Bias on AT and Tom's hardware?

KKiller

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May 4, 2002
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Guys,

I have been reading that there is a very definate bais on Anandtech and Tom's hardware guide articles. I have been able to detech no such bias, and I was wondering why so many people share the opinion that there is a definate bias. Could some of you please comment on this bias?:confused:
 

KKiller

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May 4, 2002
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I can only say that I have seen this topic come up in previous treads... there is a thread in this forum (General Hardware) entitled:

Unstoppable: DDR400 vs. Rambus

Look at the end of the thread... a bunch of people state that they find AT and THG baised.
 

KKiller

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May 4, 2002
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I would quote the thread.. but there are too many of the messages to quote... that indicate people believe that THG and AT are biased sources of information.
 

andreasl

Senior member
Aug 25, 2000
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You mean that guy who said that every site that posted reviews where RDRAM beats DDR is biased?
 

KKiller

Banned
May 4, 2002
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Well of course there is that guy... but there have been other posts that I have read from different people indicating the same thing: they believe that AT and THG are baised.

Now, I know that AT and THG are businesses.. they make their money off of advertising. Do you think that it might be possible to for them to skew their benchmarks/opinions depending on their sources of funding?

 

CQuinn

Golden Member
May 31, 2000
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A couple of comments at the end of a threads or two is not an indication of "definate" bias at any review site.

Expecially when the comments come from one of the Hot Topic threads like AMD vs Intel, SCSI vs IDE,
DDR vs RDRAM, ATI vs NVidia, Less Filling vs Tastes Great, etc... Where by that point in the thread the
posters are reading their own bias/agenda into the conversation regardless of what the article being
discussed says.

Having said that... ALL Sites are Biased!!!... all review sites will give you information based on their knowledge
and point of view. And since no site has all the information, what they give you is going to be slightly colored by
that POV.

The difference is in how they handle that Bias; a site like THG tends to rely on different writers to each do their
own reviews, so regular readers to that site can (most of the time) tell which way a particular article will lean based
on who wrote it. Tom himself seemed to be more even handed in his reviews (after a while he just didn't like anybody :) )

The way Anandtech seems to deal with potential bias, from my experience, is that they try to carefully consider
the features of each technology for what the average, power user wants from it. After that, it matters less whether
they like the technology, as whether the features of the technology work as advertised and can be usuable to
the people that may want to buy it. They might show bias after that, but always when they can point back to
something in the article giving a real reason behind their point of view.

You may notice one of the first forums you hit here is for Anandtech Articles where anyone is free to point out
flaws they might see in a given article, or make suggestions to help the AT crew improve reviews going forward.

All in all, I think AT has a distinct "flavor" but I don't find it any more biased than the other good hardware review
sites out there, and a lot more even-handed than some of the mediocre sites.

But thats just my opinion...



 

andreasl

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Aug 25, 2000
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I don't think either site would intentionally skew benchmark results, HOWEVER read some of THG reviews and notice the language used to describe the performance differances. He's always exxagerating them. Probably to make the review seem more exciting and get more hits...

So when I read a review at THG, I always skip through all the text and look first at the system config page and then at the benchmark results, ignoring the rest. I have always read reviews on the same product elsewhere first so I just need the extra benchmarks to complete the picture (along with other sites too).

As for AT. Well, I think most reviews are pretty good but sometimes the conclusions drawn from the results may not always be the correct ones (but always the most obvious ones, just that sometimes the most obvious isn't necessarily true).
 

Mingon

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Apr 2, 2000
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It is very difficult to detect any bias in the top-sites, e.g. anand, hardocp, toms and others. The only thing I would say was that Anand seemed to be slightly harsh on nvdia in a couple of articles but nothing more. As for toms occasionly I find him quite intel biased but only occasionaly. Of the others hardocp, aceshardware are very unbiased IMOH.
 

Snoop

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Oct 11, 1999
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<< It is very difficult to detect any bias in the top-sites, e.g. anand, hardocp, toms and others. The only thing I would say was that Anand seemed to be slightly harsh on nvdia in a couple of articles but nothing more. As for toms occasionly I find him quite intel biased but only occasionaly. >>


THG may not be biased, but 'lately' the reviews just plain suck.
 

Adul

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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No one can write a total unbias review, has there will always be some people who think this or that is bias from their point ofview. So it is best to read several articles and drawn your own conclusions. I normal find anandtech well done will little bias. They try to cover a lot in their reviews and for the most part doa good job at it. Has for some readers that say one site is so bias and the other isn't, Well they are just being bias right there.