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

Re:Integrity?

[kannibal_klown]

Hardware benchmarks aren't what bother me, it's stability that matters to me.

The first PC I built from scratch was in college (my previous computers were either my parents or a small-shop one I bought). I hit the hardware sites and many claimed that a particular ASUS board was great and rock solid. I was naive and took the 3 or 4 sites word at it and bought it. I started having MAJOR problems and later found out it was the Via chipset on the board. Forums were FLOODED with the exact same complaints. I eventually had to replace the board.

Since then I don't buy hardware until I've searched forums for personal experiences with said product. I'll still look at some review sites but I now take what they say with a grain of salt.

Im not sure if he understands multithreading

[0kComputer]

On multitasking and multithreaded apps, they will shine like the sun, but how many of these are there? How many times do you encode a movie while typing a document, zipping your C drive, doing some heavy CFD work all while listening to a few MP3s?

Correct me if im wrong but isn't multithreading/multitasking pretty damn important considering all the background tasks/services that are needed just to keep an OS running?

Let's list them then folks...

[HerculesMO]

The one site I like, though the reviews are few and far between, is Ars.Technica. Only reason, is because they BUY THEIR OWN HARDWARE :)

Anybody have any sites that they feel are bad or good (with respect to this article)? Please list a few reasons too, few examples if you can -- it makes it nice to see if these points are driven home over time by reading the reviews on different sites :)

This is not journalism

[maynard]

These are accusations of bribery and conflict(s) of interest against unspecified hardware review sites. Without naming the organization(s) and specific instances of bribery, with resulting proof, this is just irresponsible hand waving. Journalists are supposed to print facts. It's important to realize the distinction between whether bribery is taking place (possibly so), and whether this article in question backs up the assertion of bribery with documentation and quotable sources on the record. It does not. IMO: This article does NOT deserve this level of publicity, nor did it deserve publication. --M

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.

Crux of the problem

[onyxruby]

Crux of the problem is fairly simple. If you want to get the newest shiniest hardware to review and get your review out right away you can only do so with pre-release hardware. The only way to get that is to play ball with the hardware co's. Why do you think so many sites were mum about the dual athlon mp boards until one day you had a couple dozen reviews all of a sudden? That's the day the NDA's all expired.

Without this hardware you have to buy your hardware yourself. Not only is this expensive, but by the time your review is out the ad value of your review of bleeding edge hardware is kaput. Unfortunately, these are the ones that do the most honest and best reviews. Pre-release hardware is often picked out from a large selection to make sure that the review site gets a good "sample". These reviews are also the least profitable for the review sites to do. It's a nasty catch 22.

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

"I take goods you send me for free & review"?

[sulli]

Consumers Union has the right policy:

We accept no advertising, and buy any products we test on the open market. We are not beholden to any commercial interest.

I'm sorry, some guy who writes reviews, even ostensibly fair ones, in exchange for free product can't stand up to this.

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.

Article is Flamebait

[Phatboy]

I'm sorry, but he states he was angry while writing this and you can tell. It's the epitome of bad journalism - he doesn't have any proof, nor make specific allegations, and those he does make seem insubstantial. For example, he flames a site that did "a review in full, or at least in half", which is quite probably Anandtech, the article of which makes it quite clear that it is only the first part.

His only criticisms of the review are that it was an exclusive (which the article makes clear) and that it doesn't cover gaming (although it is only the first part of the review). He himself admits that gaming is not the point of these chips, so why does he feel that Anandtech should have to focus on gaming is the first part of their article? Indeed, in their second part they do cover gaming and conclude that you should buy an Athlon 64 if you mainly play single-threaded games, a fact that would be obvious to anyone who regularly reads any hardware site.

I can't claim that the hardware review sites are all without bias, but compared to mainstream news, hardware reviews are some of the hardest to bias given the ease of doing standardised, repeatable benchmarks.

Re:Two Words

[SavannahLion]

Tom's Hardware was the primary reason I stopped reading his site... er....

Let me clarify, A long time ago, during the BH6 heydays, I used to read Tom's Hardware almost religiously. I scarfed down every article with near fever, trying to stay on top of the latest hardware reviews. Then I got stupid and started dating, so I ignored Ol' Tom for a few years. When my other half and I broke up, I started digging into the hardware scene again, so I went back to Tom's to get up to speed.

A few articles into it, I realized the, "feel," of the articles changed. There didn't seem to be as much useful, practical, information in them anymore. They didn't have any interesting opinions on the hardware being reviewed. In fact, I don't think I found an article that was harshly negative in any way. Nor did I find any articles with useful grit-in-your-teeth information. Initially, I thought the, "neutralism," being presented in the articles were because of the close tolerances of the hardware being reviewed. I mean overclocking a 333MHz CPU to 450MHz had greater net results than overclocking the more modern CPU's now. But I put my faith in Tom, because it's supposed to be the best. After all, his site does say:

Tom's Hardware Guide readers have come to rely on the site for unbiased and authoritative articles on the products....

So who was I to argue with that?

I just can't put my finger on what, exactly, Tom is missing. As near as I can figure, Tom's Hardware reviews read too much like brochures. It's just enough to try and get a person interested. But whatever it is, it's enough to prevent me from utilizing his site for anything more than keeping track of the latest hardware. Nowadays, if I want real hard and honest opinions, I just hop on over to my favorite forum/BBS/IRC/whatever and sort through the flamefests to get a feel for a particular piece of hardwares viability.

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?