The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what else? They've seem to have all been killed off. When I'm researching some category of product, I feel lucky if I find any professional reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing. I know we've all had the experience googling "reviews of X" only to get overwhelmed with SEO spam. Forget finding something written by somebody who has experience with it. It's hard enough to find something written by a human.
It will be interesting if LMG can pull off what Linus is aiming for with the massive investment in a laboratory environment. There are huge parts of the tech market where the most critical reviewing you can find is anecdotal accounts of if the reviewer liked a product or not (or the more clinical reviews are drowned out by the anecdotal noise).
Just in case not everyone are in the loop, LMG is Linus Media Group [1] which is the publishing agency behind the popular YouTube channel "Linus Tech Tips" [2]. It is a different Linus, not Torvalds. :)
I'm hopeful for LMG's lab too. It's still a bit of a gamble, but from the sound of it the company is set up such that they can review products in an objective, data-backed way and tank any blowback from manufacturers that occurs as a result.
It's much more focused on enthusiast computer hardware, but Gamers Nexus[0] is doing good things in this space too. Their style is much more dry and data-dense than LMG's though, which isn't everybody's cup of tea.
Second this. Whenever I'm looking up a review for a notebook, my default search term is "<model> notebookcheck" to see if they've done a review.
The visual size comparison tool is also extremely handy for comparing something you're about to buy, with something you already have access to. It gives you a much better sense of how much bigger/smaller this thing is.
Yeah they're great and in-depth and without the stupid showmanship of Linus. Just the info without the hot air :) Always the site I go for, wish they did more types of products.
Hey, maybe the showman ship isn't for you, but what Linus and his Media Group have done is create the Top Gear of Enthusiast computer hardware. Tremendous entertainment value, exposure for niche sects of the culture, and an easy entry into the space for newcomers and young folks. That's gotta be good for something.
Their display "shootouts" are unparallelled in my opinion. For example they look at colour accuracy not only at high brightness but also at really low brightness, where displays often 'cheat' by reducing the contrast when they reach the limit of their backlight dimming. Which significantly impacts colour fidelity.
They also do many other types besides mobile displays, I just linked to that as an example.
PS: Sorry for calling out Linux for his showmanship but I just dislike this generation of Youtube "celebrity" that appeals to the mainstream over getting out of the way of high quality content. The only one I really have time for is Dave from EEVblog. Despite being quite the showman he really has the brains and doesn't hold back on technical info.
Thank you for the link. And there is no reason to apologize. You are not incorrect in your interpretation. I subscribe to LTT on YouTube, but it's for entertainment.
I go with LTT if I want to know if a laptop is good to use or not.
I go with Gamer's Nexus if I want to know if a GPU used the wrong kind of thermal interface for their VRMs and what effect that has on core clocks second by second, backed by rigorous scientific benchmarks producing huge amounts of data, summarized in highly detailed graphs.
On a tangential note, I prefer GN for their understated delivery and heavy use of data and charts. On some channels the emphasis is clearly more on the -tainment part of infotainment. The default tech video is is now produced with the same template: little jokes between presenters, background history, open ended questions, Netflix type camera shots on the couch, post processing, visual effects etc. With GN at least it's easy to FF to see a graph and listen to conclusions. Other channels require me to be emotionally invested in the content and delivey method and it gets very tiring after a while.
There is no denying that "Linus (Torvalds) Tech Tips" would not be extremely entertaining though. I would love to see him just go off on everything. :)
Do you trust Linus, though? He often promotes himself as without bias, but he very clearly hates Apple (except the watch). He also loves things he already understands (anything Microsoft). He's got heavy duty fanboyitis. And he's clearly someone you can buy demonstrated by his flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise.
I don't think he outwardly lies (at least not in a way that matters), or anything, but he's got pretty good soft selling skills which he definitely uses for evil/to make money.
All LMG channels are great. But to me anyways, they're great because they're basically comedies.
As an Apple fanboy, I can easily say that Linus does not hate Apple.
Linus DOES hate a lot of what Apple does; cases where they make things more unrepairable for no real reason, or various socio-political causes (like opposing Right to Repair or unions or whatever).
Regardless of that though, I would trust a Linus review of a new iPhone or iPad a lot more than I would trust a lot of other sites, because I know he's not going in with Apple fanboyism (the way I would, for example), and he gives reasons for all his opinions.
Fundamentally, he always comes across as principled. If he has an opinion he'll tell you, and he'll give you a reason. He'll admit that he was wrong when he (believes he) was wrong. He'll contextualize his thoughts so you can decide if this or that opinion is really relevant to your situation.
As far as I've seen, his AMD/Intel/nvidia opinion changes follow along with the facts. He's pretty PO'ed at Intel for basically just sitting around with their fingers up their asses for however many years, and only actually trying to make good products at good prices (and largely failing) when AMD suddenly stepped everything up.
nvidia makes great video cards, the best on the market, but he's not going to avoid calling them out for shady or anti-consumer business practices. AMD makes great CPUs and good video cards, but if they have a disingenuous benchmark or claim he's going to say something about it.
I dunno, no one is entirely unbiased, but from what I've seen over the years, I can trust Linus more than most other people.
As an Apple apologist, I also concur with most of the above.
Though I do find it amusing that Linus has often commented negatively on companies that don't want their employes to unionise, when Linus does much the same thing. In the case of LMG, Linus employs emotional threats, publicly warning his employees that forming a union would represent a declaration of "personal failure". Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with Linus here. Unionising is what you do in response to exploitation, not as a default state of affairs. I just wish he could see the parallel when commenting on other companies which aren't currently unionised.
[Edit: just noticed that this exact point was already discussed to death elsewhere in this sub-thread.]
Not to mention that if you wait to unionize until you are being exploited, you will have far less power to resist coercion. Striking when you have some money under the mattress is a lot easier than doing so after you've eaten the last of the shoe leather.
Which is great in theory, until you realise that unions can and do exploit workers too. Collectives of people (whether corporations, unions, or entire countries) tend towards corruption as they scale. History has shown that large unions are similarly prone to exploitation and corruption.
If you're part of a union, you don't gain negotiating power, you trade away individual negotiating power for collective negotiating power. Sometimes this is a good trade. It depends on the context, on the industry, on the sort of work you do.
> History has shown that large unions are similarly prone to exploitation and corruption.
Mostly in the US, it seems. Unions in Europe are healthy and effective. The key difference IMO is the interest people show in democracy and holding delegates accountable.
Here is my experience with "public" unions. When I was working at a public research institute, employees were kind of forced to enter a union. It seemed ok because union's cut was paid by government. Government just wants to look cute to public eye and EU. That union were more or less useless and just collecting huge sums of money. Where does that money goes nobody dares to check. My wife also had to enter a Teacher's union and that is a much larger scam. IMO, Most public unions are parasites living on free government money.
It's also somwehat moot. Unions in the U.S. get their workers better pay and better benefits pretty much regardless of corruption and did so even at the peak of their influence and corruption.
I think it's reasonable to argue against corruption but if you're argument against almost any human institution is just that it is corrupt, then you are arguing against the majority of human institutions ever. Which simply isn't practical.
In the Netherlands they've also become corrupted. The big union leaders have become so used to sitting at the executive table that they've lost track of the people they represent. Of course there's exceptions but I feel that they listen to corporate concerns way too much.
But unfortunately the Netherlands is the country with the most Anglo-Saxon model that is still in the EU. So it was bound to happen.
You also unionise to prevent exploitation, it's not just a reactionary option. Yes, it can get unnecessarily adversarial. We'd be better off if unions were the default but were only adversarial where necessary. I believe countries like Germany do a bit better at this?
As someone who loathes Apple, I disagree. But I do agree that there's basically no place to get a trustworthy resource on Apple. Because, for the same reason I don't trust Linus, money is involved.
It is unreasonable to expect any one source to be consistently reliable. The "trustworthy resource" is multiple sources with diverse views. Combine your LMG diet with some Rene Ritchie, Hoeg Law, etc.
Thats was true some time ago, but isn't anymore - for every authentic review you will find hundreds of fake SEO article/comments. This means that by simply increasing n you're basically guaranteed to be less informed.
> And he's clearly someone you can buy demonstrated by his flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise.
He gives praise where praise is due, that isn't bias. Many times on the WAN show he's reminded viewers and especially Red/Green/Blue fanboys that none of these companies are your friend. And big deal if he's more productive using Windows than Linux.
I'm in no way defending Linus, there's a bunch of stuff him and another staffer get up to that's utterly cringeworthy. But as to the rest of your comment I think it's your own biases that are playing in your head.
Maybe, but those WAN show lectures are often starkly mirroerd by strongly worded submarine advertisement playing as segments on his various shows. He basically does a thing, then says that people shouldn't do that. To put it gently, it's exactly what someone with soft sales skills would do. He deflects like a politician. Even if he's wrong, and admitting it, he's very skilled at making it sound like its everyone who was wrong, or he's the hero for admitting it.
Narcissist is probably the word.
Again, I like the shows (well until his rabid fanboyism or petulance comes out). I mostly just don't trust him to review things.
> Maybe, but those WAN show lectures are often starkly mirroerd[sic] by strongly worded submarine advertisement playing as segments on his various shows.
Every one of their videos clearly mention who the sponsors are i.e. the "sponsored showcase" videos. And when they're not those types of videos, but just have regular advertising, they say out loud and clear "and this segway's to our sponsor...".
I'm not shilling for the fella but their content is some of the best when it comes to being transparent about who's paying for their videos. He can't risk getting that wrong.
> Narcissist is probably the word.
He's clearly offended you somehow and sometime in the past so why continue to watch their content? If a content creator offended me this much then I'd just walk away.
How do you know what he's saying isn't only half truths? You just trust him. I have seen enough of his behaviour over the years to prefer to see his videos as comedy. That's all.
He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his employees from marketing themselves on personal social media (to stop them from building a following and then leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his content or support his business in any way now.
I know this is completely subjective, and his millions of subscribers tell me my opinion is far from ubiquitous, but he's also just straight up obnoxious to me. One of those people whose voice, demeanor, appearance, everything, just immediately turns me off.
Do you mind sharing some links to back up these claims?
Just watched a video [0] where he clearly comes across as being pro workers rights, and against passing prop 22 in California. He seems to be generally pro-union while still trying to point out some general issues with them. He also says he would be "offended" if his employees unionized at LMG, which while maybe is a bit stupid to say, I don't think counts as anti-union.
People should also understand why he said he would be offended. He would be offended because it meant they didn’t talk to him and work with him - and that he did such a bad job as a manager that they decided to unionize.
He’s pro-union - he just hopes he is a good enough boss that his employees don’t feel like they need to unionize. He clarified his viewpoint in later videos. Offended was probably not the best choice of word - and he admits that too. I don’t recall the video but someone can find it. (I’m on mobile and on vacation - idk why I’m even here)
Anyone who is truly “pro-union” would recognize that seeing yourself as a good manager/boss doesn’t mean you don’t take advantage of your employees. Furthermore, there is ALWAYS a power dynamic at play that makes it difficult for individuals to speak up about their concerns or ideas for improving working conditions — even “nice” managers will disagree or see certain things as pointless / unnecessary / frivolous. Not to mention, Linus is both the owner AND the manager of LMG, making the relationship between employer / employee even more complex and unbalanced.
Unions are a tool to give individual workers more leverage in negotiations that almost always favour employers / managers.
A side note: Linus could be a great day-to-day manager, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a bad “ceo” if that’s what he calls himself. He can be incredibly personable and kind and supportive, but also have unreasonable expectations about work hours, employee’s social media activities, compensation, etc.
Do you have a source for the work hours? I had the impression that he very much tries to not ask for more then he pays for. Do you have a source that the compensations at LTT are somehow unreasonable?
As for not having a YouTube channel, i find that a reasonable demand for employees of a company running YouTube channels. They are allowed to do game streaming stream on Twitch and stuff like that.
No, that would mean you support each woman who wants to have one and you probably shouldn't tell them it offends you if they do. Especially if they depend on you financially and you can break up with them without consequence.
I interpret it closer to being pro-choice while hoping to not personally need an abortion. Unions form when workers feel they aren't being heard and aren't being properly represented. Having a union form at your own company is an indication that you failed your employees in one way or another. You can be pro-union while hoping to personally never need one or have to sit across the table from one.
> Having a union form at your own company is an indication that you failed your employees in one way or another.
This is absolutely untrue. A kind of propaganda talking point that paints unions like some kind of vicious weapon that you want workers to have if they absolutely need to defend themselves against assault, but you'd rather not have the assault take place at all.
Unions give workers concentrated power to balance against the concentrated power of corporations. That's it. They are one side of the scale.
That's a wrong way to view unions though, a propagandized American way. Unions should really be default and not imply some sort of moral failing about the employer. Sadly they are viewed as such.
Yeah, pro-choice but hoping not to have an abortion is probably a lot of people's position. But then telling your partner who depends on you financially that it would disappoint you if they had one sorta changes things, dont you agree? Especially if theyre already pregnant.
As for unions, everyone should unionize. It's literally the only way to even out the power dynamic. Good companies, bad companies - it makes no difference. There goal is to pay you as little as they can, so yours should be to get paid as much as you can. Unions make that process easier for the majority of people.
Pro-choice means every pregnant woman should have the choice and a real chance to abort their pregnancy if they choose. It's kind of right there in the name.
This is an extremely American -- and misinformed -- view of unions. Where I'm from unions are the default, not formed as a last resort to unjust treatment but a natural counterbalance to corporate/institutional power.
Someone saying they'd rather not have their workers form a union is not pro-union. That's like saying you support workers sharing information but you would be offended if your workers talked about their salaries because that would infer that they don't trust you to be fair.
I watch one of his employees stream on twitch, I found out about his channel from a Linus tech tips video, I don't think your second claim is all that true.
a lot of LMG employees have personal social media and either YouTube or Twitch streams, often getting viewers from fans of their persona on LMG videos. I think the issue is only with competing content and/or leveraging the LMG platform. For example, if an employee started a GPU review channel and called it out in an LMG video, like ok yeah probably not. More like non-compete than some draconian restrictions
Honestly, I would expect that from him as CEO. He only makes money off people watching the channel and subscription numbers are hugely important. Any efforts by employees to gain subscribers for their channels could dilute visitor numbers and subscribers to LMG. And obviously he doesn't want to create competition.
In the end he's still a CEO and the others are his employees, not his friends. For that, he doesn't appear to be a terrible boss.
This is a silly take. Tech evolves and companies release more than one product at a time. It would be weird if LTT /didn't/ have "flip-flopping" takes on various companies.
I disagree that it's silly. I think that's unfairly dismissive of a valid point when he is paid money to advertise for those companies and we are discussing the validity of his reviews of that equipment.
It's silly because it isn't a valid point. Linus flip flopping on those brands is precisely why he isn't suffering from fanboyitis.
It's kind of rediculous to claim he's a fanboy in one sentence then claim he's just a shill in the next when the evidence contradicts your first statement.
Yes, and I agree that you can see those actions as being contrary to my proposed scenario. I sort of see them as evidence in the other direction, but it's good to hear it said out loud. Makes good food for thought.
LTT makes almost all of it's money from floatplane, youtube premium, and youtube advertisements. The "deals" they work with companies are almost entirely outside of the product space they review.
This mud-slinging idea you continue to push (with zero evidence) is contrary to their financials and directly contrary to their business model.
Why on earth would Linus leverage his entire business in debt to buy a huge facility to produce hardware reviews if that would mean "his sponsors" (your salacious claim) would abandon him or force him to change?
It literally doesn't make sense. If they were truly bought and paid for and producing faux-content that is actually advertising, they would have legitimately zero need to spend millions of dollars on hardware testing labs.
>LTT makes almost all of it's money from floatplane, youtube premium, and youtube advertisements
In the recent video they did on their most profitable videos Linus explicitly said money from YouTube is only a small fraction of their revenue. I don't imagine Floatplane is much of a profit centre either...
Linus did a video on how much money they make from youtube premium/ads and the numbers can get as high as $50k-$100k/video for their most popular streams. It's not nothing. Floatplane is profitable because it's a subscription based system, and that's where the money always is. Hence patreon.
Salacious is an eminently accurate word for your string of source-less comments describing your feelings about their advertisements under the guise of actual accusations of wrongdoing.
I don't "disagree with you", I dismiss you. I provided an accurate description of their financials and incentives and demonstrated that your salacious claims literally don't make sense.
This is good and normal! We should always dismiss peoples feelings especially when they directly contradict all available evidence. However, I happily await your evidence demonstrating that Linus has been corrupted by a hardware partner into producing devious advertising! We'd all love for you to back your claims up.
On the most recent wan show, his fans located and harassed an ex employee of the new facility he bought because he was mildly perturbed over the state of the building. That's some unchecked power.
Which he told them beforehand not to do, and afterwards chastised them for doing so, being clearly frustrated that his fans would so something like that and make things worse for everyone.
If he wielded the power himself (encouraged that behavior) that's one thing, but fanbases of scale will eventually always have a subset of people that behave poorly like this despite even being directly told not to by the person they're supposedly a fan of...
You don't. But if I said, "I'm not being sponsored by a rival YouTube channel" would you just go ahead and believe me? What if I also linked to a bunch of videos from a rival YouTube channel while repeating that I'm not sponsored by them.
Not having bias doesn't mean not having an opinion on things. It's a review channel, it doesn't work unless he "likes" some things and "hates" others, as long as he elaborates on the /reasons/ for those opinions.
Well, no, it would work way better if he had no bias. Otherwise you have to trust that he's aware of his bias and is somehow capable of separating his opinion from reality. Otherwise how does it help anyone make a financial choice?
I like the show(s). They're fun. But I don't use them to determine which CPU to buy or whatever. Their opinion changes depending on who is sponsoring them, no?
> Their opinion changes depending on who is sponsoring them, no?
No, to the extent humanly possible. They have reviews, which are not sponsored by anyone having anything to do with the product being reviewed. Those are their actual opinions and evaluations of products.
Separately they have sponsored showcase videos, or whatever they call them, where they won't say anything untrue, but they're just showing off whatever it is, not really evaluating it deeply. These videos are _very_ obviously different, and very obviously labelled.
LTT has top tier policies and openness about these issues compared to really anyone on youtube or anywhere.
More anecdotally, I've seen them give takes on previous or current sponsors that were _very_ not in their financial best interests. If sponsors are paying for easy coverage, they're not getting their money's worth.
> Well, no, it would work way better if he had no bias.
That would just be lying. There are no humans without biases.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-zt57TWkTF4 is probably a good summary on Linus's thoughts on sponsors/funding. If you trust what he says or not is up to you. I do though.
Same way anyone knows anything, really. I look at what they've said, look at their actions and decided if they matched. You can tell that they genuinely want and try to do good.
Certainly feel free to evaluate differently for yourself.
I watch a lot of their content. Mostly it's just fun, but I do trust them to have pretty good takes on things when I'm considering buying something as well.
I do always check others though, mostly for the real gritty details that LTT doesn't usually focus on. I'm hoping that their Labs project starts providing a lot more of those too.
Thanks, I have and that is where my original position comes from. Got some good alternative perspectives today though. Interesting to hear the same thing as evidence of either position.
My fav part of the channel is the rest of the team. One thing you can't fault Linus for is his ability to hire entertaining characters and promote a fun environment. That is a great skill. There's at least 5 other people there who could be YouTube empires all on their own.
> One thing you can't fault Linus for is his ability to hire entertaining characters and promote a fun environment. That is a great skill. There's at least 5 other people there who could be YouTube empires all on their own.
Yeah, agreed, it's a bit absurd to me how they've managed to collect so many actually talented, entertaining people.
By offering them a a better deal then starting from nothing as a YouTuber and then "hooking" them with things such as writing staff, filming locations, good equipment, good people behind the camera, credit for their work and editing staff as well as access to hardware they would not get otherwise. They surely spend mid 6 digits on their workshop for example. Mostly to make CNC machines create custom heat spreaders.
As somebody who has followed Linus for the last couple of years, I have to say I deeply disagree with your conclusion about hating apple and being for sale.
He is not without flaws, but I think he is fair, balanced and very well-intentioned.
Phones and anything Apple are reviewed to oblivion. There are some incredible consumer product review YouTube channels out there too.. The Best one imo is project farm (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vO3UX4oEnZI). If you're into headphones, Crinacle's site/YT are on a completely different level than any other review site
I really hope LMG does videos in these styles with their lab
> If you're into headphones, Crinacle's site/YT are on a completely different level than any other review site.
Audio Science Review was posting deep-dive technical reviews of amps, dacs, daps, iems, and headphones, years before crinacle made a post on headfi, and I say that as a member of the latter since ‘02. Many audio engineers and enthusiasts have attempted to remove the “reality distortion field” that permeates the prominent audiophile communities (headfi, audiogon) for years; ASR was one of the first to successfully to so (excluding sites dedicated to specialized equipment).
I believe their intention with the lab is to focus more on written articles instead of video content? He’s complained on his podcast (in the context of talking about the lab) about the decrease in quality print journalism in the tech space.
I’m curious about this too. He did a breakdown of how much money they get from ads and it’s not much considering how many employees they have. They have a lot of sponsorships and selling swag but I’m just not sure what their maximum size is as just another YouTube channel, even one with lots of revenue streams.
Dude literally has a brand new house where he wrote off all the renovation as business expense as he was filming it for his channel. He's totally fine.
I dont think he wrote off the renovations, as that would be problematic from a tax perspective. what he probably does is charge LMG what would be considered a reasonable rate to film on at his home and he makes money back that way.
i.e. this came up when he was talking about the wall tv. he couldn't just bill it to lmb and store it at home, he would have to pay for it out of pocket and then charge LMG for every time they used it.
The big problem with most YouTube review channels is that they're reliant on the vendors to provide them with free test units and other forms of access in order to grow their channels, and Linus is no exception.
I actually came across a "why I'm shutting down my channel" video a while back in which the host showed emails from the company whose product she was reviewing (it was a drawing tablet or something like that) pressuring her to show the product in a more favorable light.
It's so hard to tell who's actually objective in those review videos and who's censoring themselves at the request of a vendor.
Maybe not, but those channels still largely rely on regular access from these companies, which always presents a conflict of interest.
I'm sure Linus does just fine in this regard, but the underlying problem still stands: if my Youtube channel's success is dependent on getting that kind of access to products early (as most top-tier reviewers do), I'm always going to have to decide between being as objective as possible and not biting the hand that feeds me.
If you've watched a handful of review videos on YT at this point, there's a pretty good chance at least one of them was pre-approved by the vendor of the product being reviewed and you just don't know it.
I think the review industry is so bad that even a mediocre quality endeavor could gain a ton of traction. The problem with the current tech review industry IMO is that it seems like the benchmarking and review part of it are treated like separate business units that need to be self sustaining / profitable.
If you go by what LMG says on their podcast it sounds like the intent is for the lab to give them credibility and to act as an eyeball funnel, even if it needs to be subsidized by the entertainment side of the business. They've already shown that it's possible to make entertaining reviews if you keep the technical details light, so what they really need is hard data to back them up when they trash a product or get accused of being a corporate puppet.
I personally find their videos to be entertaining, so if I'm looking to buy something and I know they evaluate tech products, I'll go to their labs site, look for entertainment videos that are produced from that data, and watch those videos. Then when I find something I think looks like a good fit for me I'll jump back to the labs side to look at the details.
IMO the thing that might make LMG's effort different is that they're going into the space as a new participant. I think they realize the technical aspect of the lab is basically going to be content that needs to exist, but that no one reads (enough to be profitable) and their monetization is set up to accommodate that scenario. Compare that to traditional reviewers (and SEO spammers) that rely on page views for their revenue.
The whole review industry is going to keep shifting towards video and the low cost, low value SEO spam sites are a big part of that. Any existing review businesses that aren't shifting towards a hybrid model like the LMG / Labs plan are going to get crushed IMO. Even if it's not LMG doing it, it's going to happen eventually.
It will be nice if they do come up with an experiment based approach to reviews. Personally I really enjoy Gamer Nexus since they already do this.
Their coverage of the Nvidia cooler design change was really interesting to watch, and they went into depth on their testing methodology with both its strengths and weaknesses.
Their channel really convinced me to take a more critical look at other “reviews” and how they conduct them with either lazily held thermal camera or smoke machines.
What's the profit model for LMG? Ads? I'm not sure how long that will sustain even a smallish channel with no expenses, let alone electronic testing equipment and products to test.
Gamersnexus has been similarly expanding their capabilities with very expensive fan testing equipment. They seem to be one of the better sources of consumer tech journalism these days.
> The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what else?
I like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen-y stuff.
Project Farm (on YouTube) for tools / DIY stuff perhaps.
And they include best picks that have actually been tested if you might not be able to afford the number 1. So many channels might make a passing comment about a cheaper option, but you never know if the quality is kind of close or just the best option for them to make some affiliate revenue off of. At least ATK has the pedigree to backup their testing claims and anecdotal evidence. Their best pick spatula for example, I've seen in every commercial kitchen I've worked in.
I like a lot of project farm's videos but his electrical tape video was far off the mark of what actually matters. They were good tests for tape but bad tests for Electrical tape.
Fair, and I'd also say that many of the tests he does could really use more data points. For example, testing torque using bolts- I've had a few bad bolts in my life that were weaker than they should have been. I really hope he does that but edits it out.
However, I would say that's the price you pay for an independent reviewer these days. He's (presumably) not simply reading a carefully prepared script by the vendor. That he actually pays for all the things he reviews is astonishing. Likewise, I'll forgive him the occasional bad video.
Speaking of, in the electrical tape video you mention, he tests for things he cares about. Presumably you would have want him to test resistance I presume? I would think so too, but in doing some research while responding to your post, that doesn't seem what anybody actually cares about. Most tapes advertise heat resistance only. I can't actually find a mention of tape in the NFPA, aside from checking it for heat-damage, which makes sense as in house wiring you would be using wirenuts, not tape to actually bridge and insulate connections.
Frankly, I can't think of a single time I've ever cared about it being an insulator since I was a kid hacking together batteries and wires. All that said, on second thought, I guess his video is fine after all; in my book, at least.
Not resistance. More along the line of usability. (I will gladly admit that I am a fan of super 33+ and will pay the $5 a roll any day. My thoughts are a bit skewed.)
Things that matter in electrical tape to me is flexability when wrapping wires. And how well it lasts in the sun. I get that the later test takes awhile. He has done a of couple year long tests but I get why thats rare.
It is hard to explain the difference in cheap electrical tape but if I was to take cheap tape and super 33 (or 88 which is a bit thicker) and wrap something with it the difference in how well they conform is night and day. And the adhesive itself is also a lot better.
It depends on what it's being used for. Adhesion across the expected temperature range is likely the most relevant factor to consumers. The NFPA would likely not call it out specifically, and rather rely on NRTL approval for acceptability. For reference electrical equipment for use in ordinary locations (ANSI 61010), insulating tapes list UL standard 510, CSA no. 197, and IEC 60454.
I already mentioned it above, but repeating it here.
I would also recommend The Torque Test Channel as very similar in approach to Project Farm, maybe a bit more technical and thorough. Their focus was on impact drivers, but they have branched out into other power tools, LED lights and hand tools.
Project Farm rules for the types of products he tests, which is pretty narrow.
It seems like the only way to really get a review is to find someone on youtube who shows the product being used in a way you plan to use it, or someone who does a re-review after a period of time like a year etc
> I like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen-y stuff.
For me, America’s Test Kitchen compromises on quality too much for the sake of convenience. And perhaps that is their target audience, but they dismissed Demeyere’s cookware out of hand for being too heavy and unwieldy, whereas a site like centurylife uses IR cameras and probe thermometers to actually measure heat distribution and retention across different cookware sets.
I don’t understand the “too heavy” complaint anyway; people cook with cast iron (Lodge / Le Creuset) all the time, and it is significantly heavier than Demeyere.
> I don’t understand the “too heavy” complaint anyway; people cook with cast iron (Lodge / Le Creuset) all the time, and it is significantly heavier than Demeyere.
Yes, and they have reviews for cast iron for people that (a) can deal with the weight, and (b) want the thermal 'inertia' of all the extra mass.
But plenty of folks (i) aren't strong enough, or (ii) want something more responsive to heat adjustments.
They have testers of all shapes and sizes: (five-foot-nothing?) Lisa McManus and (six-foot?) Adam Ried would handle things differently:
> I feel lucky if I find any professional reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing
I would say even Wirecutter doesn't always do this. I recall doing research on some products before and encountering a Wirecutter article and the research was essentially just what they themselves pieced together from online sources. They didn't actually try any of the products themselves (they admitted as much in the article). It was very strange and very disappointing.
I’m going to dissent here on this thread because I’m not seeing any references. I personally feel the quality of Wirecutter has gone down since NY Times just a bit. However, after almost a decade of reading Wirecutter they have overwhelming provided a decent “why you should trust us” section for staple consumer items. There is a good example from just today. [1] You can always say they should do more, but honestly they do more research that many others in the space.
>> They didn't actually try any of the products themselves (they admitted as much in the article).
> I’m going to dissent here on this thread because I’m not seeing any references.
OK, here's one such reference in "The Best Baby Formula" [1]:
> We didn’t do any testing for this guide, because babies have minds of their own, and it would be impossible to control for all of the variables that might make a baby prefer one formula over another.
Now there might be various reasons why actually testing the product is difficult or unnecessary to produce a helpful, well-researched review article, but there are definitely examples of this.
That seems justified. (IMO I’d want a review of the ingredients, then it’s up to my kid to prefer flavours.) That choice isn’t related to the choices for products for adults, which is what we care about.
Eh, it'd be easy enough to give samples to 10 different babies to at least see if they have any flavors they prefer. Obviously digestive issues are another matter but your kid drinking it without hassle is the first hurdle.
The only point was to confirm that Wirecutter doesn't always actually test all of the products they review, regardless of whether it's (arguably) justified in each individual case.
This actually speaks a lot in favor of Wirecutter. I wish more guides would be upfront about limitations like this and this is a very reasonable justification.
> a Wirecutter article and the research was essentially just what they themselves pieced together from online sources. They didn't actually try any of the products themselves.
They are saying research is trying the product aka testing…
In general, when a company gets bought out, quality tends to drop. Maybe not immediately, but definitely with time. The new owners have to make back their money and they'll start to cut corners wherever they can. These cuts, even if small, eventually have a negative impact.
I've lost a lot of faith in Wirecutter after NYT bought them out. This is my own very subjective feel on the topic and this article has vindicated my feelings.
> In general, when a company gets bought out, quality tends to drop.
I think you can simplify that to "in general, quality tends to drop."
It isn't malicious; it's reversion to the mean. An organization's reputation comes from its high-water mark of making the most impact and having the widest reach, and being solidly average after that looks like a step back.
This correlates to buyouts because would-be corporate parents (obviously and understandably) want to associate themselves with the prestigious up-and-comer.
However, replacement-level output doesn't compare to the historic highs. This is made more visible because the buyout acts as a nice "before/after" marker even if it has no structural impact, and it remains in the public eye because a high-profile corporate overlord can't let their new acquisition fade into obscurity.
See also the results of Electronic Arts' independent studio buyouts, where they buy out a developer at the top of their game only to see quality fade before corporate meddling sets in.
"Why you should trust us" or not, I take issue with Wirecutter specifically with their air purifier reviews. They've continued to recommend Blueair and Coway despite being faced with complaints. I don't care why Wirecutter claims you should trust them but I do care when they just stick their head in the ground WRT feedback.
I actually subscribe to Which a UK consumer reports guide. And mostly it's kind of like subscribing to the Guardian newspaper - putting a few quid where my shrivelled liberal conscience used to sit.
This podcast is not the best (it's often too lightweight and too frightened to dig deep, or the format is wrong or something). But anyway this week was particularly terrible - hardly any teeth at all. But in amoung at all the annoying self serving justifications of the guests, it did try to raise the fundamental problem - truth, trust, and a sea of opinions, mendacious or not. How do we deal with it all?
"I actually subscribe to Which a UK consumer reports guide."
I used to too, for quite a few years.
However, their IT related reviews boiled down to "Windows PC: Good, Apple: Pretty, Linux and Open Source: Not on my watch". A Consumer Forum "for good" completely ignores Open Source - why? Personally I think it is down to a lack of imagination rather than anything politically motivated.
I did find many of their reviews useful - you get some great details on their working and they spend a decent amount of time on reviewing non IT stuff. The content articles were also often very decent, well written and often thought provoking. Their consumer campaigning has got as far as making changes to Laws too in the past so I do think Which is a general force for good.
I just got pissed off that as soon as a laptop or desktop or software article came along, the usual turgid crap would come out. Perhaps this has improved since around 2015 when I ditched them after being a subscriber for over 10 years.
I wish rtings had a Boolean on tvs so we could search explicitly for non smart models. That is basically the only thing else I’d want from that site, it’s really good.
I think the main problem is probably finding any mainstream consumer TVs that are non-smart. I have looked and beyond some obscure brands or short of incredibly expensive commercial models there are barely any options.
I haven't bought a TV in about ten years and I've started shopping recently, knowing I'll probably have to get one soon. What I'm interested in, knowing I'll probably have to do this (smart TV with no internet), is what the out-of-box experience is without internet.
Will it have preloaded ads that will never change because it can't download new ones?
Will there be huge gray boxes where the ads should be in the UI?
Will it try to connect to open WiFi or use HDMI to share my streaming box's internet connection?
Will it nag me with an alert box in the middle of the screen asking me to connect it?
Will it disable features if I don't give it internet access?
Will there be bugs and performance problems requiring me to update the firmware, and if I do, will that firmware update introduce any of the above?
From personal experience, Roku OS TVs (TCL mostly) have a very good non-internet user experience, with a dedicated mode for being a dumb display. WebOS (LG) is decent. Tizen (Samsung) ones are okay, although the one I have is from before they started putting ads in the menus so I don’t know if there are placeholders. None of them have disabled any features or nagged me, or tried to sneakily connect to the internet. Google/Android/whatever-it’s-called-this-year TV (Sony) might not even be usable without internet, I’m not sure. It’s also terrible.
Generally, firmware updates on modern TVs are used for creating bugs and performance problems, rather than fixing them. They also add advertisements. Don’t ever connect it to the internet, and it’ll be fine.
I'll give you my anecdotal experience with a TV that has Amazon's FireTV built-in. It is disconnected from any network. It allowed me to set a setting that says "remember last input" so it always looks at a particular HDMI input for signal when it's turned on (because I always have it set to viewing input, not the smart interface itself). Set like this, it essentially acts as a non-smart TV.
The only downsides are that, being a smartTV, even in this pseudo-non-smart mode, if the TV loses power (rather than just being in an "off/standby" state) then it takes a bit longer for the TV to start up the next time. I wish I could avoid a TV having a "boot sequence", but my experience is close enough to a non-smart TV that it works for me
Sadly, that assumes the TV will behave and not connect to open networks, or use companies' mesh networks (like Amazon Sidewalk), and that they'll never include their own SIM cards.
Granted, none of this has happened yet... but when it happens, I'll start busting open my devices to disconnect any and all antennas.
I've recently read (in HN), that Samsung's appliances mesh network with other Samsung appliances with the hope of reaching the internet. So it's around the corner, it seems.
Even if the "smart" features of a TV are rendered nonfunctional by not giving it a network connection, you're still stuck with a TV that takes a while to boot up (yes, really), and which may be built around a UI designed to navigate its smart features (like booting to a home screen instead of passing through HDMI input).
I have a Sceptre TV from a few years ago that takes about 15 seconds from power-on to even display a boot screen. It takes another 10 seconds or so after that to actually become usable.
Maybe it's just an outlier? It's certainly slow, though.
It boggles my mind that anyone would connect a TV to the Internet (!)
Although it wouldn't surprise me at some point if Samsung or other makers started bundling cellular modems in or had deals to have them automatically log into the "free wifi" for the major cable internet providers :p
Not really, my Vizio has no connection to anything (firewall drops it's traffic, and it's on a separate VLAN). It takes 15 seconds to respond to input changes after waking it up.
I'm with you, but I wonder if this is the sort of "only people on this site care and the vast majority of the readership wouldn't use it" thing ... I'm not sure it is, but it could be, and I wonder if somebody with their ear to the ground/access to more analytics knows.
Just going to throw out https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/ as a solid option for the climbing, hiking, and outdoor sport equipment they review. Most reviews involve real-world subjective testing, which is really what you need when you're trying to figure out whether a jacket is warm or a rain shell keeps you dry, etc.
I haven't trusted them for years, their testing is too subjective and the "objective" tests aren't considering the right things.
For example I bought hiking boots based on their recommendation. They were the most comfortable hiking boots I've ever worn but their terrible traction literally nearly got me killed despite their claims of having excellent traction. I angrily returned those boots.
I also bought a backpack based on their recommendation. They have this volume test filling a backpack with pingpong balls. It sounded like a great objective test in theory and my new pack had a higher volume than my old pack but I couldn't fit everything into it as the shape changed too much with a sleeping back and bear can in it reducing usable volume.
Finally I gave up on them when I was looking to buy a new headlamp. They ranked a headlamp lower because it's battery life was less than all the other headlamps being tested. But that headlamp max brightness was 3x the lumens of the other, batter life should have been tested at a comparable brightness level.
I like to read their subjective discussions as one point of view but its really hard to get much use from their rankings. One obvious example is at one point in time all their highest ranked ultralight sleeping bags were quilts (ie. open back, no zippers) and then all of a sudden the quilts dropped to the bottom and were replaced with more traditional zip up bags. I assume the reviewer changed and simply doesn't like quilts, which is totally reasonable, they don't work for everyone but it wasn't clear how the rankings are useful when they just shuffled so drastically.
Agreed on the challenges with subjectivity and I probably should have clarified - I like their full-length testimonials. Never did figure out how their star rating and badges worked...
These guys were the first thing I thought of but to be honest for me, their suggestions have been a bit off. Ofc it's all subjective but I remember distinctly buying two full face helmets they had on their list because their ratings were so different from the concensus from reviews. I could'nt tell who to trust. The gearlab suggestion was very obviously inferior beyond first impressions
I like this site as well. I trust them because I feel they are upfront with the level of subjectivity they are introducing. Also, it seems they at least buy and try out the gear.
It's absolutely rampant on any social media platform, and most blogs. I'm guessing it's extremely rare anyone is prosecuted for violating the disclosure laws. Some choose to do it to keep their viewers trust, but one big problem as platforms go all-in on algorithms, it's less about having a trusting audience and more about doing what you can to get random videos/posts picked up by the algorithm, regardless of content.
I feel like the crowd-sourcing / SEOing / optimization of reviews on the internet has, for all its benefits, made everything too noisy and untrustworthy. I know myself and a lot of other people first search reddit now instead of google because it's impossible to get anything written by a real nonbiased human otherwise.
For similar reasons I've used things like Yelp less and less and tried to use professionally editorialized reviews (Eater, The Infatuation, Bon Appetit, etc) for food, well-known travel sites/bloggers for hotels, etc. There's still some paid incentives there too obviously but I can at least calibrate it to how much I align with the publication.
Heh. The biggest problem I have with Amazon isn't even the fake reviews, it's the people who leave reviews and don't even know what a review is, which is almost all of them.
"My gadget just arrived today and I haven't even used it yet but it looks well-made and I'm sure it will last forever. Five stars!"
I see this ALLOT on AliExpress. I mean what can you expect, but somehow I expected more.
Like why even bother posting if you havn't even opened the package up yet?!
It doesn’t help that google has largely de-prioritized smaller sites.
For better or for worse, my reviews about banks and their products have now been replaced by 10 links in a row to different sub-pages of the bank’s domain.
At least it used to make sure a blog article and a forum would appear on most search term’s top10.
I get it for my “XYZ Bank’s Phone Number - talk to a human now” pages. They probably shouldn’t have out-ranked the bank’s own official site, but the bank’s own website was much less user friendly than my own despite the abuse potential.
I trust their measurements, I just don't like how they score things, and people tend to just use their scores instead of looking at the pros+cons and measurements. (they weight all the different subscores, and add them up, so eg. if there was an excellent monitor except it had a 100:1 contrast ratio, it'd still get great scores despite having such a huge flaw that most people would consider it to be essentially unusable).
It's really bad for HDR monitors, where an edge lit "fake HDR" monitor can get a 7, while failing the basics that are necessary to give a proper HDR experience. Something like TFTCentral or HardwareUnboxed's HDR checklists, and just straight up failing monitors that don't meet all the requirements would be much better than their current (imo misleading) system that can give good SDR monitors high HDR scores, when they're terrible at HDR.
Not really. If any single category is "good enough" then the weights are reasonably correct. It's just when a single category is a deal breaker that the simple metric of adding them up doesn't work.
Agreed, minus the headphones. Their headphone reviews are a joke. It's also worth noting some products have a lot of variation due to poor QC (PC monitors) and they may get an unusually good/bad unit from time to time, skewing the review.
Nope. Head-fi is audiowoo fairy land. Members generally loathe scientific testing and subjective, unsubstantiated claims are regularly made. There's even a cable forum, that, last time I went there, banned double-blind testing completely.
Headfi wasn’t always that way. There was a mass exodus of their scientific-minded members, who dedicated themselves to posting objective, and double-blind tests. Naturally, this created a problem with their advertisers, and most left en masse. Now, the site’s little more than a dumpster dive of anecdotal evidence masquerading as reputable sources.
I don't like head-fi either, but scientific testing/measurements are (mostly) worthless. Really, the only useful test is an in-home trial in my view. If you like it, buy it. If not, don't.
Sure. Ultimately what works best in your listening environment is what works best. But that's the result, not the means to the end.
Head-fi is full of woo that thinks that you need a four digit power cable, and a rare wood volume knob.
Some of the videos from High End - audio show in Berlin right now are just mind blowing.
$12,000 power cables. Speakers that are $345,000 - each. Preamps that are the size of 4U rack servers. "This device streams from Tidal and Qobuz to your system. It's $39,000."
I agree. Lots of things make a difference (including power) but they are often quite negligible. Is a dedicated digital source better than a PC? By many miles. Is a $10k source better than a $200 source? Not by nearly as much. Do line-level and speaker cables make a difference? Sure. But it's really subtle and most setups would be hard-pressed to hear anything in a blind test. If you have money to burn and the test of the setup is 10's of thousands, a cable costing a couple hundred isn't that egregious.
Hell no. They are audiophool degenerates. They literally reject any semblance of objective measurements, to focus on non-rigorous (i.e. not done with ABX) subjective evaluations.
I cannot recommend audio science review[0] enough. They're the opposite. All about objective measurements and rigor. None of the bullshit.
Crinacle is probably the best, but for headphones I think it's the kind of thing you actually need to try out yourselves: the comfort varies so much for people, as does the preference for different sound signature (and knowing how well headphones handle when they're EQ'd to your preferences).
Consumerlab.com is a paid but excellent resource for obtaining information about various foods and supplements that we can find on the shelves.
Just last night I was eating some of my favorite organic roasted seaweed from Costco and spit it out half-way when I read that they are laced with lead, cadmium and arsenic, which was confirmed by independent third party testing [0].
This website has opened my eyes that many foods and supplements we have access to are deceptively unsafe.
> All of the products contained the heavy metals lead, cadmium, and arsenic at levels often exceeding tolerable upper intake levels. It is no secret that there are heavy metals in seaweed snacks, in fact, many have warning labels indicating that they may pose a risk of reproductive harm or cancer (typically due to lead), as this is a legal requirement for products sold in California under its Prop 65 law. However, labels don't tell you how much lead or other heavy metals are present in a product. We even found that one product without a warning was more contaminated than one with a warning. Our report shows exactly how much iodine and heavy metal contamination we found in each product (see What CL Found).
Individual concentrations can be found in their product table for paying customers. The subscription cost is worth more than its weight in gold.
I used to subscribe and they were generally good, but they made no account of cost.
So you might have (made up example) an Electrolux vacuum getting a score of 73, but a Dyson gets a score of 74 and wins their "recommended buy" then you see the Dyson is, like, twice the price.
I can see they might do the review price-blind, but it does make one suspicious that they get some sort of financial benefit from having top picks be vastly more expensive products.
Which? annoys me in various ways, but not taking the cost into account in their ratings is I think actually one of their better moves.
In your example, you can see very plainly that the Electrolux is a much better buy. If they'd included cost in the rating, you'd probably be left wondering whether the Dyson was worth the extra.
It is good to be sceptical, but Which? is a charity that doesn't take advertising money, and keeps afloat with paid subscriptions. If it got out that they were taking kickbacks, even setting aside the probable illegality, they'd never sell a subscription again.
It's one thing for some shady website with little to no reputation to lie about these things, but Which is an old company whose model is entirely based on trust.
I used to subscribe to Consumer Reports back in the day, and basically regretted it. They rarely described their testing methodologies and more often than now, when they did, I wasn't impressed. Their testing usually just boiled down to whether or not the specs met the manufacturers claims, not anything useful like how well it was built and how long it is likely to last.
I wouldn't use Reddit for anything but general product usage information. You can get some honest reviews from Reddit users, but I find a lot of it is people justifying their purchase instead of honest feedback.
It regularly gets gamed very hard. You can sell old high karma accounts for quite a lot of money, because those are best for such things. It's also a thin line between astroturfing and fill on spamming products. But I have no doubts that some reviews on Reddit are payed for.
> You can sell old high karma accounts for quite a lot of money, because those are best for such things.
Why is the accounts karma important for something like that? Does the Reddit algorithm favor high karma accounts when deciding what posts to rank higher?
Just speculating, but if you create a new account and then spam some positive reviews people will notice and downvote / get you banned from the sub-reddit. If you have some built up history it looks more legit to the other community members.
I'm guessing here, but a lot of subreddits have a minimum karma requirement to make posts or comments (it's a decent anti-spam measure, but easily gamed by low effort bots reposting content every month or so, pretty high chance a lot of people won't have seen it before).
And as with other social media companies, the company behind it is fine with it; bot engagement and bot content is still content, people still watch it, upvote it, and ads and other things are still sold.
Video is terrible as a medium though. Can't skim, can't grep, not trivial to index. I hate that more and more content is moving to video (or podcast) format.
Also once its removed due to whatever (copyright, owner is removed from youtube, reported, million other reasons) its gone. No archive.org, google cache or anything left.
I watched a few of these a while ago and I can somewhat see why they’re popular as they have this fast-paced data-dump look-at-all-this-testing format but I didn’t really think they were very good. I thought many of the tests were likely poor metrics for actual quality and that results would therefore be misleading. A stupid example would be trying to measure how much torque a Phillips head screwdriver can apply before camming out because the point of the screw design is that screw drivers should cam out at a certain torque (so better screw drivers shouldn’t necessarily let you go tighter).
Re: Phillips drive, it's actually a common misconception that this was an intentional feature of the design. The original patent for the driver[1] specifically describes resistance to "camming out" (seemingly in the modern sense of the phrase). Omitting some of the verbose context:
> One of the principal objects of the invention is the provision of a recess in the head of a screw which is particularly adapted for firm engagement with a correspondingly shaped driving tool or screw driver, and in such a way that there will be no tendency of the driver to cam out of the recess when united in operative engagement with each other. (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS20468...)
And the patent for the drive (I don't know why under patent law several consecutive patents mostly saying the same thing had to be filed) uses the word to refer to the ejection of trapped debris instead of the driver:
> This same angular formation of both elements is especially designed to also create what might be termed a camming action during the approach of these angular faces toward one another with respect to any substances which might have become lodged within the recess of the screw. (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS20468...)
Edit: Wikipedia notes that a later patent acknowledged the tendency to cam out and its effect of preventing damage to screw heads...perhaps meaning that the head would be saved from snapping off--the drive itself surely isn't!
It's a myth that Phillips screws designed or intended to cam out at a certain torque. Not least of all because, the correct amount of torque varies wildly by application, even for the same fastener.
I'll agree that Project Farm's videos can be a little formulaic and my least favorite thing about the presentation is that he shouts instead of talks.
However, he's WAY ahead most YouTube tool reviewers because he does NOT accept free tools for review, and he puts the tools to real work, often ending in the destruction of the tool in order to find its limits. I find his tests to be very well designed. He only has limited time to test so many things, but he generally hits the important points. He goes MUCH farther than any other reviewer I've ever seen and his home brew-rigs and testing methodology are an order of magnitude better than anything I've ever seen out of a "professional" outfit like Consumer Reports.
The only thing I _wish_ he would add regularly to his videos is tool teardowns so we can see and compare how cheaply various tools are made. (Although we all know these days, they are all made like crap due to the race to the bottom.)
BOLTR is ok if you take the review with a huge grain of salt, basically just as a proxy for having and disassembling the tool yourself. I largely disregard whatever AvE says and make my own conclusions from what is visually apparent. His standards for what makes a good tool are too focused on physical resilience - basically "if it can't survive being dropped into a mine shaft and beaten to hell, it's shit" is unrealistic for most people. Plus there's been reviews where he broke the tool during disassembly and reassembly and then blamed poor performance on the tool itself - the Ryobi Airstrike staplers come to mind.
This also goes to the other themes in the discussion here; there's few to no sources with singularly "good" reviews anymore, at best you have to synthesize from multiple reviewers and at times hope you can buy from a merchant with a good return policy.
I'll also agree that his reviews aren't perfect, but the one on automotive scratch removers was enlightening. I had used a random product before that basically did nothing. I bought Meguiar's ultimate compound on his recommendation, and it did indeed work surprisingly well (with just hand polishing, no buffer) on the multitude of surface scratches as I was preparing a car for resale.
To add to that: most sites just compare the features at best. I’m interested in actual usability and durability, things you might need more than five minutes or just reading the specs to find out. E.g. how do headphones handle multiple devices, how long will the battery survive, what are the options when they are broken?
Yes, assessing devices is far from trivial. In case of air purifier reviews, there's little focus on two crucial elements:
* Real energy consumption and performance when the filter is a bit dirty
* Fan noise and vibrations when the device has already been in use for a year or two
For example, in my experience, the top pick from Wirecutter (Coway) excels on the first item but fans tens to become misaligned after a while and vibrate a lot at low speeds. It happened to 2/2 units I bought.
I had the privilege of working in a co-working space in Tahoe that also subleted out to outdoorgearlab.com/techgearlab.com.
Having been on their private list where they resell items that I purchased I can say that they do purchase and touch every single item that they’ve used.
I also find the reviews tend towards a higher priced end of the spectrum because it is affiliate paid. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed by how much they put everything through its paces.
For the record, I haven’t talked to anyone there since 2016 and have no reason to pump them.
He's great at getting there first with the unboxing or review with insane visuals and editing, but the content itself is very lacking. He's very heavily biased towards Apple devices, and doesn't dig deep at a technical level, preferring more subjective judgements which are difficult to compare across devices. I don't find his advice any more objective than a Reddit comment.
I tend to use reviews as a "try this door" kind of thing, and do my own research. Probably the most awesome review site that I used to rely on was DPReview[0]. I haven't really looked at that site, in the last five years, but they used to be absolutely top-shelf, and full of geek value.
I tend to be heavily Apple-biased, myself (I write native Swift software for Apple devices). Other sites tend to be heavily biased towards Intel/AMD (usually gaming review sites).
I think he is entertaining, but I don't find his reviews critical enough. He typically reads off a spec sheet and shares subjective opinions of just a few days of use. I need deeper, more critical reviews
The reviews as actual reviews are terrible. And the retro tech series - well if you know anything about the items being discussed you'll find quite a few inaccuracies. It's pure entertainment.
It's a real shame Consumer Reports were so bad at transitioning from their 20th century business model to the online era. We really need non-commercially funded reviews but it feels like CR is barely functioning anymore.
Regarding "reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing", I'm not sure Consumer Reports deserves to be listed these days either.
I bought a subscription a few months ago because I needed to buy several large appliances for my home, but all I found behind that paywall curtain was computer-generated tables of star ratings and statistics about mechanical reliability. Which is probably useful to somebody, but isn't something I found valuable.
I ended up ignoring CR's data tables, cancelling my subscription, and buying the same models of appliances my parents have because at least I could try those out in person and verify that they worked decently well without any glaring flaws.
I have a service tech for appliances. I just ask him what I should buy. He usually has suggestions from all the cost-ranges. Sometimes, I buy used through him (built-in fridge); sometimes I buy new. Since I had the opportunity to buy a bunch of equipment this year (a huge power surge from my HVAC fried appliances, and bad luck):
Built in fridge: GE monogram;
Dish washer: anything that is quiet (below 42 dB);
So much this. Find someone who does a lot of residential repairs of X. Ask a few of them for recommendations, specifically on what not to buy.
As the Farmer's Insurance jingle goes, "They know a thing, because they've seen a thing."
Every service tech I've ever asked has immediately had a "Never buy {popular brand}, because they all {have shoddy part | catastrophic design error}."
And it's night and day between what service techs all know vs what even the most detailed internet sleuthing would give you, because they actually see a representative sample size.
The flip side of this - is that service techs are by their nature biased to failures. They don't come out to the machines that are working. This is an issue for top-selling items where they may see a lot of service calls but the overall rate is lower than something they see less frequently. In my experience I have known few technicians that have the statistical smarts to account for this.
They are meant to be user-serviceable, with common hand tools. You can take it apart and put it back together.
It's a cage-like drum that rotates on horizontal axis, much like any front-loader. But it's a top loader; the cage has a door that you open to load or unload. The drum is supported like a wheel, both front and back of the washer.
A neighbor told us that this style is seen in Germany, but I'd never seen a setup like this. It's very simple and quite durable.
I don't have any connection to Staber. Just after ten years of in home daycare, 200 miles from anything resembling a city, I was quite thrilled to finally be able to check off the clothes washer as a problem solved.
I found similar at the UK take, Which. Everything is boiled down to star ratings and then Mail Merge creates the review text.
Apparently, each air purifier which can handle a large room is big, heavy and loud. And the air purifiers that score highly on being quiet have the downside that they can only handle small rooms. Oh, and they did measure the CADR, and will tell you that "this air purifier scored five stars on our CADR test".
For air purifiers, if cost is no constraint, my IQAir GC has worked like a champ. The lower three speeds are reasonably quiet, and speed 6 cleans out the room in no time when my partner burns the cooking. Comes with a 10 year warranty.
Keep in mind air purifiers are just a fan with filters in front of it. A box fan with a furnace filter strapped to it, while ugly, will do similarly for reducing the amount of particles in the room.
What you're paying for is basically three things: a design that looks acceptable in a room, a fan that's reasonably quiet, and ability to source filters in the future.
Check, check and check. And also a filter quality and seal design that's been tested and proven to work (they do a QA particulate test on each individual unit before it ships https://imgur.com/a/exTrjU7).
I've noticed a tendency for them to review spec sheets; the whole point of a reviewer should be to do the in-depth checking and verification that I cannot do. I want someone to speak to how long the model has been sold, parts availability, repairability, etc.
Some of this can't be entirely determined until years after the product is released but you can check the company.
As for me, I went with SpeedQueen for the washer/dryer and wish I could find an equivalent company for refrigerators, but I basically consider those disposable.
My library has a subscription to consumer reports, don't have to pay for it. I only bring this up because you said you paid for it. Worth checking if you have some local resource that has a subscription already.
CNN Underscored is trying to be a competitor with legit reviews, as I understand it, but it still feels a little "affiliaty," if you will. (Disclaimer: I work for CNN Digital).
Adding my personal beef with the majority of tech 'reviews': The lack of honest distinction between a (medium-term usage) product review, and hands-on/impressions. Even with some hard data/testing methodologies- when you're a media outlet relying on page views and advertising, and you're racing to get your 'reviews' posted sooner or at least at the same time as the other sites- the reviews are going to be based on increasingly short-term impressions.
We need a better place than reddit where a wide variety of users can congregate and honestly discuss their experiences with products. Very hard problem when the market is basically at odds with what consumers want, in this regard.
A good specialized site and YouTube channel is Garage Gym Reviews [1]. Their reviews are clear and thorough and should be useful references for people buying gym equipment for the home.
The owner can go into obsessive detail about equipment features that I, at least, have never thought about, like knurling on barbells [2]. I have learned a lot from his videos.
Consumer Reports used to be good but it seems to have gone through change in management or something because now it is indistinguishable from the avg SEO spam site.
Nonsense. As a non-profit founded in 1926 with 50 testing labs and partnerships with outside labs, the proof is in the test after test after test after test that is unbiased and, more importantly, the criteria and testing methods are always available and reproducible! So when you don't agree with their rankings you can at least agree that there methods are clear, not based on SEO, not based on spam, not based on money, and pro-consumer.
As somebody not familiar with Wirecutter’s history or legacy, I always considered them to be one of the paid fake review websites that pretend to offer very shallow reviews, mostly just built based on referral links and information that can be harvested from product descriptions. I just don’t agree that they are a real website that does actual testing. 0/10. Would block form Google if I could.
I'm very happy that in the Netherlands we have tweakers.net. Not only do they do tech news and reviews, they also have an amazing parametric search/price watch tool that I'm reasonably sure is a major contributing cause to how competitive pricing is here compared to neighboring countries. Every time I happen to use Amazon I die a little inside because of how bad their search is.
Also, to use Amazon I search for the 1/2/3-star reviews and see if I disagree with the given reason for the low review. If I disagree, I will contemplate buying the product.
The sites I've found to be at least making an honest evaluation are:
choice.com.au (Australian context, Aus version of consumer reports) Their reviews just seem to miss the mark sometimes, but at least you can count on the fact its an honest take so you can kind of pick specific facts from the reviews and take them as true, maybe don't rely on their overall recommendations though. funded through magazine/web subscritoions
rtings.com - tech stuff, detailed and with a good table tool for comparison. funded through subscriptions
notebookcheck.com - funded by ads, but does a very good job of highly detailed and consistent reviews. same as choice where you don't necessarily follow their recommendation, but they give you lots of information that you can compare. Their model is a red flag, but my impression is of general trustworthiness.
I subscribe to choice and rtings to support them because honest brokers are so rare in this space.
I also subscribe to choice. They do lots more than product reviews. They have general guides on how to get the best use out of products, mystery shoppers reviewing customer service, tools to compare health insurance, etc. The reason I stay subscribed is they campaign about consumer rights issues which actually cause industries as a whole to change, e.g. bank fees. They also have the shonky awards which usually gets a bit of media attention each year, where they shame companies for poor behaviour, quality, outright scams, etc. I think of it like a lobby to help us consumers out, which we need more of. Too often we are listening to the advice of the industry bodies that represent the companies rather than the consumers.
ServeTheHome does some review-like stuff, but its not entirely detailed though they do actually run the hardware and measure things like noise, power, etc.
I have no faith whatsoever in WC‘s reviews or advice anymore. I’ve bought several of their recommendations post NYT acquisition and they’ve all turned out to be flawed in a way that I’d aimed to avoid by following their recommendations.
I find „site:Reddit.com“ a much much much better source of actual information that isn’t SEO spam.
'Gamers Nexus' (gamersnexus.net) is striving to deliver reliable impartial consumer advice for Computer stuff. Unlike LTT (unless something changed and Linus started hiring people who know what they are doing) GN is leaning heavily on industry best practices instead of 'this feels good' opinions:
On the continuum between “highly flawed” and imperfect I find WC to be generally good intentioned and skewed more toward the latter than the former. Is there something that keeps it from thus threshold in your view?
RTINGS is a pretty good actual review site for electronics. Sometimes I find their focus on measurable data a bit annoying. Intangibles matter aswell. But they are exhaustive reviews and make comparing very easy.
The challenge with picking an air purifier is everyone's situation is different given the reason for purification, room(s), price, and maintenance costs. Someone who has allergies vs pets vs volatile chemicals all need something very specific, so the BS one size fits all wirecutter recommendation would have you believe it's the best. Unless you can talk to a real expert who matches up the model(s) you need, reading reviews and YT is pretty much worthless. In the world of purifiers, you definitely get what you pay for.
There is Rtings for television, and other specialised sites for other product categories. I don't think you can stick to any general review source and consistently get quality reviews.
Since some are throwing out good, more specific, gear tests. I'd like to throw out Baby Gear Lab (https://www.babygearlab.com) if you need baby stuff. They're way better than the Wirecutter because they're run by experts in baby gear. (I'm not affiliated in any way, but I'm a new parent that found it super useful.)
Yeah. I want to read about the real opinions and experiences of real people, not some paid-for marketing piece. I used to search reddit for that kind of thing but it's probably been compromised by now. I wonder if there even is a place that isn't. Real place gets created, real people start going there, marketers realize that's where the people are and immediately start working the place.
Hey at least be happy you have some options! It’s 2022 and I cannot get a single reliable suggestion on ANY product, refrigerator or cell phone, in india. Which is fine for small electronics since I can lookup Wirecutter but for anything else where the models in india don’t match American ones, there’s absolutely nothing on the internet to guide you to an informed opinion. Market opportunity?
What about Rtings? For tech stuff, I found the reviews to be of good quality and it does not seem like it’s biased or sponsored.
> googling "reviews of X"
DDG produces somewhat better results, or at least does not rank the seo spam, generated garbage up to the first page. Also, I do not have ads following me everywhere for the next week.
I wonder if we can ever have a centralized review site that also has the subject matter expertise in each area. The future of in-depth and unbiased reviews is distributed and perhaps there is a dire need to collect all the scattered reviews on a central platform. Like a sub stack of product reviews.
For synthesizers and other music gear, there's loopop on YouTube. His reviews are so in-depth that they can often function as replacements for the product's user manual.
A lot of times, after I get a product, I disagree with the WC review on many points about a recommended product and have to end up returning it. That said, I still use it to inform my purchase decisions.
Anyways, how specifically is it "highly flawed" though?
It's not a review site, but the YouTube channel "project farm" is this. He not only has great objective comparison reviews but he shares his test setup, results and data so its clear its a great objective review.
The Project Farm channel on YouTube does a great objective and transparent set of reviews to follow along. It’s not exhaustive for every product on the market but does a reasonable sample and is a joy to watch.
Outdoor Gear Lab is another good one for outdoor gear. Actual things reviewed by real people, though perhaps flawed in the same way as wire cutter. At least it’s real people putting the products through the paces in real use cases.
>'The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one.'
Since it was bought by the NYT company I no longer trust their quality. This great air filter contra article is a great example and I appreciate the link and the person who took the time to write it
I'm also really skeptical about their impartiality; I wouldn't be surprised if they have a lot of underhanded deals with whatever they review and advocate for.
