Sunday 17 June 2012

PC Show 2012: Samsung LED Monitor S20B300B

This is what I got from the recent PC Show 2012 at Suntec City, 7-10 June 2012. I bought 2 more Innergie 2-in-1USB cable, which I blogged about here.















I got a 750GB HDD for the wife's laptop. This is a replacement as her current HDD died on her.


Another view.
















I have 2 old Samsung monitors. One died on me and I cannot work with only 1 screen. So I bought 2 brand new Samsung monitors, S20B300B.



This was my original monitors, Syncmaster 940B. I remember when I bought these monitors, it was very new and not on display yet. I did not know the quality of the image. The young lady that sold it to me said that if she opens the box for inspection, its considered sold. I took a gamble and bought it.

A true workhorse.

Unboxing the new monitors

The flat panel dislay.

I was surprised that I have to fix the base to the monitor. They have added an AC adapter for the power source.




The round disk is the base and the neck is the one with the green sticker.


 

I do not intend to remove the plastic wrapping. So I will cut a whole around the slot.
 

Underneath the base. So the neck goes into the slot and it is screwed on.
 

Behind the flat panel, there is a nice texture to the casing.


2 connection type.


How it looks like fully assembled.





The thickness.

Behind, after assembled.

When I compared my new monitor with the old one, immediately I know I have a problem.

The new monitor does not have any height adjustments. I am quite annoyed that it does not have this feature, unlike the old monitor which can be adjusted.
There is no cable management feature on the new monitor as well but the old monitor has a simple loop which allows the cables to go through it, making it so much neater.

I feel Samsung is positioning its monitors similar to its LED/LCD commercial tvs. Which means it is not suitable for professional usage.
Do not get me wrong. The image and resolutions are quite good.
But because they have omitted features like height adjustment feature and cable management, I foresee this as a problem for users, either at the office or at home.
This would mean I would have to buy a monitor riser or use some discarded phonebook to raise the damn monitors.















Saturday 9 June 2012

Black and Decker Dustbuster Auto12V

A few years ago, the wife and I bought a Black & Decker Dustbuster Auto from Giant. This is the Dustbuster but for the automobile. It uses the 12V adapter that fits into the cigarette lighter.

Unfortunately, for some strange reason, it does not work anymore. I suspect the adapter shorted the device. So we decided to buy another Auto Dustbuster. We went to Autobacs and got the same device at SGD51.00
















According to the box, there are only 2 additional attachments. Hmmmm, that is quite strange. I will explain soon.

The features.



Well, it says here are 2 attachment.


The device.




The 2 attachments are located underneath the vacuum.



So there are only 2 attachments.


Compare this with the first Dustbuster that I bought, see picture below. As you can see, it is exactly the same. Except Black and Decker gave more attachments then and even a bag to keep everything. The goose neck is very useful.


So the vacuum cleaner is still the same. But as can be seen from this picture, they have reduced the number of attachments.

Another view of my original Dustbuster.

Another view of my new Dustbuster.

Another interesting thing. The original B&D vacuum cleaner was made in England.

The new one is made in China.

Since the old vacuum is not working, I would have to throw it away. But I think I learned from the Army, is to cannibalise any parts you can get your hands on. So I took the snout of the vacuum and the filter. Still looks new.