Comment by mrkwse

Second this. Whenever I'm looking up a review for a notebook, my default search term is "<model> notebookcheck" to see if they've done a review.

The visual size comparison tool is also extremely handy for comparing something you're about to buy, with something you already have access to. It gives you a much better sense of how much bigger/smaller this thing is.

Yeah they're great and in-depth and without the stupid showmanship of Linus. Just the info without the hot air :) Always the site I go for, wish they did more types of products.

For screens I use displaycheck.

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.

On a tangential note, I prefer GN for their understated delivery and heavy use of data and charts. On some channels the emphasis is clearly more on the -tainment part of infotainment. The default tech video is is now produced with the same template: little jokes between presenters, background history, open ended questions, Netflix type camera shots on the couch, post processing, visual effects etc. With GN at least it's easy to FF to see a graph and listen to conclusions. Other channels require me to be emotionally invested in the content and delivey method and it gets very tiring after a while.

Heh, at least they give chapter markers so you can glance at the benchmarks you want then skip to their conclusions.

Linus S on Linus T: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kua9cY8q_EI

Code review: Suggestion make logic positive. "Linus (Torvalds) Tech Tips" would be extremely entertaining" :)

Entertainment matters for about 10 million subscribers

As an Apple apologist, I also concur with most of the above.

Though I do find it amusing that Linus has often commented negatively on companies that don't want their employes to unionise, when Linus does much the same thing. In the case of LMG, Linus employs emotional threats, publicly warning his employees that forming a union would represent a declaration of "personal failure". Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with Linus here. Unionising is what you do in response to exploitation, not as a default state of affairs. I just wish he could see the parallel when commenting on other companies which aren't currently unionised.

[Edit: just noticed that this exact point was already discussed to death elsewhere in this sub-thread.]

As someone who loathes Apple, I disagree. But I do agree that there's basically no place to get a trustworthy resource on Apple. Because, for the same reason I don't trust Linus, money is involved.

I think that's a little naive. He's more of an entertainer making money with sponsorships than a reviewer telling hard truths.

Heck, even the Wirecutter, owned by the NYTs, is known to push products based on sponsorships...

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.

I know this is completely subjective, and his millions of subscribers tell me my opinion is far from ubiquitous, but he's also just straight up obnoxious to me. One of those people whose voice, demeanor, appearance, everything, just immediately turns me off.

Do you mind sharing some links to back up these claims?

Just watched a video [0] where he clearly comes across as being pro workers rights, and against passing prop 22 in California. He seems to be generally pro-union while still trying to point out some general issues with them. He also says he would be "offended" if his employees unionized at LMG, which while maybe is a bit stupid to say, I don't think counts as anti-union.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpyiNOD-MOk

I watch one of his employees stream on twitch, I found out about his channel from a Linus tech tips video, I don't think your second claim is all that true.

a lot of LMG employees have personal social media and either YouTube or Twitch streams, often getting viewers from fans of their persona on LMG videos. I think the issue is only with competing content and/or leveraging the LMG platform. For example, if an employee started a GPU review channel and called it out in an LMG video, like ok yeah probably not. More like non-compete than some draconian restrictions

Ah, that's pretty brutal. Thanks for the information I will keep that in mind. Seems less funny now. :/

Honestly, I would expect that from him as CEO. He only makes money off people watching the channel and subscription numbers are hugely important. Any efforts by employees to gain subscribers for their channels could dilute visitor numbers and subscribers to LMG. And obviously he doesn't want to create competition.

In the end he's still a CEO and the others are his employees, not his friends. For that, he doesn't appear to be a terrible boss.

Can you elaborate in the anti-union thing? I can't seem to find anyone discussing this.

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.

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?

And I love the test rigs PF devises. Some really clever ones like the oil wear tester in his most recent review.

Dude literally has a brand new house where he wrote off all the renovation as business expense as he was filming it for his channel. He's totally fine.

Maybe not, but those channels still largely rely on regular access from these companies, which always presents a conflict of interest.

I'm sure Linus does just fine in this regard, but the underlying problem still stands: if my Youtube channel's success is dependent on getting that kind of access to products early (as most top-tier reviewers do), I'm always going to have to decide between being as objective as possible and not biting the hand that feeds me.

If you've watched a handful of review videos on YT at this point, there's a pretty good chance at least one of them was pre-approved by the vendor of the product being reviewed and you just don't know it.