[mrkwse]

It will be interesting if LMG can pull off what Linus is aiming for with the massive investment in a laboratory environment. There are huge parts of the tech market where the most critical reviewing you can find is anecdotal accounts of if the reviewer liked a product or not (or the more clinical reviews are drowned out by the anecdotal noise).

[unwind]

Just in case not everyone are in the loop, LMG is Linus Media Group [1] which is the publishing agency behind the popular YouTube channel "Linus Tech Tips" [2]. It is a different Linus, not Torvalds. :)

[1]: https://linusmediagroup.com/

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/c/LinusTechTips

[Tagbert]

Thank you. I had wondered about that.

[kitsunesoba]

I'm hopeful for LMG's lab too. It's still a bit of a gamble, but from the sound of it the company is set up such that they can review products in an objective, data-backed way and tank any blowback from manufacturers that occurs as a result.

It's much more focused on enthusiast computer hardware, but Gamers Nexus[0] is doing good things in this space too. Their style is much more dry and data-dense than LMG's though, which isn't everybody's cup of tea.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChIs72whgZI9w6d6FhwGGHA

[Brakenshire]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ also seems to do a lot of their own testing.

[srazzaque]

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.

[GekkePrutser]

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.

[Shalomboy]

Hey, maybe the showman ship isn't for you, but what Linus and his Media Group have done is create the Top Gear of Enthusiast computer hardware. Tremendous entertainment value, exposure for niche sects of the culture, and an easy entry into the space for newcomers and young folks. That's gotta be good for something.

[sixothree]

Got a link to DisplayCheck? I'm not finding what I think should be correct.

[GekkePrutser]

Sorry I remembered it wrong.

It was DisplayMate, not DisplayCheck. https://www.displaymate.com/mobile.html#Latest

Their display "shootouts" are unparallelled in my opinion. For example they look at colour accuracy not only at high brightness but also at really low brightness, where displays often 'cheat' by reducing the contrast when they reach the limit of their backlight dimming. Which significantly impacts colour fidelity.

They also do many other types besides mobile displays, I just linked to that as an example.

PS: Sorry for calling out Linux for his showmanship but I just dislike this generation of Youtube "celebrity" that appeals to the mainstream over getting out of the way of high quality content. The only one I really have time for is Dave from EEVblog. Despite being quite the showman he really has the brains and doesn't hold back on technical info.

[k12sosse]

Don't apologize for what you've said about the cult of Linus. Congrats to him for what he's built, but it's just not for us, and that's ok.

Thanks for linking DisplayMate, at first glance it's something I'll be needing to dive deeper into soon.

[sixothree]

Thank you for the link. And there is no reason to apologize. You are not incorrect in your interpretation. I subscribe to LTT on YouTube, but it's for entertainment.

[hansword]

I want to second the gamers nexus recommendation here.

(To be frank, I think LMG labs is very much inspired by what GN has been doing over the last year or two.)

[danudey]

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.

[sixothree]

My problem with LTT is finding a _work_ laptop using their recommendations. I don't need gaming graphics and I cannot work on a 13" screen.

[omega3]

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.

[biggc]

I appreciate the depth of gamer’s nexus, but their videos are like watching someone read an Anandtech breakdown.

[geerlingguy]

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

[SV_BubbleTime]

This is such a welcome feature! It makes going to videos without these pretty painful.

[branko_d]

I think rtings.com are doing a good job on monitors.

[girvo]

While they don’t focus on the same equipment, Hardware Unboxed scratches that data-dense itch for monitors, processors and other components.

[hirvi74]

There is no denying that "Linus (Torvalds) Tech Tips" would not be extremely entertaining though. I would love to see him just go off on everything. :)

[bmn__]

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

[djmips]

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

[ajolly]

For detailed tech reviews with lots of data of really been enjoying Igor'slab from Germany lately

[humaniania]

Gamers Nexus is better than Linus in every way that matters.

[newsclues]

Entertainment matters for about 10 million subscribers

[fartcannon]

Do you trust Linus, though? He often promotes himself as without bias, but he very clearly hates Apple (except the watch). He also loves things he already understands (anything Microsoft). He's got heavy duty fanboyitis. And he's clearly someone you can buy demonstrated by his flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise.

I don't think he outwardly lies (at least not in a way that matters), or anything, but he's got pretty good soft selling skills which he definitely uses for evil/to make money.

All LMG channels are great. But to me anyways, they're great because they're basically comedies.

[danudey]

As an Apple fanboy, I can easily say that Linus does not hate Apple.

Linus DOES hate a lot of what Apple does; cases where they make things more unrepairable for no real reason, or various socio-political causes (like opposing Right to Repair or unions or whatever).

Regardless of that though, I would trust a Linus review of a new iPhone or iPad a lot more than I would trust a lot of other sites, because I know he's not going in with Apple fanboyism (the way I would, for example), and he gives reasons for all his opinions.

Fundamentally, he always comes across as principled. If he has an opinion he'll tell you, and he'll give you a reason. He'll admit that he was wrong when he (believes he) was wrong. He'll contextualize his thoughts so you can decide if this or that opinion is really relevant to your situation.

As far as I've seen, his AMD/Intel/nvidia opinion changes follow along with the facts. He's pretty PO'ed at Intel for basically just sitting around with their fingers up their asses for however many years, and only actually trying to make good products at good prices (and largely failing) when AMD suddenly stepped everything up.

nvidia makes great video cards, the best on the market, but he's not going to avoid calling them out for shady or anti-consumer business practices. AMD makes great CPUs and good video cards, but if they have a disingenuous benchmark or claim he's going to say something about it.

I dunno, no one is entirely unbiased, but from what I've seen over the years, I can trust Linus more than most other people.

[simondotau]

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.]

[usednet]

Unionisation as a default state of affairs is what prevents exploitation. Join a union.

[DubiousPusher]

Not to mention that if you wait to unionize until you are being exploited, you will have far less power to resist coercion. Striking when you have some money under the mattress is a lot easier than doing so after you've eaten the last of the shoe leather.

[simondotau]

Which is great in theory, until you realise that unions can and do exploit workers too. Collectives of people (whether corporations, unions, or entire countries) tend towards corruption as they scale. History has shown that large unions are similarly prone to exploitation and corruption.

[baq]

the choice is between having no negotiating power with HR or having some at the cost of being part of an organization.

[mschuster91]

> History has shown that large unions are similarly prone to exploitation and corruption.

Mostly in the US, it seems. Unions in Europe are healthy and effective. The key difference IMO is the interest people show in democracy and holding delegates accountable.

[bigDinosaur]

You also unionise to prevent exploitation, it's not just a reactionary option. Yes, it can get unnecessarily adversarial. We'd be better off if unions were the default but were only adversarial where necessary. I believe countries like Germany do a bit better at this?

[GekkePrutser]

> Unionising is what you do in response to exploitation, not as a default state of affairs.

You're not from France I can tell ;)

But yeah if people in such a small company start organising it means stuff is wrong

[fartcannon]

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.

[simondotau]

It is unreasonable to expect any one source to be consistently reliable. The "trustworthy resource" is multiple sources with diverse views. Combine your LMG diet with some Rene Ritchie, Hoeg Law, etc.

[fartcannon]

Diversify your trust portfolio. I like it.

[AshWolfy]

I think the truth is you cant trust any one reviewer, you should always look at multiple reviewers.

[411111111111111]

Thats was true some time ago, but isn't anymore - for every authentic review you will find hundreds of fake SEO article/comments. This means that by simply increasing n you're basically guaranteed to be less informed.

Welcome to the age of misinformation.

[teh_klev]

> And he's clearly someone you can buy demonstrated by his flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise.

He gives praise where praise is due, that isn't bias. Many times on the WAN show he's reminded viewers and especially Red/Green/Blue fanboys that none of these companies are your friend. And big deal if he's more productive using Windows than Linux.

I'm in no way defending Linus, there's a bunch of stuff him and another staffer get up to that's utterly cringeworthy. But as to the rest of your comment I think it's your own biases that are playing in your head.

[coldtea]

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...

[fartcannon]

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.

[teh_klev]

> Maybe, but those WAN show lectures are often starkly mirroerd[sic] by strongly worded submarine advertisement playing as segments on his various shows.

Every one of their videos clearly mention who the sponsors are i.e. the "sponsored showcase" videos. And when they're not those types of videos, but just have regular advertising, they say out loud and clear "and this segway's to our sponsor...".

I'm not shilling for the fella but their content is some of the best when it comes to being transparent about who's paying for their videos. He can't risk getting that wrong.

> Narcissist is probably the word.

He's clearly offended you somehow and sometime in the past so why continue to watch their content? If a content creator offended me this much then I'd just walk away.

[hoseja]

The word is "segue", not "segway".

[teh_klev]

I know and realised after it was too late to edit. And I used work in radio and should know better. Sitting here with bright red shame-face :)

[fartcannon]

How do you know what he's saying isn't only half truths? You just trust him. I have seen enough of his behaviour over the years to prefer to see his videos as comedy. That's all.

[teh_klev]

You clearly have an axe to grind and there's no point in me wasting more time discussing this with you. Good night, and good luck.

[fnimick]

He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his employees from marketing themselves on personal social media (to stop them from building a following and then leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his content or support his business in any way now.

[armadsen]

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.

[Dracophoenix]

Because he sounds like the stereotype of a Hot Topic-shopping turbonerd c.2002 ? Personally, I find it nostalgic, and even endearing.

[girvo]

I find his semi-rare discussions of 2000s tech nostalgic.

Yes sir, very Atomic. I miss that era.

[p1necone]

Yeah it's kinda awesome to me too. I want to travel back in time and go to a lan party with 16 year old Linus.

[fartcannon]

It seems like he creates a fun environment at the workplace too. I bet they have awesome work parties.

[bigDinosaur]

I think he, personally, is largely entertainment. His company does produce some genuinely useful (as in, not total SEO spam) reviews etc. though.

[teg4n_]

Agreed. I always think of his Amazon go video where thinks he “stole” tampons that were actually pads.

[rhyzomatic]

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

[bradlys]

People should also understand why he said he would be offended. He would be offended because it meant they didn’t talk to him and work with him - and that he did such a bad job as a manager that they decided to unionize.

He’s pro-union - he just hopes he is a good enough boss that his employees don’t feel like they need to unionize. He clarified his viewpoint in later videos. Offended was probably not the best choice of word - and he admits that too. I don’t recall the video but someone can find it. (I’m on mobile and on vacation - idk why I’m even here)

[9935c101ab17a66]

Anyone who is truly “pro-union” would recognize that seeing yourself as a good manager/boss doesn’t mean you don’t take advantage of your employees. Furthermore, there is ALWAYS a power dynamic at play that makes it difficult for individuals to speak up about their concerns or ideas for improving working conditions — even “nice” managers will disagree or see certain things as pointless / unnecessary / frivolous. Not to mention, Linus is both the owner AND the manager of LMG, making the relationship between employer / employee even more complex and unbalanced.

Unions are a tool to give individual workers more leverage in negotiations that almost always favour employers / managers.

A side note: Linus could be a great day-to-day manager, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a bad “ceo” if that’s what he calls himself. He can be incredibly personable and kind and supportive, but also have unreasonable expectations about work hours, employee’s social media activities, compensation, etc.

[freemint]

Do you have a source for the work hours? I had the impression that he very much tries to not ask for more then he pays for. Do you have a source that the compensations at LTT are somehow unreasonable?

As for not having a YouTube channel, i find that a reasonable demand for employees of a company running YouTube channels. They are allowed to do game streaming stream on Twitch and stuff like that.

[fartcannon]

Pro-union but would be offended if his employees made a union?

That's the kinda double speak I'm talking about.

[bradlys]

It’s really not. People tend to only form unions when they feel that they’re being unjustly treated and this is one of their last resorts.

[junkieradio]

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.

[fartcannon]

I googled it and there's this. I'm not sure if it's what OP is talking about or not. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bTHSwBZVNI

[nighthawk454]

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

[fartcannon]

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

[dx034]

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.

[normaler]

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

[p1necone]

> flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise

This is a silly take. Tech evolves and companies release more than one product at a time. It would be weird if LTT /didn't/ have "flip-flopping" takes on various companies.

[fartcannon]

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.

[dhzhzjsbevs]

It's silly because it isn't a valid point. Linus flip flopping on those brands is precisely why he isn't suffering from fanboyitis.

It's kind of rediculous to claim he's a fanboy in one sentence then claim he's just a shill in the next when the evidence contradicts your first statement.

[fartcannon]

Well, again, I disagree. It's ridiculous to see a behaviour with your own eyes and then choose to believe it's the opposite.

[dhzhzjsbevs]

What behavior exactly? Got receipts?

Because from what I see he's both called Intel on it's bullshit and still worked with them on a professional level.

Same for amd.

As for apple, they funded a whole new Apple channel without Linus precisely because he knows he couldn't be unbias.

[criley2]

LTT makes almost all of it's money from floatplane, youtube premium, and youtube advertisements. The "deals" they work with companies are almost entirely outside of the product space they review.

This mud-slinging idea you continue to push (with zero evidence) is contrary to their financials and directly contrary to their business model.

Why on earth would Linus leverage his entire business in debt to buy a huge facility to produce hardware reviews if that would mean "his sponsors" (your salacious claim) would abandon him or force him to change?

It literally doesn't make sense. If they were truly bought and paid for and producing faux-content that is actually advertising, they would have legitimately zero need to spend millions of dollars on hardware testing labs.

[hoseja]

>LTT makes almost all of it's money from floatplane, youtube premium, and youtube advertisements

In the recent video they did on their most profitable videos Linus explicitly said money from YouTube is only a small fraction of their revenue. I don't imagine Floatplane is much of a profit centre either...

[criley2]

Linus did a video on how much money they make from youtube premium/ads and the numbers can get as high as $50k-$100k/video for their most popular streams. It's not nothing. Floatplane is profitable because it's a subscription based system, and that's where the money always is. Hence patreon.

[fartcannon]

Salacious is a bit of a salicous word for doubting their reviewer credibility.

I get it. You disagree with me. I hope you are right because he's got quite a bit of power these days.

[teh_klev]

> I hope you are right because he's got quite a bit of power these days.

Oh c'mon. The guy is just a YouTube celeb like hundreds of others and easily disposable, what is this "power" he wields?

[criley2]

Salacious is an eminently accurate word for your string of source-less comments describing your feelings about their advertisements under the guise of actual accusations of wrongdoing.

I don't "disagree with you", I dismiss you. I provided an accurate description of their financials and incentives and demonstrated that your salacious claims literally don't make sense.

This is good and normal! We should always dismiss peoples feelings especially when they directly contradict all available evidence. However, I happily await your evidence demonstrating that Linus has been corrupted by a hardware partner into producing devious advertising! We'd all love for you to back your claims up.

[p1necone]

LTT very clearly demarcates which videos are sponsored and which are not.

[fartcannon]

How do you know that that's everything? It's just taking their word.

[p1necone]

Do you have even an ounce of evidence? You're being ridiculous.

You can't just sling mud baselessly and expect people to take you seriously.

[DominoTree]

How do I know your comments aren't being sponsored by a rival YouTube channel?

[p1necone]

Not having bias doesn't mean not having an opinion on things. It's a review channel, it doesn't work unless he "likes" some things and "hates" others, as long as he elaborates on the /reasons/ for those opinions.

[fartcannon]

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?

[kadoban]

> Their opinion changes depending on who is sponsoring them, no?

No, to the extent humanly possible. They have reviews, which are not sponsored by anyone having anything to do with the product being reviewed. Those are their actual opinions and evaluations of products.

Separately they have sponsored showcase videos, or whatever they call them, where they won't say anything untrue, but they're just showing off whatever it is, not really evaluating it deeply. These videos are _very_ obviously different, and very obviously labelled.

LTT has top tier policies and openness about these issues compared to really anyone on youtube or anywhere.

More anecdotally, I've seen them give takes on previous or current sponsors that were _very_ not in their financial best interests. If sponsors are paying for easy coverage, they're not getting their money's worth.

> Well, no, it would work way better if he had no bias.

That would just be lying. There are no humans without biases.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-zt57TWkTF4 is probably a good summary on Linus's thoughts on sponsors/funding. If you trust what he says or not is up to you. I do though.

[fartcannon]

Like, not to be dismissive, but how do you know? Talk is cheap.

Edit: thanks for the link to the video.

[kadoban]

Same way anyone knows anything, really. I look at what they've said, look at their actions and decided if they matched. You can tell that they genuinely want and try to do good.

Certainly feel free to evaluate differently for yourself.

I watch a lot of their content. Mostly it's just fun, but I do trust them to have pretty good takes on things when I'm considering buying something as well.

I do always check others though, mostly for the real gritty details that LTT doesn't usually focus on. I'm hoping that their Labs project starts providing a lot more of those too.

[crummy]

Are there reviewers you would recommend without any biases at all?

[jamiek88]

It’s pretty much impossible for humans to be unbiased. All we can do is work around it like with double blind experiments for example.

[fartcannon]

No. :(

[klausjensen]

As somebody who has followed Linus for the last couple of years, I have to say I deeply disagree with your conclusion about hating apple and being for sale.

He is not without flaws, but I think he is fair, balanced and very well-intentioned.

[cush]

Phones and anything Apple are reviewed to oblivion. There are some incredible consumer product review YouTube channels out there too.. The Best one imo is project farm (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vO3UX4oEnZI). If you're into headphones, Crinacle's site/YT are on a completely different level than any other review site

I really hope LMG does videos in these styles with their lab

[dymax78]

> If you're into headphones, Crinacle's site/YT are on a completely different level than any other review site.

Audio Science Review was posting deep-dive technical reviews of amps, dacs, daps, iems, and headphones, years before crinacle made a post on headfi, and I say that as a member of the latter since ‘02. Many audio engineers and enthusiasts have attempted to remove the “reality distortion field” that permeates the prominent audiophile communities (headfi, audiogon) for years; ASR was one of the first to successfully to so (excluding sites dedicated to specialized equipment).

[jterrys]

Project Farm is pretty great. Got great advice for water filters, car wax, and drills

There really are brands out there that charge 200% more for a shittier product to just get carried by brand recognition alone.

[geerlingguy]

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

[Smoosh]

I would also recommend The Torque Test Channel as very similar in approach to Project Farm.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZem9C5rWjSb0B8tV3k2EZg

[manchmalscott]

I believe their intention with the lab is to focus more on written articles instead of video content? He’s complained on his podcast (in the context of talking about the lab) about the decrease in quality print journalism in the tech space.

[wincy]

I’m curious about this too. He did a breakdown of how much money they get from ads and it’s not much considering how many employees they have. They have a lot of sponsorships and selling swag but I’m just not sure what their maximum size is as just another YouTube channel, even one with lots of revenue streams.

[AussieWog93]

Honestly, I think Linus has reached the point where even if his endeavour fails his family will be OK. Plus, he'd get to spend more time with them.

[fnimick]

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.

[compsciphd]

I dont think he wrote off the renovations, as that would be problematic from a tax perspective. what he probably does is charge LMG what would be considered a reasonable rate to film on at his home and he makes money back that way.

i.e. this came up when he was talking about the wall tv. he couldn't just bill it to lmb and store it at home, he would have to pay for it out of pocket and then charge LMG for every time they used it.

[thr0wawayf00]

The big problem with most YouTube review channels is that they're reliant on the vendors to provide them with free test units and other forms of access in order to grow their channels, and Linus is no exception.

I actually came across a "why I'm shutting down my channel" video a while back in which the host showed emails from the company whose product she was reviewing (it was a drawing tablet or something like that) pressuring her to show the product in a more favorable light.

It's so hard to tell who's actually objective in those review videos and who's censoring themselves at the request of a vendor.

[hoseja]

LTT is certainly NOT dependent on free review units any more.

[thr0wawayf00]

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.

[donmcronald]

I think the review industry is so bad that even a mediocre quality endeavor could gain a ton of traction. The problem with the current tech review industry IMO is that it seems like the benchmarking and review part of it are treated like separate business units that need to be self sustaining / profitable.

If you go by what LMG says on their podcast it sounds like the intent is for the lab to give them credibility and to act as an eyeball funnel, even if it needs to be subsidized by the entertainment side of the business. They've already shown that it's possible to make entertaining reviews if you keep the technical details light, so what they really need is hard data to back them up when they trash a product or get accused of being a corporate puppet.

I personally find their videos to be entertaining, so if I'm looking to buy something and I know they evaluate tech products, I'll go to their labs site, look for entertainment videos that are produced from that data, and watch those videos. Then when I find something I think looks like a good fit for me I'll jump back to the labs side to look at the details.

IMO the thing that might make LMG's effort different is that they're going into the space as a new participant. I think they realize the technical aspect of the lab is basically going to be content that needs to exist, but that no one reads (enough to be profitable) and their monetization is set up to accommodate that scenario. Compare that to traditional reviewers (and SEO spammers) that rely on page views for their revenue.

The whole review industry is going to keep shifting towards video and the low cost, low value SEO spam sites are a big part of that. Any existing review businesses that aren't shifting towards a hybrid model like the LMG / Labs plan are going to get crushed IMO. Even if it's not LMG doing it, it's going to happen eventually.

[McAtNite]

It will be nice if they do come up with an experiment based approach to reviews. Personally I really enjoy Gamer Nexus since they already do this.

Their coverage of the Nvidia cooler design change was really interesting to watch, and they went into depth on their testing methodology with both its strengths and weaknesses.

Their channel really convinced me to take a more critical look at other “reviews” and how they conduct them with either lazily held thermal camera or smoke machines.

[tapland]

And GN has someine making graphs who knows how to make them readable.

In LMG videos the graphs could be really crazy, though I haven't watched them for a while now.

[throw10920]

What's the profit model for LMG? Ads? I'm not sure how long that will sustain even a smallish channel with no expenses, let alone electronic testing equipment and products to test.

[yummypaint]

Gamersnexus has been similarly expanding their capabilities with very expensive fan testing equipment. They seem to be one of the better sources of consumer tech journalism these days.