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- Review count4
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- First reviewJanuary 18, 2017
- Last reviewJuly 21, 2017
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- Average rating3.5
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Plato's Reviews
Only at Best BuySwitch between notebook and tablet setups easily with this 13-inch Lenovo Yoga laptop. Its Full HD resolution displays high-quality multimedia content, and it provides multitasking efficiency with its Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM. The 256GB PCIe SSD storage of this Lenovo Yoga laptop lets you perform fast file transfers.
Posted by: Plato
My trusty Dell laptop was coming up on its 6th birthday and was definitely on its last legs so I decided it was time for a new one. I first ended up getting a great deal on an open box Lenovo 910, but I could not live with the misplaced shift key issue, so I returned it for the Lenovo 720. I also bought a Dell Inpsiron 5000 series i7 model at Costco and I used the two head-to-head for about a week. I really liked the look and feel of the lenovo - it was more high end looking (definitely going for the Macbook look) and I preferred the feel of the keyboard as well. Though the Dell was an i7 and the Lenovo was an i5, I didn't really notice much difference in speed on day-to-day tasks. I don't think the Lenovo's speakers sounded quite a nice as the Dell's but I don't use the speakers all that much anyhow. So I ultimately returned the Dell and kept the Lenovo.
That said, there are definitely a few issues with this laptop. I actually had to return the first one that I had due to an issue with the backspace key -- it only worked if you hit it exactly dead center in the key with exactly the right amount of force. I ended up swapping it out for another one where the backspace key works fine. (Thanks Best Buy!) Also, the Lenovo has only 3 total usb ports and only 2 are really usable since one is used for the charger. And of those 2, one is usb-c which is the new style that isn't very widely used yet. So you really only get one normal usb port - I had to buy a big dangly hub to split that USB port so I could plug in my mouse dongle, fit bit dongle, mp3 player, etc. It kind of defeats the purpose of having such a sleek streamlined machine if you have to buy a big usb hub to sit next to it.
I also noticed that the fan was kind of noisy at times -- my husband ended up doing a bios upgrade on it and then finally removing some extra software that came installed on the machine before he got the fan to quiet down.
Also, I'm having repeated problems with it falling off my home network - I'm not sure if that is the network or the laptop though, so the jury is still out. It is aggravating though, and it is the only device that does it, so I do think it may be related to the machine.
Other than those issues, I have been really happy with this laptop - I love the touch screen and the ability to flip it over into kind of a tabletop easel tablet (great for streaming netflix!). And it is so light and small compared to my old laptop -- I just hope it lasts as long as that one did!
My Best Buy number: 2655040585
Mobile Submission: False
I would recommend this to a friend!
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5of 6voted this as helpful.
Lenovo Yoga 910 Convertible 2-in-1 Laptop: Keep the game going with this Lenovo Yoga notebook. Its 8GB of DDR4 RAM is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor for speed, and its 14-inch screen can be converted to a tablet, tent or stand setup thanks to its 360-degree hinge. This Lenovo Yoga notebook includes a 256GB solid-state drive for file storage.
Posted by: Plato
This laptop is gorgeous looking and screamingly fast. I got a phenomenal open-box deal on it. And it broke my heart to return it, but return it I did. Why? Because Lenovo decided to put the up arrow key where the right hand shift key should be.
Now, if you are a hunt-and-peck kind of typist, this is probably not a big deal. But as someone who's been touch typing >60 wpm since learning on an actual typewriter in high school, I depend on the shift key to be where it is supposed to be.....and putting the up arrow there is extra obnoxious, because every time I tried to capitalize a left-hand letter, I'd end up hitting the up arrow and moving the cursor up a row and then when I kept typing, the words I was typing would be in the middle of the previous row. After doing that a couple times, my document was basically undecipherable.
Now, if you are a hunt-and-peck kind of typist, this is probably not a big deal. But as someone who's been touch typing >60 wpm since learning on an actual typewriter in high school, I depend on the shift key to be where it is supposed to be.....and putting the up arrow there is extra obnoxious, because every time I tried to capitalize a left-hand letter, I'd end up hitting the up arrow and moving the cursor up a row and then when I kept typing, the words I was typing would be in the middle of the previous row. After doing that a couple times, my document was basically undecipherable.
I am not kidding when I tell you that I typed on this for all of about 3 minutes before deciding it was going back to Best Buy -- and like I said, it was a screamingly good open-box deal so it broke my heart to return it, but there was simply no way I could relearn 30 years of typing habits.. I ended up paying more money for the Lenovo 720 - a step down in processor speed and not as pretty, but at least Lenovo managed to put the shift key in the right place.
My Best Buy number: 2655040585
Mobile Submission: False
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
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Circle allows your family to manage all of your home's connected devices with ease. With Circle, parents can now filter content and limit screen time as well as set a bedtime for every device in the home. Circle can even pause the Internet and share what kids are up to online.
Customer Rating
5
Easy parental control - practically plug & play
on February 20, 2017
Posted by: Plato
We were looking for a solution to keep our kids from stumbling on (or intentionally searching for) inappropriate stuff on the internet. While we had some basic parental control software enabled via OpenDNS and Microsoft Family Safety, we found that it was not always effective in blocking, say, Google Image search results. We wanted something that would always force SafeSearch mode for google on our kids' devices but there didn't seem to be any easy way to do that -- it seemed like we were going to have to go do something complicated like run our own in-house DNS server - yikes!!!
Then my sister suggested we look into the Circle. We did some research and it seemed almost too good to be true -- plug it in, hook it up to your network, and magically control every device in the house, including phone and ipad wifi? Even the Xbox console? Set time limits across devices? And the seemingly impossible achievement of forcing google safe search on all the kids' devices all the time????
Yes, the circle actually does all this and more. It was very easy to set up - just plug it in and you are off and running. The hardest part was figuring out which kid owned which MAC address (the unique identifier that belongs to each device on your network). We created a default level of security so that when our kids' friends come over and hook into our wifi, they are also bound by the safe search and other parental controls. It is also easy to set up a device or group of devices to be exempt from any parental controls -- so our rokus, tv streaming devices, and adult-owned laptops are exempt (The Circle was a bit overeager about blocking relatively innocuous things like Cosmopolitan magazine so I removed my personal PC from its filtering.) I have tested it by going onto my kids' computers and trying to search for inappropriate things and I have not been successful - it does a nice job of blocking out things that should be blocked.
My husband was worried that it would negatively impact our wifi speed since we just shelled out for an Orbi and ramped up the speed to 250 mbps in the house. But the Circle really didn't impact the speed at all -- we are zipping along just as fast as before, only now I am confident that my kids are not viewing things they shouldn't be viewing.
The only downside is that there is nothing to prevent the kids from making an end run around the circle by switching their phones to the 4G data plan. The circle does offer an app that extends its filtering to cell phones but it costs a monthly fee. If it turns out that we need that, we'll add it.
I highly recommend the circle - we have tried several different parental control packages and this one was the easiest to set up and performs as promised. I wasn't expecting much given the price but I am truly impressed.
My Best Buy number: 2655040585
I would recommend this to a friend!
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+13points
13of 13voted this as helpful.
This recorder features an X/Y microphone configuration for high-quality audio reproduction and a built-in reference speaker for instant playback. A 1/8" external microphone input and a stereo 1/8" line output provide simple connectivity.
Posted by: Plato
I had been wanting an excuse to buy a Zoom recorder for a while - just to play around with and record my piano practice - and when my daughter needed to submit an audition recording for a band competition, I finally had my reason. I bought this because it was the only one in stock at the store - I had been debating between this one and the H2N. I know this gets used a lot by videographers who mount it to their cameras but I mainly wanted it for recording music practice sessions.
The pros - it was easy to use. I took it out of the box and basically was recording things in minutes. Getting the recordings off was as easy as plugging the USB cable into the computer and the device appeared as a hard drive that I could transfer files from. Sound quality was great - much better than what I could capture on my android phone and my daughter could get on her iphone.
The cons - it does not stand up by itself and if you try to hold it, there's so much rustling from your hand touching it that it ruins the recording. So you have to mount it on a tripod - I used one we had for our camera. Once its on the tripod, you can't access the buttons on the bottom of the unit next to the tripod mount. And when even on the tripod, this thing was so sensitive that it picked up the noise of me pressing the record and stop buttons so I had to crop that out using audio software on my computer. I used the auto-gain feature and it was a bit flakey - it did not do a great job of keeping up with the dynamics of the music and I could definitely hear noticeable swings in the gain level...I would recommend setting the gain level yourself vs. using the auto feature. Also, for my purposes, I really missed having a remote, which is the main reason I am upgrading to the H2N. The best place in the room to capture my piano is on a tripod placed at about the middle of the open side of the grand piano. But from there, I can't reach the record/stop without getting up from the bench. I suppose I could have just recorded the entire session and chopped it up later on the computer but I was trying to avoid dealing with huge audio files so I wanted to record the songs individually (and delete the bad takes as I went). The H1 does not have any way to control it remotely so I had to keep getting up and sitting down and of course it captured all that noise of my walking around which then had to be edited out later.
So I have returned this and am planning to get the H2N with the optional accessory pack that includes the remote. It's a bit more expensive but I think it will give me more versatility in the future -- the H2N can also record in surround so it is better for recording interviews or work meetings at a conference table. The H1 was fine and if you're just looking for an easy to use recorder that has good quality sound, I would recommend it. But to me, if I'm already spending $100, I'd rather spend a little more and have something that does everything I want.
My Best Buy number: 2655040585
I would recommend this to a friend!
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