A2B2/VAServ
May 28, 2008
Just thought I'd pass on my experiences with A2B2/VA Serv to avoid anyone having similar experiences.
I've been a customer of theirs for several years now and the past 6 months have been awful. It started with them canceling a DNS hosting service they offered with out notification, leaving all my sites inaccessible for two weeks. Since then I've lost track of the number of times that my DNS records have been inaccessible. There have also been problems with their firewall denying access to my box, causing another day of downtime.
In fixing these issues, the support staff have continually shown lack of knowledge of the tools they're working with (from not knowing how to send out important announcements to people on their mailing list, to pressing the wrong button and overwriting my zone file with the default). Speaking to Rus has usually resulted in the source of the problem being located, but then it can take days for his support team to then understand what needs doing. The worst support was when Rus and team ignored requests for access to my zone files for months and then demanded I paid them an extra month's worth of hosting or they would switch of my site instantly. I have tried to find out if this was an isolated case or if others were having similar problems, but Rus refuses to allow me to discuss this issue on their own forums - presumably he know how many people have been affected and doesn't want that many people complaining publicly.
It's a real shame - it was a great company when I started hosting with them, however I think it's now grown too big for it's boots and can't provide the same level of service and reliability it used to.
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Nov 25, 2008
So... let's start my review, shall we?
I came into VPS business with EpicVPS, both Amaresh and Raghev (if im right), are excellent persons. Always helped me a lot and their service was overall great.
After some disasters xD, EpicVPS was sold to VAServ. I thought: Okay... maybe it's time to move BUT I should definitely wait a few months and watch how this is going to be.
So, stayed as a client.
I dont know how much months have passed, maybe 6? Dunno, but I do have to say a few things about Russell's company, VAserv.com:
I had some billing problems, specially when they changed to the other software, but all this was solved with screenshots (not that they doubt, just wanted to keep it clear), and in no time, I had it fixed. (Also had one billing issue, for some other reasons, which was solved and today Vladimir just made my day.. heh, not that he offered anything, but telling me kind words... made me feel good. )
Loads... Everyone knows that when you're using a VPS, sometimes you have some stupid users abusing the server , this way you'll get affected as well.
Happened a few times, and I was telling them it wasn't my VPS, etc etc (I've a pretty big vps, and always monitored so I can be sure that everything is running smoothly, this is also pretty secured). I didn't like when they once restarted my vps without asking, and load issue was still there. Again a few days later, they restarted again, like it was my problem. (And figured later that wasn't, but it happens!).
Anyway, this was solved, and their staff was really helpful on this, being really decent with me, just like it SHOULD BE in EVERY company.
Uptime... What can I say, it's true the VPS was rebooted a few times, but, besides that, it's great.
Staff... Always helpful, an extremelly fast support and lovely staff! Just like... hum, Kody, Vladimir... both awesome. (I consider them like business-friends. Honestly, they have helped me A LOT).
It's true that there are a few of them that still need some work heh, but overall, it's really really good.
Support... Extremelly fast and efficient! Top notch. Never saw a company like this.
Hardware... Top notch, NEVER had a disk issue, or something like that. Just like a dream!
Network... PERFECT. But really, just PERFECT. I'm living in Portugal, and I've about 40/50 ms to UK (I choosed UK, but they have other locations), the network is really fast (downloading at 1.7 mb/s from my home, no download accellerators). Also, never had a single downtime.
Billing... Good billing software now. Pretty organised, and simple. I like to keep it simple, easy to use. (And yes, I know that ubbersmith is a COMPLETE software xD)
Price... Excellent. I don't find any place with better prices. Even if I someday find one, I still WON'T move.
Other Issues... Had 2 IP's listed on SBL, reported it, and they already knew, then 2 weeks after the issue was solved. (Yeah yeah 2 weeks, but I emailed SBL and they didn't even answered me , so, vaserv did a great job.)
They just got me as a loyal client, and won't leave them for sure! Rus, great job!
I guarantee you that if you join them, you'll have an excellent service.
Overall:
Uptime: 10/10
Staff: 10/10
Support: 10/10
Price: 10/10
Total: 10/10
What do I want them to get better? Please... just keep providing this quality service.
Join them.
(Domain will be verified as I will submit through the Report button.)
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Oct 20, 2009
I can't say that I can recommend CheapVPS's (VAServ) services to anyone. In the end of July, I bought a VPS from them.
Had some initial troubles with the set up - they accidently set up 2 VPS's for me and set the wrong amount of memory, but that was solved by sending a support ticket. Wanted Debian instead of CentOS, another support ticket.
In the end of August, I canceled it - mostly because I didn't need it anymore. However, September already came and I was charged for the VPS. I sent a ticket to their billing department asking for a refund, and they gave it to me, no problem there.
I go on with everyday life, until October comes. I guess I forgot to cancel the PayPal subscription for my VPS because I'm charged for it once again. I promptly cancel the subscription and fire off a support ticket.
This time, they're insanely slow to respond to this. I sent a ticket in on Oct 1. and I get a response on the 8th: they ask me for a PayPal transaction ID. I send it to them, and I haven't received any reply since.
On Oct. 15 I tried adding a new comment to my support ticket, but I still have not received any response.
Today, I try to nag their live chat salesperson and they tell me that they've "added a note on my ticket for the billing department".
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Oct 2, 2009
vaserv does not reply my emails now that Rus has kindly provided me a refund ( after my node has been wiped and before that my backup took almost 14 days to get made and after that the catastrophe took place)
Ive sent 3 emails asking for this ( maybe 4) and no one replies back..
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Oct 25, 2008
I used to have a VPS with VPSEmpire prior to the vaserv takeover. It was a disaster.
However, I haven't seen any reviews on VPSEmpire since the takeover. Is anyone using VPSEmpire since vaserv and Russ has taken ownership?
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Sep 27, 2008
Today i found out my server was suspended by VAserv without any notice beforehand. They sent me a email stating that i violated some policy as per email here:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The server was suspended for AUP violations. Your server has IRC chat software installed as the message clearly states that
===================
> I found these suspicious looking connections on the Undernet IRC Chat
> Network connecting from a netblock you control. The originating ip(s)
> and undernet server(s) each one was connected to is listed below. The
> destination port they were using is most likely port 6667. Other
> possible
==================
The Chat software that you are using may be using IRC as an internal interface for operation.
Regarding the supension, We suspend all the domains, vps, servers who violate our terms and conditions and comes under scanner for AUP violations without any warnings given.
------------------------------------------------------------------
i am not running any IRC clients/servers. The only thing remotely close is a Userplane webchat app that i'm currently installing, and that is a private chat script. So even after all this emailing back and forth, my server is still suspended. Very lack of respect for their customers. I'm preparing to move my business elsewhere, i've actually been waiting for this... just needed a reason, and now i have one. Since they took over EpicVPS.. my original 80gb allocated storage have been taken away... somedays i see 50gb , other days i see 30gb.. i suppose they are overselling which is causing the fluctuation, even though they claimed its backup storage lol. Anyhow... has anyone encountered this, do they have the right to lock me out of my own server without notice?
I noticed that since their acquisition of EpicVPS, there has been alot of attitude from staff and a lot less user friendly. Network lags alot more now as well. All downhill.
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Oct 13, 2009
I had three VMs with Fsck VPS, dating back to before they got hacked in June. I've been paying the bill since then, I imagined as a kind of insurance, so that I had the VMs handy if I needed to use them in a big hurry. Last week, I tried to log in, and found that my three VMs didn't exist, anymore. As far as I can tell, the VMs haven't existed since the June break-in.
SETUP / PROVISIONING
My first reaction was "They've been billing me for three months, and providing nothing?!??!" I'll be honest, I was pretty tweaked, but after I'd calmed down I decided to see how they handled the situation. So I submitted a ticket asking for an explanation: How long had the machines been down for, and what would it take to get them back up and running?
It took about a day, but we eventually established that VAServ could build three new OpenVZ VMs, and that they would give me three months' credit for those three machines. Since I actually do need the VMs, and I didn't really want to fight about the billing, I decided to go for it. It took another day, but I did get three new machines up and running.
Unfortunately, I do have some complaints about the process, specifically:
- VAServ's technical support is very inconsistent, and different techs seem to have vastly different levels of communications skill and professionality.
- Many of the techs don't seem to bother reading your ticket, beyond the subject. They tend to only be capable of answering the first question in each ticket/email, and they ignore anything else you've asked.
- After the FSCKVPS/VAServ buyout, following the break-in, the HyperVM control panel was disabled. If you need a reboot, or a root password reset, or anything that you can't accomplish yourself by SSHing into the VM, you have to open a ticket. (Seems like a chancy proposition, now, to me.)
REBOOT-AND-PRAY
Today, I started seeing memory allocation errors in running programs. The machine mostly worked, but certain operations (shell scripts, in particular) would error out. I opened a ticket asking for some guidance, and within less than 10 minutes, the VM started rebooting. I got an update about the ticket a few minutes later, and was told that the VM had been reconfigured (increased memory allocation limit) and rebooted.
I was pretty mad about the no-notice reboot. I'd been in the middle of editing a bunch of configuration files, and I lost an hour of work. It just seems so unprofessional and inconsiderate for VAServ's technician to bounce the VM without confirming it with me, first.
I did get an explanation/apology from the tech who rebooted the machine. I asked him to have his supervisor contact me, which took a few hours, but I did hear back. The supervisor wrote:
"...we reboot the vps if we found any VPS out of memory. Normally most of the service stop working or access got killed when VPS is out of memory..."
To me, it sounds like the reboot is a standard procedure for a common problem. Given that kind of environment, it's only natural that the tech's first impulse would be to reboot, given a ticket about memory errors.
At the same time, it's also indicative of a bottom-of-the-barrel service, isn't it?
- Memory problems seem to be common--is that because they're over-subscribed? Does your 512MB allocation mean anything, or is it just talk?
- The staff can't / won't bother to read through a ticket and give it some consideration.
- The staff has an itchy reboot finger. Their first impulse is to power-cycle, rather than to try to understand and fix the issue directly.
FOR THE FUTURE
I do intend to continue using VAServ / FSCKVPS, at least for now. They're really cheap, about $10/month for a 512MB VM, and I can mostly get done with what I need to do. But this is a qualified opinion. I am solely using these VMs for simple R&D projects: Quasi-professional work, stuff that nobody is currently paying me to do.
Given my experiences so far, I would never trust these guys with a real, money-making business project. VAServ / FSCKVPS is suitable for toying around with, or if you're flat broke, but I wouldn't bet my job on them if I could possibly help it.
I'm setting a calendar reminder for myself, right now, to check back in another month or so with an update to this post. Assuming I'm still chugging along with these VMs, I'm going to make a point of posting my impressions on a regular basis.
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Nov 14, 2008
A short review of a2b2.com [url]after a few days - I will update this review thread, when I have more experience with this host.
The short story
My server broke down wednesday morning. All my websites were down, my e-mail were down and I didn't know what to do. The hosts couldn't find the error on the server and I waited for a long time between each answers from the (US based) support team.
After 2 hours were the server still was down I searched for good offers for a new server. I cam across a2b2.com and found their offer and speed of server pretty fine. I contacted their sales department and go answers quickly. After around 1½ hour they found a server that they were able to finish for me the same day! I confirmed the order an paid with credit card a few minutes past 12. I go the IP of the server an hour later and could start changed DNS for my most important domains.
Around 3pm could see the server was up running - and asked the tech team at a2b2 if I could get access to the server. Few minutes later I got the offer that I could install the basic software (like apache and so on) by myself if I wanted - if confirmed and got the root login immidately.
The period between the payment and the time I got the root login was only 3 hours! I can't be better than that. Totally 5 hours including discussions about what server I wanted and so on.
The server is fast (from Denmark where im located) and the support have been execellent so far. I hope this continues, then I will be a happy customer They made my bad day a lot better.
I will try to write a new review when I been at a2b2.com a bit longer (a month or so). Hopefully as good as this one.
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Oct 20, 2008
I have checked a2b2.com offers I heard that they are awesome UK provider have anyone tried their services before?
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Aug 30, 2008
both these providers are good UK and US providers and have spoken to both in the past thats why i cant decide who to go for on a VPS? So what i decided was to ask them both in public and get opinion of others,
My specs are 512mb ram with 1gb bust a nice hd and good ram based in the UK which both of u offer, i would proberley go for semi managed and cpanel.
Now my questions to you both is if i had a DDos (which i have never) what would you do to my vps?
My next question is how do you share the servers cpu? If fairshare how many on a node and how much of the cpu does each node get as a basic, i know they get full bust proberley?
My next question to both is how do you manage support? Rus i know you have taken over many companys so does that not affect the support timings.
What are the catches as in the small print
Fianlly can you both tell me why should i choose you?
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Jun 24, 2007
i try to access www.a2b2.com but i cant open the page.
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Apr 18, 2007
I'm considering getting a VPS server to run 2 or 3 small websites and also a SVN and Trac server for a team of at present 2 people. In the future, I can see this team getting no bigger than 5 - 10 people.
At the moment I am considering the Starter Plan from Solidhost (Drat, can't post links)
Or the £22/month plan from a2b2 (Drat, can't post links)
I am based in the UK myself, so really a UK server would be best for me as I understand UK (and to some extent, European) law a lot more than US law (not that I would be hosting anything illegal, it's just having to think "Hmm, can I do that in America" before I do something... bleh)
The Solidhost server seems to be fully managed, that's nice to know because considering I am currently running the SVN and Trac server from my house on an old Laptop, I still have a tenancy to break things
The a2b2 server says it's Semi-Managed, although it doesn't (or at least that I can see) state whether this includes server hardening in the Management scheme, this is something which Solidhost seem to be keen on helping people with.
Anyway, was just wondering what other people though about these plans in general and also hopefully get some opinions of people on these plans.
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Jun 27, 2008
Purchased a vps from CheapVPS/A2B2 a month ago (There was a special running on WHT..and i wanted the vps urgently so they deployed it within 30 minutes ).Support rocks.My tickets are answered within 10 minutes and they even have msn support!Today, i ordered another vps and they deployed it within 30 minutes again .
I highly recommend Cheapvps/A2b2.
Support 10/10
Setup Time 10/10
Overall Experience: 10/10
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Jun 8, 2008
Any one use a2b2.com, any reviews or comments?
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Oct 20, 2008
I've been with A2B2 for around just over 18 months now and feel that I'm well placed to right an overall review.
I originally signed up with the A2B2 brand after having problems with numerous other VPS hosting providers - I won't name names but I'll say that I went through several different companies before ending up with A2B2. I orginally had a VPS on the East coast with DirectAdmin, but I felt this wasn't to my needs so changed VPS plans.
Like in a previous review I can find all these different brand names confusing. It would be better if there was just one brand name offering the whole bag (shared and VPS hosting).
I later on found out about the CheapVPS brand which suited my needs more in terms of what you get for your money and the fact that I don't need any support for my VPS servers. I still have several CheapVPS VPS servers to this day, and find them totally reliable.
Support overall is okayish, could be better in some area but I'm not complaining since I receive a good level of service for what I pay. I have to say its been better with the new support staff, but can find things a little difficult with them sometimes which can result with the intervention of Rus (who is a great guy).
Setup times were always fast, never had any problems in that area either. In terms of server reliability, I've never had any noticable downtime apart from entire DC outages at BS.
So in summary, out of 10:
Support: 8.5
Reliability: 9
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Oct 13, 2007
I have been with A2B2/CheapVPS for well over 6 months now. I have multiple VPS with them, both US and UK based, and a mixture of Windows and Linux. I have no complaints about the networks or servers, having only experienced a couple of down times because of chassis swaps and network problems. Support has been okay, but not the best; my suggestion would be that other staff apart from Rus (the owner) have access to facilities so that they are able to set rDNS, reload Windows VPS and other things like that, as far as I'm aware and from what I've seen, these kind of things can only be done by Rus. As those kind of things can only be done by Rus, the support ticket can easily drag on for a bit, and Rus being a new father means that he doesn't always have the time to reply to the tickets.
Although I have my few opinions of the support situation, I will not be moving to another host anytime soon as I'm happy with the state of my servers with A2B2, and as long as the servers are up I'm happy.
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Jan 6, 2007
I'm coming upto a months service with a2b2 and have to say it's been a pleasure using the services. It might not all be fully automated with a nice gui but the service provides everything I need including stable servers for developing
Support = 5/5
The times i've been required to contact them they have replied fast and dealt with the issues i've had and have been polite and easy to communicate with during pre-sales also.
Network = 5/5
I cannot say i've noticed any downtime with them, I will admit i've not monitored the VS too closely but everytime i've tried and SSH session it's been there ready for use.
Server Speed = 5/5
After being with VPSlink for a few months and getting extremly tired of the slow diskspeeds it's been a dream using my VPS with a2b2. no lagging when typing commands.
I've got one of there £12.50 packages but minus CPanel as I wanted to build my own mailserver.
Service, Reliabilty and Support knock the socks off what VPSlink provide I can't speak highly enough of Rus and his team
I will be moving out of VPSLink this month since i've just finished configuring my development server with a2b2, I'm not going to post the url hosted with a2b2 but will provide it in a pm to a moderator if they require it as it's a dev platform I don't really want the world knowing the url
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Oct 1, 2007
Ive been with a2b2 for exactly 9 months today, so I guess that now is a good time to post a review.
I better quickly state my package that I had. It was a custom special double ram package that I found over here at WHT:
512mb RAM Guaranteed
1024MB RAM Burst
600GB Bandwidth
15GB Web space
2ip's
Unmanaged
London Bluesquare datacenter
All for ~£14.50 a month
I liked this package and service so much that I decided to pay for an entire year a few months ago. Rus gave me 3 specials options: double RAM, Double Bandwidth or 12 months for the price of 10. I decided to go for the double RAM option so now I have 1024mb RAM Guaranteed and 2048MB RAM Burst.
The main site that im hosting is www.spudmud.com (300,000 + page views in September with around 45,000 Uniques a month) as well as a few very small sites.
Now I better get to the reviews:
1. Speed
The server was extremely fast in all respects. It almost seems like im the only one on my node. The specs as I can see them are 8 x 2.7GHz Xeons so its really is quite a tank with the best hardware.
Once when my site was on the front page of HeavyGames.com I was getting ~1 visitor every few seconds (the game file was ~2MB big) and I did notice that the site was starting to feel the strain (probably because of my bad programming ) and I submitted a ticket to support and Rus upgraded a few of my limits and the server was running super fast again. Since that every new game on heavy games doesn't even seem to effect my server with the new limits (not sure what Rus upgraded but it did the trick).
2. Uptime
Since I got my server I would guess that I have had around 99.99% network uptime and around 99.8% server uptime. There have been one or two network problems but they were fixed fast.
My VPS had one day where it was down for 17 hours because it "Hung" and I was on holiday so didn't know until I checked at an Internet cafe and I issued an reboot request and it was back up within a few minutes. I have never has any problems with my node, just with my own VPS, probably because im not the best server manager.
3. Support
Well all tickets are answered within a few minutes or up to 1 hour max but I would say around a 5 minute average response time.
4. Cost
Im very happy with the price of ~£14.50 for what I am actually getting. Even now when I look in the VPS offers section I don't see many providers offering anything even close to what a2b2 offers hardware and support wise.
5. Features
a2b2 offers HyperVM which is great for rebooting you own server or monitoring your memory usage and traffic usage.
They also offer a DNS cluster for those who want it but I havent set mine up yet.
The only problem with a2b2 is that it has no RAID so I need to backup everything myself but a2b2 offers very cheap backup space so its not too bad.
6. Conclusion
To summarize I would call my 9 month time so far a very pleasant experience and I highly recommend a2b2 to anyone that wants a reliable and fast vps with very good support and a very nice price.
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Apr 18, 2007
I try calling they never answer the phone, I try them on AIM they never answer. I haven't been with them long, so far I needed 2 reboots the first one took 2 hours and the second one is going on 5 hours and still hasn't been done.
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Oct 17, 2007
I have been hosting my vps with a2b2.com since May/2007 till Oct/2007 .
This hosting company owned by Rus Foster offers great hosting packages with suitable prices. I purchased vps from them and they helped me transferring my website to my new vps , also they have a very nice support team ! Whenever i submit a ticket (via email) they respond asap (usually within minutes.. )
They have been always helpful .. specially when i face a problem with my vps as iam a newbie in vps issues .
My vps was in uk and it was always fast and even faster than usa hosts .. (maybe coz UK is nearer to Jordan than USA )
Not forget to mention that they offer live chat on their website and also on msn .. and also, whenever my vps goes down while iam away from internet .. i just send sms to them in order to get it rebooted!
Now i have upgraded to a dedi server with them and i hope this review will be useful to anybody looking for a good hosting company with great support team and excellent service .
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Mar 30, 2009
Product: 2x VPS
Service: Fully managed
=== Setup and Support ===
I was a little disappointed with the speed of setup. I paid for the hosting, but it took them 5 days to get the VPS online and accessible for me. I was told this was because they were "waiting for the DirectAdmin license to be provided by the provider". Not sure what that means, but I paid for 5 days of nothing.
Once the VPS was up, I received very fast responses to my tickets as I got the server ready for my sites migration from another host. They upgraded Apache/PHP for me, plus installed a PHP module I needed. Later they installed an SSL certificate for me, which helped me out a lot (DA's interface kept failing).
Most ticket responses were within a few minutes, but on numerous occasions the responses weren't great (as you'd expect with such quick replies). Several times I had to retype details I had already provided in my initial ticket -- which made me wonder how carefully they read and understood my support requests.
Overall I was impressed enough after a couple months hosting my own sites, that I suggested that my company moved its customer sites to A2B2.
The setup for this second VPS again took 5 days, which just seems a bit too long to me. Luckily, we had no time pressure on us, but, if your project does, I would certainly seek some kind guarantee from A2B2 before you place your order.
=== Reliability ===
A2B2 have been less good here. Some of the problems I have experienced over the last 8 months include: backups failing (error message "system load higher than acceptable limits"); the VPS being non-responsive (tickets yield the same "the load on the node seems fine" response and there is never a satisfactory investigation); DirectAdmin license expiring and locking us out; Apache randomly going down and not restarting (I'm still waiting on an explanation); and running out of hard drive space.
The last one is the most worrying since it caused numerous failures on customer sites and locked us out of DirectAdmin. On the VPS in question we had used 211MB of 10GB, which raises the question of whether A2B2 are overselling.
The problem was solved by them "deleting some files", which didn't fill me with confidence for the future.
=== Value for money ===
I think the price point for the two managed VPS I have is good, in particular given the amount of work the support team are prepared to do. The margins on selling web hosting to our customers are tiny, so we can accept some of the issues we've experienced. Also, when there has been a problem it has always been fixed. This has sometimes involved Rus stepping in to take over from the off-shore support.
=== Conclusion ===
The good outweighs the bad and A2B2 still probably represents the best bet for UK-based companies wanting a managed VPS service. However, compared to some of the US companies I think they fall (a little) short on the quality of the service and technical competence of the front line support.
I'd rate them thus:
Support: 6 out of 10 (but 8 out of 10 for effort)
Reliability: 6 out of 10
Value: 7 out of 10
Overall: a solid 6.5 out of 10
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