Peak performance from Pinnacle

Advantages: Excellent customer services, they phone you, they listen to you
Disadvantages: None that I have come across

...insurance. We pay life insurance in case we die in debt. Who collects it? The poor sod that has paid it, hardly! I could go on but I won’t, as this is a positive review about an excellent company that I had to deal with recently. The name of that company is Pinnacle Insurance PLC. Initially I had no idea that I would be dealing with them but I shall explain that matter as this tale unfolds. As some of you will be aware earlier this year I was unable to work for three months due to a serious incapacity. At the point when I realised that I would not be returning to work as quickly as I had envisaged I remembered that I had some payment protection insurance on the finance that I had taken out to pay for my computer. My original intent was to pay after the 9 months interest free period but I foolishly spent the money. I dug...

SparkyDeighton 26.07.2002 (28.06.2004) · Read review
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Review of Pinnacle Insurance PLC

Hit the mark again

Advantages: Stereo TV Reception at low cost
Disadvantages: Requires high spec pc

...have one of the new legacy-free motherboards. I have found that the Infra-red reciever can be tempermental at times and needs to be re plugged into the back of the machine before it is picked up by the system (this could be due to XP and it's instability). There also seems to be and issue with syncronizing the audio and picture when recording tv at the highest quality possible. I resolved this by dropping the quality to 1.5 mpeg, this however causes another problem, this recording will not play back using the pctv software. To resolve this i use media player to play the files. This i feel is more an issue with the spec on my pc rather than with the product itself and would advise potential buyers to bear this in mind before spending your money. Software The supplied applications have been tweaked over the years by Pinnacle and are...

oynx 07.01.2004 · Read review
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Review of Pinnacle PCTV Stereo

The Pinnacle Stratus 3.0 E is a good value hybrid

Advantages: Internal hub gears, sturdy frame, nice finish, responsive ride, great price
Disadvantages: Right brake lever could be longer, high Q factor, poor pedal design

...PINNACLE STRATUS 3.0E Product reviews, out of necessity, are full of relative descriptions and judgements based on comparison with a similar product familiar to the reviewer. Therefore, a reviewer?s experience very much affects the review outcome. Reviewers with little or no experience to call upon are likely to compare the product with their own expectations (be they reasonable or not). My review is no exception but I?ll say up front that my experience of adult bicycles is limited to a GT Tequesta mountain bike (steel frame, 3x7 derailuer gears & no suspension) and two lightweight tourers (both with Reynolds 531 steel frame, one with 700C alloy rims and 2x7 speed derailleur gears and the older tourer with 26? steel rims and Sturmey Archer 4 speed internal hub gears). Each tourer was fitted with new parts as they wore over...

dogfonos 22.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Pinnacle Stratus 3.0 Equipped

Belkin Wireless USB adaptor

Advantages: Simple to set up and use
Disadvantages: Software is not the greatest

...I bought this USB network adaptor for my son when he still had his Windows 98 machine as the PCI card that I reviewed previously was too advanced for his hardware. This USB adapter was bought to connect to my Belkin wireless router meaning that I now had a wireless network consisting only of Belkin hardware. --Whats in the box-- On opening the box, there were no real surprises. There was the USB adapter, a stand which would allow you to place the adapter on your desk if you didnt want to have it plugged directly into the back of your PC, the antenna, a quick installation guide and a CD which contained the drivers and a full manual. --Installation-- On reading the quick installation guide, it was apparent that the software had to be installed before the adapter was plugged in. The reason for this was because, when the hardware...

craggybuk 14.06.2007 (28.09.2007) · Read review
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Review of Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter Network adapter

TV on PC is OK

Advantages: easy to setup
Disadvantages: wish I had got a DVB one

...I bought this card for the sole task of watching TV while surfing the internet, and for this purpose the card does its job well. I bought it from PC world about 6 months ago for £49.99. I installed the card in my PC (normal PCI connection) and connected a normal portable indoor aerial to the card and booted up. The sotware took a while (15 mins) to fully install but it was all self explanatory and I was soon up and running. The job was to connect the audio lead from the TC tuner to my sound card. Luckily I had a spare input but check you have before you purchase. The first time you run the Pinnacle software the card scans for channels (takes about 3 mins) and after that you are ready to go. The interface is simple and ressembles the controls on an old non remote controlled TV. Volume and channel buttons on the control...

danny182 30.03.2004 · Read review
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Review of Pinnacle Studio PCTV

Pinnacle DC10+ Video capture and editing

Advantages: cheap, fair quality images, easy to use
Disadvantages: needs a good sound card, some capture problems

...The Pinnacle DC10+ is a good few years old now but I thought I'd review it in case anyone was still using analogue video equipment and was looking for something to help them edit their videos. Units regularly turn up on eBay so they should be fairly easy to find if you think it's the device for you. On with the review! Whilst most people have moved over to digital video using either Digital8 or DV, some camcorder users are still more than happy with their Hi8, Video8 and even (shudder) VHS-C machines. The digital users have the luxury of Firewire and its ease of use when capturing and re-recording edited footage. However, the analogue users have to look to slightly more complex hardware to do the job. The Pinnacle Studio DC10+ consists of a PCI card and editing software. The card installs effortlessly as does the software. The card...

ilaskey 03.05.2007 · Read review
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Review of Pinnacle Studio DC10plus

  A Pinnacle Of Achievement, But At What

Advantages: Versatile
Disadvantages: Excels at nothing

...Pinnacle Instant CD+DVD v7.0 is a puzzling software package to button-hole. Normally, Pinnacle are in at the ?top-end? of TV and VCD/DVD editing and production, quite often including some hardware, like a Video & TV capture card in with their package. Whilst these packages are no doubt difficult to master entirely, (and let?s face it, who does before they bring out an upgrade?), it?s usually quite easy to see what their prime purpose in life is Therefore, I was quite surprised when out for a meal one night, to espy in a shop window, the proclamation ?Pinnacle Instant CD+DVD Copy, perfect DVD copies?. Hunger got the better of me, and I walked (or was it got dragged?) on. It wasn?t till a few days later when strolling around (garlic and crucifix at the ready) PC World, that it dawned on me that I was staring the very product in...

BNibbles 23.06.2003 · Read review
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Review of Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD Complete package

USB Power-ed up Adapter

Advantages: Compact and Portability
Disadvantages: Price

...This USB Power Adapter is a must accessory to have if you have any kinds of iPods. As you would know, when you buy an iPod, you will only receive the iPod itself and the link cable. This means the only way you can charge the iPod is through the computer. However, this is disadvantage for many reasons since you would need to make sure the computer is on when charging. Because its USB charged, it takes quite a long time to charge it to full. This USB Power Adapter deals with all of the charging problems and many others. The size of the power adapter is very compact, with its dimension of 4cm by 4cm (estimate and could be different when bought from different country). It is also not so heavy for portable use. Also, you can change the adapter itself to European, Asian or wherever with great convenience. All you have to do is slide it...

zikiman 08.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Apple USB Power Adapter

USB is for me

Advantages: Have plenty of USB ports at any time
Disadvantages: Can be a bit of a pain when it comes to the power supply.

...It seems like ages ago that I had a PC that did not have enough USB ports and the two that it did have were discreetly hidden around the back of the tower. At first this was not a problem as I hardly ever used the USB ports. As my computer grew so did the need to access these USB ports, this soon became an annoyance as I kept having to turn the tower around to access the ports and plug another device in, this also meant sacrificing whatever was in the port at that time. I began thinking the only choice I would have would be to get a new PC that had four USB ports, two of which now seemed to be positioned on the front of the towers of the newer computers. A friend suggested that I should look at getting myself a USB hub, as this would not only add to the amount of USB ports that are available to me, but would make accessing...

sit2020 07.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 4-Port Hub - hub - 4 ports

Pinnacle SoundBridge

Advantages: easy set up, a quick solution to music streaming
Disadvantages: sound quality does not match original source.

...The Pinnacle SoundBridge media hub is a smashing device considering the price of around £50.00 Its versatile and is fairly easy to set up and seamlessly connects to your wireless router in order to give you easy access to Internet radio. There are loads preset and you have the option of browsing 'regions' to identify your favourite local stations available on the web. I did find that my local station wasn't listed and although it comes with radio snooper software I've failed to get this to work properly. The device happily finds both my windows media files and itunes folder and allows you to browse and play these tunes through speakers or your hi-fi if you connect this using a spare phono socket. The sound quality is a little dissapointing as it lacks the natural volume and depth of the original source. The other problem is that...

MarcD2 05.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of Pinnacle Soundbridge Homemusic