It is hard to believe the first quarter of 2015 is already in the books. On our end it has been a busy three months. We applied Google Analytics to our entire roster of product pages for a look at the most shopped tech products of Q1 2015. Here are the top ten.
Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Duplex Document Scanner
Price: $412.99
Selling Points: Designed for small office or personal use, the Fujistu iX500 document scanner had features and a price point that were right for SMB customers. The iX500 got a speed boost from its predecessor, the ScanSnap S1500, and is capable of scanning 25 pages per minute. It suits a BYOD environment with Wi-Fi connectivity via an iOS or Android app. Save scanned documents to Google Drive and Dropbox, or as a searchable PDF on your own servers.
Reviews: Users laud the iX500 for its workhorse qualities. The main complaint is lack of a TWAIN driver, which limits the options a user has for scanning to a third party application like Photoshop.
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Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Price: $139.99
Selling Points: The most popular operating system in the world continues to gain users in the wake of Windows XP end of support. It remains the go-to for business users who like its familiar Windows feel, and comes pre-installed on a lot of the OEM desktop PCs carried by NeweggBusiness. It should continue to perform well through the launch of Windows 10 later this summer, as Microsoft has made its newest operating system a free upgrade for Windows 7 Professional users for one year after launch.
Reviews: Windows 7 seems to be taking over where Windows XP left off, and will be remembered as one of Microsoft’s finest efforts. That said, users complain about constant updates, and having to pay anything at all for an operating system.
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D-Link AC3200 Ultra Tri-Band Gigabit Router
Price: $309.99
Selling Points: Some hardware is built to be noticed, and the AC3200 does just that with its candy apple red design and next-level throughput speed (600 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band and 1,300 Mbps on each of the two 5 GHz bands)—the fastest that PC Magazine has ever seen in its testing. It has useful business features as well: a user-friendly web-based user interface for monitoring network activity, firewall deployment, and WPA/WPA2 encryption. Full list of features available on the product page.
Reviews: Kudos for easy setup and the ability to handle a surprising workload of PCs, mobile phones and tablets within the home or small office. Most complaints about dropped signal were remedied by a firmware update.
Tripp Lite SRCOOL12K Portable Air Conditioning Unit
Price: $579.99
Selling Points: This air cooling mechanism funnels cold air into a server stack to aid in server room temperature controls. It operates without water, which eliminates the risk involved with traditional air conditioning leakage, using R410a a dry, environmentally-friendly refrigerant. An inexpensive option to a mini-spit air conditioning system, the SRCOOL12K integrates quickly to a server environment, does not require a separate circuit or drain line and can be up and running within minutes.
Reviews: Complains stem from unit freezing over as a result from low refrigerant, or being DOA upon delivery. Product comes with a one year warranty.
BitCrane T-110S Bitcoin Miner
Price: $988
Selling Points: These specialized bitcoin mining boxes are designed to scale without the need for additional rack purchases. The T-110S claims to be the first terahash-grade box designed for home or small office use. This means it operates quietly (under 60 decibels) has a small, lightweight form factor (under 20 lbs.) , is FCC-certified for home use, and comes with software that gets users up and mining within the hour.
Reviews: High grades for product performance. Some users had trouble finding the correct IP address right out of the box. Problems were remedied by manual router configurations and resets.
XYZprinting daVinci 1.0 3D Printer
Price: $419.99
Selling Points: 3D printing at a consumer price point has been a hot story for 2015. This particularly affordable model gets users up and going right out of the box with plug-and-play features, and is capable of fairly fine details with 100-micron resolution. Supports Windows 7 and above, and also OSX.
Reviews: Ease of use is the number one positive. Common complains are about product support, which raised frustrations for some users.
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Dell Desktop PC OptiPlex 3020
Price: $639.99
Selling Points: The Dell OptiPlex is an old standby for office PC bulk deployments. Small, energy efficient, and cost-effective are the hallmarks of this line. This particular SKU has particularly good specs for the price tag, namely an Intel i5 and 8 GB of RAM.
Reviews: Users got what they expected. Some wished for a PCI port.
Fujitsu FI-7160 Document Scanner
Price: $854.99
Selling Points: The FI-7160 is the next level up from our number one most shopped product of the quarter. It is faster, capable of 60 scans per minute. It is TWAIN compliant, and comes with minimal software, which tends to be the preference for mid-sized businesses that likely have document management software in place. It is one of the few scanners to support USB 3.0 standard.
Reviews: So far, so good. This product rates the maximum 5 eggs in all reviews.
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HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB HDD
Price: 4 TB at $159.99
Selling Points: This hard disk drive is built especially for NAS deployments. It is high speed at 7200 RPM, and is rated for 24/7 operation, which means it is designed to absorb vibration. These are a good fit for a small RAID array, and priced for SMB users. The HDDs come with a 3-year warranty.
Reviews: Aside from the standard lemons that are replaceable under warranty, no complaints. The drives “just work” as is stated in a vast majority of reviews.
DELL Chromebook 11
Price: Currently Out of Stock
Selling Points: Chromebooks have been a huge hit for educators and students. This particular model comes in at a price point that is right for schools on a tight budget. It has 4 GB of RAM, a dual-core Intel Haswell CPU and a 16 GB SSD, giving it solid bang for your buck when it comes to computing power.
Reviews: Kudos for performance and solid build. One user complained of screen glare.
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Which tech products are you planning on buying this quarter?
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[…] product pages to determine which items our customers were viewing the most in 2015. A good chunk of these products were pre-built systems. Here, we refine our scope to components—hard drives, motherboards, […]
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