HardOCP

[mishima]

Whenever I'm reviewing I always cut off any association I have in my mind and just focus on the product. Helios is right, if you like what you are reviewing - it is usually because it is good

I have recently criticised a few products and it does sometimes cause problems with companies but being truthful is what its all about. I would rather honour the readership and give reliable content than to tell porkies!

Certain companies don't like you pointing out weakness in a review, others - particularly a few distys we deal with just tell us to do our job and be honest.... someone said to me only last week - if its bad its bad, tell it how it is.

 

[ALXAndy]

But one could argue that you like it because it's good.

But as a reviewer you should be in the position to remain responsible and not let your heart rule your head.

Just as you guys did at the end of the 680 review when you pointed out that 2gb of vram was a concern on a card so expensive.

Of course it's good to like a product because it's good, but you need to remember you are responsible then in part for your reader's decisions.

That's a power play that some like a bit too much (going back to Mr Megalomania).

 

[mishima]

One thing is certain Andy we do have a big responsbility for telling the truth as ultimately we can sway a reader;s buying decision like you say.

 

[Helios1234]

But as a reviewer you should be in the position to remain responsible and not let your heart rule your head.

Just as you guys did at the end of the 680 review when you pointed out that 2gb of vram was a concern on a card so expensive.

Of course it's good to like a product because it's good, but you need to remember you are responsible then in part for your reader's decisions.

That's a power play that some like a bit too much (going back to Mr Megalomania).

Mr Megalomania is never level headed imo. He's always a bit extreme and always seems to rate products based on his relationship with manufacturers rather than the product itself.

But back to liking a product if it's good. If the product meets all the criteria I deem necessary such as performance, price point, noise etc, I have to immediately like it because I know that as a potential buyer, it would make me happy. I can't say a cooler is good but not have an opinion of it because it's my job to give share my opinion. As a reviewer, I'm no different to anyone else. Granted I get a few samples for free here and there, but I still have to recommend things to friends and family, and they know they would prefer a thing I like because it would have been based off my experience of it. However, what would be wrong to do is to have an affinity to a certain manufacturer and try to manipulate the review accordingly as that's immediately showing bias.

One example to counter your point for instance. Alpenfohn is a brand I like for several reasons. They like to share ideas with us, allow us to beta test things and for their support to us as well as their customers. But just because I like them as a company doesn't mean I will rate their products highly even when they are rubbish. If anything, I like them because they accept my honesty and work on that to improve their coolers. It's the philosophy of the company that is appealing, not the products. But as always there are sites that will exploit this kind of relationship. They know the company will reward them with free stuff so they just give their products good awards.

Like Mishima says, when you get something to review, you immediately forget who you're trying to please. All you have to focus on is the product and whether or not it's good enough for the people reading the review. We might like a company from our experience of dealing with them but this is because they trust us to be honest and we trust them to take our feedback, not because we can exploit them for free stuff like some sites do.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Who is Mr Megalomania??

 

[Helios1234]

Who is Mr Megalomania??

 

[ALXAndy]

Mr Megalomania is never level headed imo. He's always a bit extreme and always seems to rate products based on his relationship with manufacturers rather than the product itself.

But back to liking a product if it's good. If the product meets all the criteria I deem necessary such as performance, price point, noise etc, I have to immediately like it because I know that as a potential buyer, it would make me happy. I can't say a cooler is good but not have an opinion of it because it's my job to give share my opinion. As a reviewer, I'm no different to anyone else. Granted I get a few samples for free here and there, but I still have to recommend things to friends and family, and they know they would prefer a thing I like because it would have been based off my experience of it. However, what would be wrong to do is to have an affinity to a certain manufacturer and try to manipulate the review accordingly as that's immediately showing bias.

One example to counter your point for instance. Alpenfohn is a brand I like for several reasons. They like to share ideas with us, allow us to beta test things and for their support to us as well as their customers. But just because I like them as a company doesn't mean I will rate their products highly even when they are rubbish. If anything, I like them because they accept my honesty and work on that to improve their coolers. It's the philosophy of the company that is appealing, not the products. But as always there are sites that will exploit this kind of relationship. They know the company will reward them with free stuff so they just give their products good awards.

Like Mishima says, when you get something to review, you immediately forget who you're trying to please. All you have to focus on is the product and whether or not it's good enough for the people reading the review. We might like a company from our experience of dealing with them but this is because they trust us to be honest and we trust them to take our feedback, not because we can exploit them for free stuff like some sites do.

You don't have to explain it man I wrote reviews for years

Sadly, like Stuart Campbell, I was forced away from doing what I love because complete unbiased honesty is not welcome.

Like yourself if I would buy a product then I would be happy to ask others to. Sadly if I don't like a product I would tell them to avoid it like a nuclear winter. And it was that part that was frowned upon.

Thing is, like an article I read recently stated -

If only manufacturers would listen to their audience BEFORE they make a product they would not have to feel the agonising pain of failure. Sadly they do not listen, or ask, and thus end up making stupid products that people don't buy. The sad part is that they usually can't accept the fact that people did not buy them as they thought they had done everything right (IE - advertising and seeing some good reviews. Inevitably though it doesn't work like that, and people will call a turkey a turkey (good old word of mouth).

Which kind of begs the question why?

David at Bitfenix asked me to genuinely and honestly give my feedback on the Survivor. I did. I gave it a proper roasting. Instead of being angry at me or mad that I dared to say it needed serious work he listened. The next case out? the Shinobi, a raging success.

 

[Helios1234]

It's good to have companies like that willing to take on your words but even some reviewers are afraid to give proper feedback. They are afraid it would hurt their "relationship" but it's our job to be critical, otherwise I as a buyer might as well just read the specs and not bother reading reviews of a product I'm interested in.

 

[arc@css]

It's good to have companies like that willing to take on your words but even some reviewers are afraid to give proper feedback. They are afraid it would hurt their "relationship" but it's our job to be critical, otherwise I as a buyer might as well just read the specs and not bother reading reviews of a product I'm interested in.

Exactly. That's why I read many reviews, and when I see a trend of reliable information I tend to go with that. Reading just one or two is never an option.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

 

[Helios1234]

It's someone who's been mentioned a few times in this thread but I won't say more.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

On the topic of review sites I find xbitlabs very good, I don't see much if any bias and they cover a very wide range of games to give a broad picture of relative performance. This extensive testing regime means they always publish reviews later than similar sites but it's usually worth the wait. Any else concur?

 

[tommybhoy]

Another thumbs up for techreport, first site I've noticed to expose frametime performance which can explain apparent higher fps results which gives the appearance of higher performance numbers which compromises graphical quality and stuttering.

 

[chaparral]

I am just wondering if these guys have turned a little bias. Every amd card seems to get a silver award.

I also agree with you

A Silver award is far to high for any ATI/AMD card they should have got bronze

 

[Helios1234]

On the topic of review sites I find xbitlabs very good, I don't see much if any bias and they cover a very wide range of games to give a broad picture of relative performance. This extensive testing regime means they always publish reviews later than similar sites but it's usually worth the wait. Any else concur?

Yup I agree, they do good reviews.

 

[andybird123]

they do, just not very many

 

[Besty]

I think HardOCP and the Techreport v.good.

Last weeks Tri-Fire review was a relief, I thought it was just me.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

On the topic of review sites I find xbitlabs very good, I don't see much if any bias and they cover a very wide range of games to give a broad picture of relative performance. This extensive testing regime means they always publish reviews later than similar sites but it's usually worth the wait. Any else concur?

You have not read their AMD E350 reviews though!

One of the motherboards they tested had really terrible power consumption compared to all the other ones they tested. It was not representative of all the other boards they had tested and it was a huge difference. It was because of the VRM design and consumed 50% more power than another motherboard from MSI. The MSI motherboard was representative of most E350 motherboard designs and power consumptions looking at other reviews. The Gigabyte OTH was not.

Then for some reason they kept on using that one model only when comparing the E350 to Intel Atom and low end SB CPUs. One of them was entitled "every watt counts"...! Then they say the "the Fusion power efficiency is just a marketing hype."

They did it repeated even though people pointed out to them that the comparison was skewed with their own numbers.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

You have not read their AMD E350 reviews though!

That is the case, I mainly read the GPU and storage device reviews.

Another thumbs up for techreport, first site I've noticed to expose frametime performance which can explain apparent higher fps results which gives the appearance of higher performance numbers which compromises graphical quality and stuttering.

It's great to see the inclusion of the frame latency benchmarks as they are something that directly affect the user experience and simply won't show up in pure FPS benchmarks.

I like HardOCP reviews for prioritising highest usable settings in their comparisons, but I feel they should always include 1080P results as it is still one of the most common display resolutions and a decent percentage of users with premium cards do still use it (myself for example ).