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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

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Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#431

Post by fartcannon »

teh_klev wrote: post #406
fartcannon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#432

Post by danudey »

hansword wrote: post #142
kitsunesoba wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I want to second the gamers nexus recommendation here. (To be frank, I think LMG labs is very much inspired by what GN has been doing over the last year or two.)

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#433

Post by kadoban »

fartcannon wrote: post #399
p1necone wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#434

Post by tehwebguy »

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.

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

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#435

Post by fartcannon »

p1necone wrote: post #421
fartcannon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise 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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#436

Post by p1necone »

fartcannon wrote: post #435
p1necone wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise 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.

LTT very clearly demarcates which videos are sponsored and which are not.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#437

Post by jiveturkey »

shoelessone wrote: post #40
jiveturkey wrote: post #10

Glad to see some strong analysis backing up my decision to ignore wirecutter reviews for a couple of years now. Basically when they started publishing reviews for things they did not actually review.

I wasn't aware they did this. Any chance you have an example of this?

Sorry I don't. But they were publishing various reviews based simply on product specs, or advertised/PR features. With affiliate links to buy of course. Maybe they don't do it anymore? I took a quick look across 3 random categories and didn't find any. I guess I have to apologize for the noise, since I can't back up my comment.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#438

Post by criley2 »

fartcannon wrote: post #435
p1necone wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise 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.

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#439

Post by danudey »

fartcannon wrote: post #329
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).

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…

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#440

Post by fartcannon »

crummy wrote: post #420
fartcannon wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Are there reviewers you would recommend without any biases at all?

No. :(
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