AnandTech not what it used to be?

Nnyan

Senior member
May 30, 2003
239
1
76
I'm mostly a lurker but I've been reading AT for many years. I don't know if it's just me but it seems that AT has lost it's "edge" as a tech news and review site. I just remember a more consistent flow of reviews and interesting articles. Now you seem to get more "PR" type posts and the real reviews are far and few in between.

Anyway just my two cents wanted to see what everyone thought.
 

Cogman

Lifer
Sep 19, 2000
10,284
138
106
:( Have to agree with you. However, I don't see it as being totally AT's fault. The hardware industry as a whole seems to have slowed down quite a bit in recent years. There hasn't really been new or innovative companies, and the ones we have now have been playing slow games of "This product is 5% faster than the last".

That, and I'm not a huge fan of the new site design. it is too "Web 2.0"y
 

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
50,231
118
116
Just seems to be reviews of phones which I really do not care about.

KT
 

trmiv

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
14,670
18
81
Wait a second, you're telling me this site still has articles and reviews? Crap I thought the main site disappeared years ago!
 

Krazy4Real

Lifer
Oct 3, 2003
12,221
55
91
I agree. ATOT is not what it used to be.


Wait.... you mean the main site? I haven't been there in years.

EDIT: Damn you trmiv!!!
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
Used to be better when mosh and crew would pm you their boobie pics.
 

TallBill

Lifer
Apr 29, 2001
46,017
62
91
Personally I've just grown out of their target audience. I don't give a shit about tech stuff anymore.
 
Feb 19, 2001
20,155
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81
:( Have to agree with you. However, I don't see it as being totally AT's fault. The hardware industry as a whole seems to have slowed down quite a bit in recent years. There hasn't really been new or innovative companies, and the ones we have now have been playing slow games of "This product is 5% faster than the last".

That, and I'm not a huge fan of the new site design. it is too "Web 2.0"y

It's not that. There's plenty of stuff. You're saying it slows down? There's plenty of motherboards coming out left and right. I know some of the enthusiasm is lost, but if you read Hard Forums and XtremeSystems, people are always talking about new RAM chips, binning, new motherboards, new cases, everything. You may be absolutely right that the crowd has gotten smaller, but it's still there to an extent and the products are still coming out.

On the other hand Anandtech may be representing the shrinking interest, but to me that's a piss poor way to downgrade your site. Keep up with it.

There are so many things AT just completely failed at which makes me think twice about using it as a main computer review site when I need things. Remember the X58 motherboard roundup? All they did was round up 3 motherboards or was it 4 at launch and then that's it. They barely covered any of the important players like the ubiquitous Gigabyte X58-UDR series or any other motherboards that came in the subsequent weeks. We all hate Toms, but even Toms did a whole review on $300+ motherboards, $200-$300 motherboards, and another on budget X58 motherboards. 3 freaking reviews. We got nothing on AT. Then there was supposed to be a DDR3 roundup and a massive i7 overclocking guide. We got nothing.

Instead Anand's shifted his focus on smartphones. But at the same time all he reviews are US phones, minus the N900. His reviews are thorough, but really only matter for US consumers, except for the iPhone 4 which is really a worldwide phone. At the same time you have giant phone sites like PhoneArena and GSMArena covering EVERY DAMN phone that comes out. Granted, they don't get their hands on all the US phones, but they review pretty much everything out there.

I know if I need hardware components reviews like CPUs, motherboards, GPUs, cooling, RAM, etc that I almost always go elsewhere. There are some good reviews left on AT like GPUs, but other than that yes, they've completely lost hte edge in that sense.

I guess I'm glad Anand still has some interesting reviews on Macs and phones that many reviewers don't completely examine thoroughly enough.
 

WT

Diamond Member
Sep 21, 2000
4,816
59
91
Everything changes ... its inevitable. No point in fighting it unless you have deep pockets ;)
 

Axon

Platinum Member
Sep 25, 2003
2,541
1
76
His reviews are usually the best regarding a new product. However, he rarely "lowers" himself to doing a large round up or whatever.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
ViviTheMage said:
They should hire some of us to review for AT, i'd be more then happy, as long as I can keep the hardware, haha.

Anand really needs an auto tech reviewer in that case. I nominate myself of course. :D
 

Train

Lifer
Jun 22, 2000
13,582
80
91
www.bing.com
Havent built a system (or even bought a desktop PC for that matter) since, oh about 2001

Have owned nothing but lappys since. And I dont need an in depth review to figure out which memory stick to upgrade it with.

Ok maybe the HDD and SSD reviews might be handy, but thats about it.
 

rcpratt

Lifer
Jul 2, 2009
10,433
110
116
They do a great job with SSDs and phones, but other than that...meh. Maybe it's just because I don't care about that stuff anymore.
 

AznAnarchy99

Lifer
Dec 6, 2004
14,695
117
106

Yup. I typically get interested again when Im building a new computer but thats like once every 5 years. Also the fact that less people are building new computers since there's less games and such to push them. I build my rig in my sig last October and it still runs everything new that comes out at max settings. Back in 2005 when I build my last comp, my 7800 GTX was obsolete by 6 months.

Its the cellphone market now that is like how the computer market was a few years ago. New tech every 3-6 months.
 

aplefka

Lifer
Feb 29, 2004
12,014
2
0
It's funny this was posted today. I had to post in one of the help forums and thought about how long it'd been since I really participated in OT. Looked it up and since Jan 09, I made 108 posts. Crazy to think how much time I spent on the site and on here 5 years ago.

I agree with TallBill, I've grown out of the audience. I care about some tech stuff, but there's too much else going on in life now and I've got plenty of other interests that are more rewarding.
 
Oct 27, 2007
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Anandtech still offers some great in-depth technical analysis, which is what differentiates it from the thousands of other review sites on the net. They put in real effort to give accurate, detailed information. Just look at the Anandtech iPhone 4 antenna review compared to all of the other half-assed attempts at testing the issue.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,304
1,815
126
I agree to a certain extent.

They used to have Cpu and video card reviews every week. Now, 80% of the reviews are for things like enterprise level NAS/SAN or phones or gadgets. Of course Nvidia, Intel, and AMD's release cycles aren't quite as hyped as they were before it seems. Also, many of the people who were buying video cards and CPUs for their gaming systems and overclocking 10-12 years ago, are now working in IT and can use some of the analysis from Anand's reviews in their own decisions at work...
 

OBLAMA2009

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2008
6,574
3
0
I still like hearing about new desktop chips and hope that desktops dont go away, but im also really into the cell phone stuff and this site has done a pretty good job of reviewing the major new phones

are there a lot fewer hardware sites now. i was looking for a review of the new pentium e6800 and even a month later cant find a single one
 
Mar 10, 2005
14,647
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it peaked years ago, when there was a very dynamic situation in pc's. now things have slowed way down and there's no longer a new chipset or memory standard every time you look up. hardware reviews have slowed up significantly, too. i still enjoy some of the high-level articles, but i think phones and other gadgets get too much coverage. the web site refreshment was way, way overdue. i despise dailytech.