC?

So, I traded my PC in right? No. Here is why. With all of the great and wonderful features, I have been using PC’s for over 15 years. I have never used an Apple for more than about 5 hours throughout my lifetime so I don’t know a lot about them. I love them. I just don’t know what I’m doing. So, there would be a learning curve.

Secondly, I have my PC’s customized with all of these apps that I love and use so often. I would have to tinker with trying to get them working on OS X. No Thanks.

Then, there is the price. Yes you are getting more for your money and a compatible PC notebook would cost the same or more, I understand that, but still I would be paying that much for something I know little about. So, in essence, paying for frustration. No thanks.

Conclusion

I was very impressed and with the video editing projects I have coming up I have been seriously looking into getting an Apple. I will not trade my PC in for one though but would love to have one of these MacBook Pro’s sitting right beside my PC. I mean come on. It is a sweet laptop. So fast, so smooth, so fine. It’s like a recently waxed Ferrari. I love this laptop and all it is capable of and highly recommend it if you are in the market.

Price Comparison

$1,849 - $1,999

$1,849.00

$1,994.00

$1,999.99

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Microsoft Zune 30 GB Digital MP3 Media Player

November 8, 2007

The Zune 30GB digital media player stores up to 7,500 songs, 25,000 pictures or 100 hours of video and features wireless networking so you can share your music, pictures and videos. It also has a 3-inch color screen and a landscape mode for watching your videos.

This is one of the hottest media devices on the market at the moment and is usually found at a price thats hard to beat. Compared to some of the other players on the market you get a lot more for your money with the Zune. For example, most of the digital media players on the market don’t have wireless capability, so you can’t hop on your wireless network to transfer your music, movies or pictures. You usually have to have a USB cable to plug in to your PC. No more! The Zune 30GB Digital Media Player has taken care of this for you. But don’t worry, this player comes with a USB cable for those who don’t have Wi-Fi and it also comes with earphones and a sleeve to protect it while transporting it around.

Compared to the iPod Touch 16GB, you get twice the space for half the price. Yeah, you don’t get the fancy touch screen like the iPhone has but is that really so bad? Unless you are a tech geek that has to have the bleeding edge of technology, you will be fine with this player.

We recommend this over the Apple iPod Touch just because of the price and space factor. You get twice the space and it costs over half the price. Plus, it does the same thing.

Conclusion

If you are on a budget and would like a nice digital media player with Wi-Fi but can’t afford the iPod Touch then go with this one. You wont be disappointed. It’s easy to use and has much better capacity. Plus these Zune players have been around for a long time and they are reliable.

Below, we have compiled a price comparison with the lowest prices we could find for the Zune 30GB.

Price Comparison

$99.99

$199.99

$149.99

$114 - $195

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Garmin Nuvi 350 Pocket Vehicle GPS Price Comparison & Review

November 5, 2007

The Garmin nüvi 350 Pocket GPS is the top seller this year of vehicle GPS devices, and with good reason. It shines above the rest of the bunch with the many features like turn-by-turn directions, automatic routing, and 320 x 240 color touchscreen display just to name a few. Not only that but the 700 MB GPS navigator comes bundled with MP3/audiobook player, photo viewer, and world travel clock. Plus, it comes preloaded with City Navigator NT V.8 with maps of U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. This is not just another GPS system. This is portable. It’s about the size of a deck of cards and very light. Plus the Garmin nuvi 350 has text-to-speech directions through which the actual street name is spoken, and you can hook up an optional FM traffic receiver to obtain real-time traffic alerts. Not only that but there is an optional travel kit, where you can just slip this thing in your pocket and walk the streets of Paris without worrying about getting lost. Included in the travel kit is also a language translation. The where to page allows you to search for points of interest including food, lodging and transportation, just to name a few.

Conclusion If you are in the market for a GPS system, get this one. It’s light and compact, easy to use, and it has a huge database of turn by turn directions that includes text to speech street names. This is the best bang for your buck model out there. We love it! This unit MSRP is $479.99 but we found it so much cheaper than that. Just look below at our price comparison.

Price Comparison

$354.51

$326.48

$399.99

$344.95

 

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Xbox 360 Elite High-Definition Gaming and Entertainment System Review

November 1, 2007

The Xbox 360 Elite is more of an all in one entertainment center than just a gaming console. Although not as feature packed as the Playstation 3, it has some very nice qualities.

The current selection of games are top notch though some would still say there are not enough choices. My thoughts are at $49 - $59 bucks per game, I’ll take quality over quantity any day.

This new model features a HDMI port whereas the older models did not. It can also serve as a Windows Media extender. The online marketplace gives you easy access to purchase mini-games, add-on content, TV shows and High Definition movies.

All of these things are great but, the Xbox 360 Elite still has some issues. They didn’t seem to fix any of the previous complaints of the original Xbox 360. For instance, the Xbox 360 Elite still has the enormous external power supply, Noisy fans, A cheap, crappy DVD player - you still have to buy a bulky external player for HD movies, No Wi-Fi, and only 3 USB ports. It would have really been nice to at least see this model come with an internal HD DVD player.

Conclusion

Even though some issues still exist, this console is the gaming platform of choice for many gamers. Mainly because of the awesome games and the media features. Overall, this console will make a great addition to your world of entertainment.

Where to Buy the Xbox 360 Elite

We have searched the Internet and found the lowest prices with the safest merchants.

Only - $449.99

Only - $449.99

Only - $499.99
Only - $0.01 - $499.00

Bundled with 2 Games (Marvel Ultimate Alliance & Forza 2)

Only - $449.99
Only - $449.99

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Mitsubishi WD-73734 73″ 1080p DLP HDTV Review

October 28, 2007

Overview

6 colors? What? Did we hear that correctly? Yes we did. No more Red, Green, Blue color standard for TV’s, now we have 6! Mitsubishi’s new 6-Color Light Engine. It gives us 80% more color than standard HDTV.

So Whats Under the Hood?

Mitsubishi’s 6-Color Light Engine generates yellow, cyan, and magenta directly, instead of mixing combinations of the current standard of red, green, and blue (RGB) to create them. This allows the 734 Series televisions to display a wider range of brighter colors and whiter whites.

Color 4D Video Noise Reduction, PerfectColor and PerfecTint are also included technology and allow for additional advanced color adjustment. PerfectColor is an exclusive Mitsubishi feature that enables you to adjust the intensity of six independently of each other and separately on each input.

And don’t worry, there are no lack of inputs with 4 HDMI v1.3 inputs. This TV is amazing in every aspect and of course comes with Mitsubishi’s track record of dependable TV’s which should last for many, many years to come.

Where To Buy - Best Price

Only - $3,299.99
Only - $2,998.99
  Only - $2,969.55
  Only - $2,519.99

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Buying a Playstation 3 Online - Shopping Guide

October 25, 2007

Overview

With all of the sites that show up in a simple Google search, you can easily become overwhelmed with information quickly. Thats why we wrote this article. You may not know the difference between the different models of Playstation 3’s and thats okay. We are going to take the different models and break it down for you. Then we will show you the best places to buy a Playstation 3 online and even give you price comparison!

The Basics

You have 4 models to choose from. The 20GB model, the 40GB model, the 60GB model and the 80GB model.

Feature List

Features 20 GB 40 GB 60 GB 80 GB
USB 2.0 Ports 4 2 4 4
IEEE 802.11b/g Wi-Fi NO NO YES YES
Flash Card Readers NO NO YES YES
SACD Playback YES NO YES YES
PS2 Compatible Hardware NO Hardware Software
Chrome Trim NO YES YES YES


So, Which one is right for me?

Thats a tough question and one you will have to answer. My personal choice is the 60GB model because I can have WiFi, Flash card readers and I can still play my old Playstation 2 games without having to use software. But, 60GB may not be enough for you, especially if you are going to be downloading games from the Sony network. You may want to go with the 80GB model. It’s totally a choice of how much you are going to use it and what your needs are. Remember, these models are not upgradeable so it’s better to go above what you need than to not have what you need.

Where to Buy - Price Comparison

It’s hard to find the 20GB model now. We have found two places to get them. They are listed below.

Click the link below the model you want to go directly to the on merchant. If the merchant name is visible then they have that model in stock.

Sony 20GB Playstation 3 Models

Ebay.com
Half.com

Sony 40GB Playstation 3 Models with SpiderMan Blu-ray DVD at $399.99

Note: 40GB model will not be released until 10/30/07 (When the movie comes out) but can be pre-ordered!

BestBuy.com
CircuitCity.com
CompUSA.com
Ebay.com
Half.com

Sony 60GB Playstation 3 Models at $499.99

BestBuy.com
CircuitCity.com
CompUSA.com
Ebay.com
Half.com

Sony 80GB Playstation 3 with MotorStorm @ $499.99

BestBuy.com
Buy.com
CircuitCity.com
CompUSA.com
Ebay.com
Half.com
Newegg.com

I hope you enjoyed my article. Please send any feedback to travis@evalguide.com.

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