Rob's new review at PCExtreme

[BadAttitude]

Rob got torn up pretty bad on his first review of the Panaflo fan. This time he has a more serious product, the MX221 LCD from Marix Orbital. While his lack of experience is still apparent, I think he did a much better job on this one.
You can check it out Right Here!

Give the guy your honest constructive criticism. I think you guys (in spite of the wise cracks..) really helped him out last time.

Best regards,

Dwayne Sessom
PCExtreme

 

[BG4533]

Good job on the second review Rob. It looks pretty good to me. Two suggestions though. First, try to use more formal language, it may just be me though. Second, saying things like "worlds finest" and "by far the best" makes it sounds like you are TOO enthusiastic about the product (or are being bribed for a good review ) and may make people think you are biased.

Other than that, good job on the second review.

Brian

 

[amcdonald]

A much better review. Of course here there very little to be objective about.
I have some advice. I understand you aren't made of money and may not have access to all the free lcd's you want, but comparison is a huge factor in reviewing products. Any comparisons help to distinguish your review from a fanboy review where the reviewer doesn't really know what to compare a product to. This is by far not a complaint against the review, because I know I wouldn't try to gather up several lcd's unless I had full sponsorship. But if someone is gonna pay for a high-end product they typically want to know what the value/price difference is.
I liked the use of the labeled picture, but the numbers are way too small. You could make the numbers bigger or put the legend inside the picture.
There were some spelling mistakes, but overall is was a good review.

 

[Ilmater]

Two grammatical errors (not a big deal):

This allows you LCD to control things such as fans, lights and any other gadgets you might have in you computer.

Should be "your LCD" and "your computer," but it's not that big of a deal. I can't remember the last time I read a review and didn't see at least one grammatical error. Plus, let's face it, people don't really care about your speeling or grammar, they care about whether or not the product being reviewed is worth their money.

Also, I went to their site and don't see anything about this LCD (not yoru fault). How come? I think it's nice to know where to buy one too. I went to their online order page and couldn't find this there either (again, not your fault).

The only other thing I would have liked is a listing of a bunch of things that the LCD can display, but I'm totally nit-picking here. I think that the PC eXtreme logo was really cool, and gave me an idea of what that thing can do. I also really liked all the pictures of the different combinations of colors that it can come in. That would be really important to me if I were about to buy one. It's much harder to point out all the good things than to find things wrong, so considering that I only found one small omission (and I mean tiny) and a small grammatical error, that means that everything else is great.

Congrats!

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: BG4533
Good job on the second review Rob. It looks pretty good to me. Two suggestions though. First, try to use more formal language, it may just be me though. Second, saying things like "worlds finest" and "by far the best" makes it sounds like you are TOO enthusiastic about the product (or are being bribed for a good review ) and may make people think you are biased.

I didn't mind the less formal tone (though it doesn't hurt to be more formal), but I do agree with the second part. I know that you guys stand up for your reviews, which I respect very much, but others don't know that. Not bad advice.

 

[amcdonald]

yea, the phrase 'world's best' and those akin to it indicate a fanboy review.
The only exception is if you are speaking of something generally accepted as such.
An example, I could say that newegg is the 'world's best' online reseller..
Its true but it still sounds like I'm getting paid to say it
Like ilmater said we are really nitpicking the article...
If I was looking into buying an lcd and came across this review, I would definitely weigh it into my decision.

 

[Robage]

Thank you very much for you feedback guys. By the way, I am Rob that wrote this review, for those of you how dont know me. Hehe, so you think my review was to posative eh? What can I say, I could not find a single flaw in this product...everything was outstanding, but then again I would have liked to get another LCD from another company for comparison...I still think that there isn't much out there that can match this LCD.

 

[OulOat]

Originally posted by: Robage
Thank you very much for you feedback guys. By the way, I am Rob that wrote this review, for those of you how dont know me. Hehe, so you think my review was to posative eh? What can I say, I could not find a single flaw in this product...everything was outstanding, but then again I would have liked to get another LCD from another company for comparison...I still think that there isn't much out there that can match this LCD.

So there is not a single thing they can improve? Not a single thing? So you are saying that this product is the best LCD product out there, and the best that there will ever be?

 

[ChefJoe]

Rob, no offense, but when I read a review that cannot find a single thing wrong with something and uses terms of praise, I start to think it's an "ooh, I got free hardware, yippee review".

Do you think they should have a brighter backlight, multi-colored backlight, better button design, stealthier button design, better response time, a display without the little lines non-lcd across the screen. While I admit there should be some realism to the claims (I cannot smoothly watch The Matrix on the LCD-dot display), this is your chance to let everyone know what the product is like, what it can and cannot do for them. Its also one very direct way of providing feedback for the producer of the good. You can cause revisions, features, better software to be released because your opinion is likely to influence 100 or more purchases.

I read your last review, I read this one. The writing style is much improved, and your categories are more defined in this one, but this is your chance to be "form diamonds in your a$$" critical and help get a product revised if needed.

On a side note, why do so many reviews not tell you the price of the item ? This one does, but many hardware reviews will not, some won't even provide you with a list of vendor(s) for the item.

 

[Robage]

Considering Matrix Orbital is in my opinion the best LCD company out there now. And they use the highest quality parts for their products, and sofware. If i cant find anything wrong with it I'm going to give them praise because they deserve it if they do such a high quality job.

 

[RyanM]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
Plus, let's face it, people don't really care about your speeling or grammar, they care about whether or not the product being reviewed is worth their money.

Don't you mean "grammer"? rofl

 

[RyanM]

BTW, until Matrix comes up with a better way to hook that thing up than routing it OUTSIDE the case and into a USB port, I see it as utterly useless. In this day and age of onboard Ethernet, RAID, and sound, they could easily have a PCI card to plug in. The only PCI slot on my computer is used for an aftermarket soundcard, and I suspect anyone running rigs built in the last 2 years has no more than 2 to 3 PCI devices. Running crap out of your computer is just backasswards.

 

[syberscott]

Originally posted by: MachFive

Originally posted by: Ilmater
Plus, let's face it, people don't really care about your speeling or grammar, they care about whether or not the product being reviewed is worth their money.

Don't you mean "grammer"? rofl

He meant "grammar". (Look it up) I'm not sure if he threw in "speeling" for fun, but he definately missed "(not yoru fault)".

 

[Robage]

You do have a point, but in my case i don't have an y PCI slots left, i have a gfx card, 2 LAN cards, a sound card, a usb plugin, and a optical autio input. And i have 4 out of 6 USB ports open, so the external USB thing is no problem, and plus, it is a cool silver looking wire, and it looks cool sticin out the back. And also, adding a USB card so you can hook up the LCD internally would cost more money and make and already expensive LCD even more so. So I beleive they chose the right thing to have it run externally.

 

[ChefJoe]

But the display has those ugly lines going across it. You could make your own custom pictures if the lines wouldn't make it look like ass. Matrix Sucks because of that.

If you can't find any room to improve the product then matrix isn't getting all that they were looking for in a review. Advertisements and feedback from users on what they should develop.

I think they should come up with an extension pin design for the USB interface.... essentially, have an inline tap on the motherboard headers, in a way that wouldn't interfere with front mount USB ports (I'm not sure if you need a hub or if it could just be spliced). Wouldn't that be a nifty little adapter to have?

 

[OulOat]

Originally posted by: ChefJoe
But the display has those ugly lines going across it. You could make your own custom pictures if the lines wouldn't make it look like ass. Matrix Sucks because of that.

If you can't find any room to improve the product then matrix isn't getting all that they were looking for in a review. Advertisements and feedback from users on what they should develop.

I think they should come up with an extension pin design for the USB interface.... essentially, have an inline tap on the motherboard headers, in a way that wouldn't interfere with front mount USB ports (I'm not sure if you need a hub or if it could just be spliced). Wouldn't that be a nifty little adapter to have?

Following on what ChefJoe said, what makes the Matrix a worthy buy compared to something like the Vantec Nexus NXP101, which looks cool, has a LCD for temps, can adjust CPU fan speed, and has front USB and Firewire support? Your review should have a strong arguement why the Matrix is worth 3 times as much as the Vantec.

If you have ever seen a Pocket PC, you'll probably noticed that they have an adjustable backlight for the LCD. Brighter for a dark room, darker for daylight. And it can be adjusted automatically by the PPC. I think it would be a nice feature for Matrix to have, if it doesn't already (you didn't mention anything about the backlight).

Also, you talked about testing. But there is no testing section. I have no clue how or what you tested the LCD on?

 

[Robage]

There is an adjustable backlight and contrast, it is a nice feature for different setting and such. I have recieved a water cooling kit from danger den and a Lian Li case from Xoxide, those review should be up fairly soon. Lookin forward for your guyses feedback!

 

[RyanM]

TWAJS.

 

[Mday]

Okay, I have decided to do some creative criticism:

Rob,

• more about the actual software please, some screen caps maybe.
• you mentioned this being "the highest quality LCD I have seen in a long time", can you please elaborate, that is, what LCDs are you comparing it to? That is, other products of this type, or LCDs in general?
• i dont know who took the pictures, but, work on the use of the flash, focus, and content. do we really need a picture of the packing peanuts?

--

Nice job Rob.