On the Integrity of Hardware Review Sites

leathered writes "Charlie Demerjian of The Inquirer has posted an interesting article on the integrity of hardware review sites. Apparently the benefits of running such a site go far beyond advertising revenue with a fair amount of 'sweeteners' from the hardware manufacturers to say the least. All is not lost as Charlie informs us that there are a small number are flying the flag for trustworthy reviews, but the question of which sites we can trust remains." I like Daniel Rutter's (of Dan's Data) policy best.

Comments

That's the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

We (voodoo networks) are in the process of starting up a review site for backend systems for server rooms, closets, etc. The reasons that drove us to do this are simple - it's almost impossible to find objective reviews of non-consumer gear, and when we do find them they are pretty much copies of manufacturers flyers.

The odd thing so far has been the reaction (or lack thereof) from manufacturers. I've lost track of the number of PR reps I've spoken with who asked my how much a listing or review cost. Most where surprised when I told them that serverroomstuff.com won't be charging for reviews - they are objective.

We are planning on accepting advertising, but the plan for that is simple - your ad dollars won't buy you a good review if your product doesn't stand up to it's claims, period.

epinions

[unk1911]

epinions.com remains a good across-the-board review site, not just for hardware. good detailed specs appear next to user writeups. plus you can make money by writing reviews, which i have done.

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com

Re:Two Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Two more. Bull shit. As someone who used to work as a technical contact within a hardware marketing team, I can personally guarantee that Tom's Hardware demanded sweeteners, more than any other review site we worked with. And they were arrogant jackasses to boot.

viperlair did a good writeup

[enrico_suave]

viperlair did a good write up on what i like to call hardware review site payola a while back.

e.

Re:sponsorship

[cheinonen]

First, I recall him getting a BMW convertable back then, not a Porsche. Second, that article definately takes a stab at Anand when it talks about how one site came up with a way to benchmark when people are running multiple apps at once (which Anand did), but then attacks them for not benching games. Had the person read Anand's blog on the site to keep up with what he was working on, he could have seen that Anand lacked the time to get all the benchmarks done over the weekend, did the ones he thought most important, and the gaming results went up yesterday or today.

I think it was well assumed that games would show no advantage on standard benchmarks since they don't spawn multiple threads, and every site that ran conventional benchmarks showed that on Monday. Today, however, Anand has those results, and then also tests games with thinks like Norton Antivirus and MS Antispyware running in the background, which many of us do have running when we game. On those, the dual core showed better performance.

Anand is the one site I always trust, it's too bad the article didn't have the guts to come out and name who they thought was being bought.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

[Sivar]

Slashdotters are far more likely than the average joe to recognize a good review from a bad one.

Please post your good/bad/ugly (badly written but probably not corrupt) website opinions here.

I have been following hardware reviews since about 1995, have written a few myself, and am fairly knowledgeable on the inner-workings of hardware and of English, so I have become fairly critical of reviews. Here's my brief list:

The good (Quality, non-biased, well-written reviews with reproduceable results and non-marketfluff technical explanations):

- Ace's Hardware (on the odd occasion they review something)
- StorageReview.com (I am a volunteer moderator on the forums there, so I may be considered biased, but I doubt anyone can point out a website with better hard drive reviews)
- xbitlabs.com
- Anandtech (usually, Anand usually writes well but some of the staff writes rather awkwardly, and some of their reviews, like that of the Addtronics W8500 case (and most of their other case reviews) are staggeringly awful)
- Ars Technica, though I wouldn't classify them as a hardware review site.
- Maybe HardOCP. I don't read them much, but the odd occasion I have read them didn't set off any BS detectors. Perhaps a bit unprofessional.
- Maybe DansData.com. I rarely read them, but I have always been impressed with what I read.

The bad:
- tomshardware.com (These guys were my favorite review site years and years ago, but their quality and either integrity or competence (or both) dropped staggeringly years ago. Their hard drive reviews in particular are awful beyond belief, though that may be because I am more familiar with that type of review than others).
-

The ugly:
- Just about any review site whose URL contains the word "Game." These websites tend to be full of reviewers that seem to be random average highschool kids with no real understanding of what they are reviewing, how to write a review, or how to test or rate the product they are reviewing. The word "arbitrary" comes to mind. Note that I do not put Gamespot.com in this category (even considering their owner).
- CNet. I can't tell whether the reviewers are incompetent or bribed, but the reviews (usually, but not always) are quite lame.

Any opinions on other sites?