Whose reviews do you trust?

Aside from this Web site, there are plenty of places you can turn to for reviews. Which ones matter to you? I'm mainly thinking of Web sites and magazines here - not your friend that works in the electronics section at Target (or who has a degree in computer science, for that matter) - places we can all look to. I'm also not really thinking about news so much as formal reviews.

I like anandtech.com and tomshardware.com, but the latter goes a bit over my head at times.

A Web site whose reviews are utterly worthless: cnet.com. The reviewers are brainlessly arbitrary in what they choose to praise and criticize on any given item - especially computers (as opposed to accessories, for instance).

The comment, "A model in this price range/geared toward X market should have X feature, and most do, but this model doesn't" would be very meaningful. However, their reviews often point out the absence of a feature which is actually uncommon or highly overrated in the first place. For instance, one might point out the absence of a pointing stick, which may well be a dealbreaker for many buyers, but it is also uncommon enough that to mark down for its absence is unjustified. That a machine only has four USB ports or doesn't offer a WUXGA screen is little more important than that it doesn't have leather palm rests or come with a free printer.

Similarly, there is the common problem of factoring in one's personal preferences in an objective way. In the above case, for instance, a reviewer is unjustified in claiming that the absence of a pointing stick makes the machine all but useless. A reviewer is, however, morally permitted to make subjective objective statements about what their own preferences are. In this case, such a comment might take the shape of, "This model's touchpad is better than most [or average or worse than most - whatever], but my own preference is to use a built-in pointing stick." If they can't tolerate its absence enough to provide a fair review without one, they should (in the case of professional reviewers) ask their editors for a different assignment.

The above two problems are best keft to the buyer to factor in at his/her discretion. To use them in the wrong way in a review is simply irresponsible reviewing.

Most reviewers also completely fail in their duty to acknowledge the existence of multiple configurations. If a computer's benchmarks are underwhelming and it gets poor battery life, the reviewer should certainly say so. However, if the review unit was configured with a Celeron M processor at 1.4 GHz, in addition to describing the configuration, I feel the reviewer is duty-bound to specifically state something to the effect of, "..., but this is the budget configuration, and it should be noted that more performance-oriented configurations are available." The same can be said of optical drives, hard drives, etc. That a computer came without a key feature may not matter; what matters is whether or not the feature is even offered. To fail to note any of this is to base a review strictly on components without letting the reader know; it is to ignore that which makes one manufacturer or model different from another: machine design, component integration, options offered, etc.

Best,
Howie

 

I second the CNet comment.

For reviews, I will never trust a 'single' review, but I need 5-6 of similiar opinion to finalize my opinion.

I usually google around, and accumulate 6-7 tabs of reviews and finalize then(which rarely happens, because I'm very indecisive)

 

I trust Toms Hardware reviews
www.tomshardware.com
The final authority on most items as far as I'm concerned

 

Number one site - NotebookReview.com!

I love ExtremeTech . . they're great. Also Anandtech does a nice job.

HotHardware is another one of my favorites.

 

Anandtech, Tom's, and Xbit Labs are the source of the articles that I actually read.

I do visit CNET just to get a feel for what is hot in the retail stores.

EDIT: Just to add, I totally agree with you on:

Yes, tell us if this is basaically a good product, and we can configure it as we wish.

 

If any source has poor reviews, it's PC Magazine. They're really hastily done, stupid comments, I won't be subscribing to that magazine anymore.

LAPTOP magazine is pretty good though, I enjoy reading their reviews. At least they are lengthy and a in-depth, good points.

 

I like CNet just to read the reviews from regular people. Although I know there's a lot of bashing that goes on, there's usually some good, informative reviews that give you first-hand info which is really useful.

 

Since I know a lot of you never leave the forums on this site, I wanted to bring up the fact that we link to reviews from several sites. So if you find a model you're interested in we have links to our review along with all the others we can find. There are also user ratings there too.

 

Funny about several of you endorsing tom's hardware reviews. in a separate thread, i posted part of a review from toms that pointed out alleged "downsides" in a certain notebook. toms reviews seem "expert" and useful to me. but another person responded to the post with a vehement denunciation of toms as being hopelessly biased. i'm not experienced or expert enough to being able to evaluate whether toms is biased or unbiased. but am amused the poster was so negative about toms when other posters seem to like toms. hard to know what's what unless you yourself are an expert.....but even i can tell cnet reviews are often very misleading

 

I think you're much better off with customer reviews like the ones you'll find around these forums. You can read up on them at various news sites, but the people who buy them are the ones that give you the most honest opinions, and since they use them for hours a day instead of just testing, they get more in-depth and find more to comment on.

 

I agree cnet.com being worthless of all, next worthless is pcmag. I am still getting that mag, and never found that is really useful review.


I like anandtech, xbit labs, extreme tech and tomshardware( little intel biased IMHO).

For notebooks, ofcourse first one to look is nbr. More indepth, hands-on reviews with real pricing by real users.

 

Interesting finds

 

Wasn't there a laplogic site or something similar to that out there with reviews?

 

@gizbug

I guess you mean http://www.laptoplogic.com/

Others:
Dutch: http://www.notebookadvies.nl/
German: http://www.notebookjournal.de/
English: http://www.notebookforums.com/ and http://www.trustedreviews.com (It's all in the name)

... and probably the best: http://www.notebookreview.com/

 

Agreed on all points. anandtech and extremetech are my biggies. I check out tom's, but take it with a grain of salt.

 

Thank You, thats the site!

 

Well since I know a little bit about computers myself and know when someone doesn't know what they are talking about or have made errors I just read a bunch of reviews and take in the little tidbits and come to a conclusion myself.

Tomshardware is alright, but they aren't to be trusted for videocard reviews. Those smaller websites are much better since the reviewers are enthusiasts and test everything properly, ie. software settings, hardware settings.

cNET is a joke, so is PC world and all those big name magazines. These guys don't have a clue. Their video reviews don't show squat either.

Bigbruin is a good spot and also those Australian sites are amazing. Full of details and know how.

Sites like these are also good because you get reviews from peers and you also get different perspectives.

Sometimes newbie reviews are great because they give people a different USER oriented perspective instead of a hardcore technical review.

Cheers,
Mike

 

i agree with the sentiment on cNET. not very great.
as far as reviews within NBR.. I gotta admit, I ALWAYS look forward to Abaxter's reviews!