Most trusted review site?

M

MoreDents

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2008
Messages
294
Cnet?
User reviews on NewEgg?
Anandtech?
Amazon?

What do you think is the most reliable and trusted hardware review site? And why.
 
i personally like the [H] and anandtechs reviews, dont really like the anandtech forums though.

most people say toms is biased, but thats not the reason i dont like their site.
 
A lotta [H] fans here. No surprise. Haha

What about the "lighter" side of tech like digital cameras, speakers, camcorders, keyboards, etc?
 
MoreDents said:
Cnet?
User reviews on NewEgg?
Anandtech?
Amazon?

What do you think is the most reliable and trusted hardware review site? And why.
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Use reviews on newegg/amazon or any site like that are complete garbage.
1. Most of these are posted anonymously by people with who knows what credentials and level of intelligence.
2. A vast majority of users only go back to a website to post reviews when they have issues, so they tend to skew negative, and then the webstores themselves have an vested interest in keeping them positive so they are likely to moderate them heavily.
 
I concur with Menelmarar 100%: User reviews should be taken with a grain of salt.

For gadgets like digital cameras, phones, etc, I've found that CNET has been pretty accurate with their reviews.

For laptops, Notebookreview.com.is the top one in my book as their reviews are pretty thorough and you can clearly see their expertise in laptops show through.

For power supplies, definitely HardOCP.com and johnnyGURU.com due to their very intensive PSU testing methodology.
 
Awesome. Thanks for the great help and links! I'll be sure to check em out

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying about the customer reviews. I use to shop on NewEgg by clicking on "top sellers" then clicking "best rating" and only looking at stuff with 5 stars...

But still, I don't think there's anything wrong with shopping by "top sellers"
 
MoreDents said:
Awesome. Thanks for the great help and links! I'll be sure to check em out

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying about the customer reviews. I use to shop on NewEgg by clicking on "top sellers" then clicking "best rating" and only looking at stuff with 5 stars...

But still, I don't think there's anything wrong with shopping by "top sellers"
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the only thing i use newegg for is to find out if anyone was able to overclock a specific cpu or memory module or what voltages they used.. other then that most of the reviews are pretty useless but at least gives you an idea of what you are buying from that retailer.. since its very rare each retailer gets the same batch of hardware.. 1 batch could have tons of DOA's and the others have none..
 
User reviews are generally good to find out about the "bad things" of a product.
 
JaguarSKX said:
User reviews are generally good to find out about the "bad things" of a product.
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That is what I use the NewEgg reviews for.

I like CNET for electronics, and [H] for computer parts... cuz what else is there to buy?
 
JaguarSKX said:
User reviews are generally good to find out about the "bad things" of a product.
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Not always. I've read several reviews where the OP showed their ignorance with the parts that they've bought.

Now if there are dozens of reviewers mentioning the same flaw of a particular item, that can't be ignored. But I always head back to a true review site -- honestly, I often come back here first -- to get a more in-depth analysis.
 
vertigomhs said:
most people say toms is biased, but thats not the reason i dont like their site.
Click to expand...

That rumour started going back ten years or so ago now. The site doesn't even have the same owners as back then so I think this still lingering rumour is BS.
 
I go with a vast array of websites and user reviews. I then compare the info and see which ones are consistent.

Xbitlabs.com
Anandtech.com
Hothardware.com
Firingsquad.com
Tomshardware.com
Hardocp.com
Hardwarecanucks.com
bit-tech.net
Techreport.com
Legitreviews.com
Neoseeker.com
overclockersclub.com
benchmarkreviews.com
techpowerup.com
sharkyextreme.com
trustedreviews.com
guru3d.com
extremetech.com
cnet.com
pcmag.com
pcworld.com
 
guppy said:
That rumour started going back ten years or so ago now. The site doesn't even have the same owners as back then so I think this still lingering rumour is BS.
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im not saying i believe it, but people say that still whether or not its true, but i guess you cleared that up.

i dont like toms because its not an easy to use site and it seams a little cluttered, and the forums are just terrible IMO.
 
Menelmarar said:
Use reviews on newegg/amazon or any site like that are complete garbage.
1. Most of these are posted anonymously by people with who knows what credentials and level of intelligence.
2. A vast majority of users only go back to a website to post reviews when they have issues, so they tend to skew negative, and then the webstores themselves have an vested interest in keeping them positive so they are likely to moderate them heavily.
Click to expand...

While a purchase should never be based solely on customer reviews you can still tell a lot about a product usually based on the number of reviews it's received as well as the proportion of positive to negative ratings. While it's true that there are a lot of users that go back to post reviews based on their negative experiences with a product I find that nowadys there are plenty of people taking the time to post positive reviews as well on places like Newegg and Amazon.

While hardware reviews posted on actual hardware sites by more experienced users are great for gaining more in-depth knowledge about the product that reviewer is usually only testing one sample and most likely it's also the first revision of whatever it is since most sites review when a product is first released. So if you went solely off major site reviews you might be completely off about the product because something like a BIOS update or a firmware flash or a new revision can completely change a product's performance.

For popular items you can learn quite a bit from customer reviews at sites like Newegg and Amazon when you've got a lot of people reviewing the same product because usually if there are faults to be had they will be mentioned by at least one person but you just have to take them with a grain of salt while you're reading them and have some knowledge of the product yourself already so that you can judge whether their review of the product is an accurate depiction.

For example if I'm looking to purchase a new video card and [H]ard reviews the specific brand and model I'm looking to buy and they give it a super duper gold award for amazing performance and then I go over to Newegg to purchase the card and there is a ton of 1 egg reviews stating that the card is overheating and dieing at stock speeds then I'm probably going to second guess that purchase and either purchase a different brand or do more research into why so many users are coming up with cards that overheat. Because 1 review of 1 sample is not an accurate depiction of say 1,000 samples sent out to end users with all different hardware.
 
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MoreDents said:
A lotta [H] fans here. No surprise. Haha

What about the "lighter" side of tech like digital cameras, speakers, camcorders, keyboards, etc?
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engadget works for the lighter side of tech, but no i use [H] for reviews and also just keeping up with tech in general for pc parts
 
burningrave101 said:
For example if I'm looking to purchase a new video card and [H]ard reviews the specific brand and model I'm looking to buy and they give it a super duper gold aware for amazing epeen performance and then I go over to Newegg to purchase the card and there is a ton of 1 egg reviews stating that the card is overheating and dieing at stock speeds then I'm probably going to second guess that purchase and either purchase a different brand or do more research into why so many users are coming up with cards that overheat. Because 1 review of 1 sample is not an accurate depiction of say 1,000 samples sent out to end users with all different hardware.
Click to expand...

Word...word :cool:
 
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