Product-Reviews on YKM's Corner on the Web

Review and Teardown of Creative Midi Blaster MB-10 synthesizer

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Creative Midi Blaster MB-10 recently entered my retro-collection 33 years after its first release in 1993. Seeing that there isn’t much detailed information about this device on the internet, I decided to do a review followed by a teardown of this device. I will also take some sample audio recordings of it.

Teardown & review of a new 386 system: Hand386

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A new 386-based palmtop recently appeared on Aliexpress and was covered by sites like Tom’s Hardware. My curiosity was stoked and I quickly snapped one up.

Review, usage and repair of the Framework laptop

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I finally received the Framework laptop, said by many to be one of the most repairable and modular laptops made so far.

Tons of professional reviewers and Youtubers have already given their opinions and made teardown videos. Instead of mimicking what has already been done, I decided to put myself in the shoes of an ordinary layman and share my thoughts from a personal usability perspective.

A major design flaw was found by some on this first-gen Framework product using the 11th-gen Intel CPUs, do read it before committing to purchase.

Review of a new-old motherboard NuXT v2.0

Sat, 16 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I recently purchased a new-old motherboard. It’s a motherboard released in 2020 but not the usual you would expect of the latest motherboard released this year that support the latest CPUs and connectivity options. This motherboard supports a CPU first released in 1979 (Intel 8088) and comes with historic connectivity options like serial and parallel.

When I first heard about the earlier iteration of this board the NuXT v1.2 version from retrocomputing Youtuber LGR, I was hooked.

With the latest new and improved NuXTv2.0 released recently, I decided to get one too as I needed a platform to go into coding for DOS to support the earliest IBM PCs. You can purchase this board here at Monotech PCs.

The motherboard as installed in a modern micro-ATX case.

I have an IDE hard disk caddy, Gotek Floppy Emulator with HxC firmware and a venerable 1.44MB Floppy Drive.

The bootup process. Notice the bootup sound which is the PC Speaker playing the Intel chime. What attention to detail!

The best part, the motherboard schematic is open source since it is itself based on other open-source projects. How many motherboards released today can claim that???

Review and partial teardown of Fairphone 3

Sat, 07 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I was in the market recently for a new phone as I had to give my previous Google Pixel 2 away to a family member in need of one. With the emphasis these days on sustainability and environmentally-conscious purchasing, the Fairphone 3 came up at the very top of my research.

From the marketing words of this social enterprise, “Recycled and fair materials”, “Modular and repairable design”, “A commitment to fairness” and 10/10 score on iFixit’s Repairability Rating, I was sold!