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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

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Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#271

Post by Dylan16807 »

daenz wrote: post #268
Dylan16807 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You're misquoting me. I never said they were extremely fortunate for choosing one model over the other, I said they were extremely fortunate for "being able to choose form over function." When wildfire season rolls around and air becomes very hazardous where I lived, local air purifiers of all kinds were completely sold out, and the box fan solution is all a lot of us had[0]. It's not just inexpensive, it's about ava…

Are you talking about emergencies, or are you talking about "the low-income perspective"?

Because you said you were doing the latter, and I was criticizing your words using that context. In that context, your words come across as judgemental.

If you're actually talking about the former, then you chose your words pretty poorly.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#272

Post by McAtNite »

mrkwse wrote: post #70
hypersoar wrote: post #51

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 e…

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).

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#274

Post by londons_explore »

I wish analysis like this would stop using tests of the filter material to make any judgement about the purifier.

If the air passed through the filter precisely once and then ended up in your room, it would be valid. But it doesn't - the air passes many times through the filter, and mixes with the room air again and again each time.

That means it is far less important to get 99.9% filtration, and far more important to get more cubic feet passing through the filter each minute. That dramatically changes the optimal design.

To see why, imagine a room of 1000 cubic feet. Now filter one of those cubic feet, and put it back into the same room. A good 99.9% filter has just removed 0.0999% of the dirt. A bad 90% filter with double the airflow removed 0.18% of the dirt. The bad filter is much better!

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#275

Post by gmac »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #130
callahad wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, https://www.which.co.uk/ fills a similar niche to Consumer Reports.

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 p…

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#276

Post by AussieWog93 »

wincy wrote: post #84
mrkwse wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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.

Honestly, I think Linus has reached the point where even if his endeavour fails his family will be OK. Plus, he'd get to spend more time with them.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#277

Post by birdman3131 »

throw0101a wrote: post #139
hypersoar wrote: post #51

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 e…

> 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.

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#278

Post by Night_Thastus »

ferongr wrote: post #250
ethbr0 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also on headphones, head-fi ( https://www.head-fi.org/ ).

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.

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.

Here's a good video detailing some of why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa1y9JRip68

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#279

Post by oezi »

hypersoar wrote: post #51

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 e…

The German consumer reports are also quite good: www.test.de

In many countries there are similar consumer reports organizations.

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