Thanks for the information. It seems, sadly, that history might repeat itself.
I guess I was a fool to believe Ryan Smith's word. It seems these people can't be trusted.
Lesson learned.
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Anandtech review and broken expectations
- Thread starter prudenspatiens
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Thanks for the information. It seems, sadly, that history might repeat itself.
I guess I was a fool to believe Ryan Smith's word. It seems these people can't be trusted.
Lesson learned.
Because of what we saw in MBP thread, I half (unfortunately) expected the same, and yes that's what occurred.
Seems like these types of reviews are not on the front burner of Anandtech, I'm not sure why but It is disappointing.
With Anand leaving for Apple, they may not have anyone who is as seriously interested in Mac hardware. I also wonder if they might not have anyone who can secure a review unit anymore, but I would think that someone on staff would have bought one, or they'd be able to spend the $3000 to write an article that should do pretty well in page views.
I don't have much interest in the article, but I'm just curious why they'd even bother pre-announcing the article or setting a deadline; and thus bringing a bit of grief down upon themselves.
Maybe it's just a kind of click-bait, keep announcing the upcoming review and never delivering, meaning lots of Mac fans keep checking the site to check if it's there yet.
I was, at one point, really interested in this review. Namely because I wanted some sort of concrete testing as to how much the i7 throttles down and at what kind of load, and if I could make due with that during intense mixing/mastering sessions. I was either going to bite on the machine if the throttling wasn't so bad (considering it's got that beast of a quad-core if configured for it), or stick with a Mac Pro (which has the Ivy Bridge-EP Xeon, which is clocked slower but I would assume could hold both its turbo and base frequencies for a lot longer during intense usage).
In the end, I stopped waiting because I found a really great deal on the 6-core Mac Pro, and a great deal on a 1TB PCIe SSD. Still interested in how the iMac holds up, though. Shame it's taking them this long.
In the end, I stopped waiting because I found a really great deal on the 6-core Mac Pro, and a great deal on a 1TB PCIe SSD. Still interested in how the iMac holds up, though. Shame it's taking them this long.
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It's not that, but all the other things that are going on. Going through an acquisition isn't exactly a simple process and I'm sure anyone who has been a part of one before knows that. For Ryan it's the most taxing because he's the link between business and editorial people, meaning that every single thing concerns him and requires his attention. It's not a very easy task to manage a team of editors, keep the business people and advertisers happy and at the same time deliver content.
I agree that providing ETAs and not keeping them is not acceptable, but I hope you all understand that at the end of the day even we are still humans and sometimes there are things that take priority over a review (like personal health). However, as Ryan said in his tweet, the review is still in the works for post-CES release.
Maybe they meant a review of the next iMac model
Maybe he was meaning CES 2016 or 2017
I think we can pretty much write off anandtech for apple stuff. Last news on the site is from October 2014, we are waiting for the Retina iMac review since October, they didn't even cover the Q1 2015 press conference, OSX and IOS updates, nothing at all. At this point there are no excuses anymore, delete from bookmarks and move on.
I think for the most part, I've slowly pulled back my visits to Anandtech, in part because the lack of apple reviews. I wouldn't go as far as writing them off, but I will say, since OS X/Apple products is not a priority with them, they are not a priority for me. No hard feelings, I'm not angry, I'll spend my time on the net on sites that I offer me what I'm interested in
I noticed a real slowing down in Apple coverage after Anand left, and it ground to a halt right after they were acquired.
I'm assuming the new owners have directed them not to post any Apple-related information or reviews.
Honestly I can't think of why, since the Apple community is rather underserved by the kind of analysis they were doing. But perhaps interest (read: page views) just wasn't high enough. It's a shame. I always eagerly awaited their reviews of Apple products, even ones I had no intention of buying and learned a lot.
Or maybe Apple was just a pet interest of Anand, and no one left really cares.
To be fair, they just posted the Nexus 9 review, which was released at the beginning of November, and a lot of Anandtech readers are complaining about that as well. It's not just the riMac
They have a really small staff, and between one of the reviewers being ill, and the holidays, and the site sale, they got behind.
My assumption was similar in that I think Anand is the only one there who was really an Apple product enthusiast. LOL that they weren't getting enough page clicks on the Apple gear. Nothing other than "sex" in a headline will get more page clicks than "Apple" in the title.
I've been reading the site weekly since ~2000, and I think it hit its high point several years ago... even before Anand officially left, it was obviously he wasn't spending as much time on the site - it's been going down hill for a while. They lost some good writers, and didn't always find the best replacements, IMO. It has the feel of a sinking ship.
Also, I might be way off on this, but I kind of wonder if they aren't offered as much of the more popular tech gear to review as they once received... a lot of the stuff they review isn't worth reviewing. If I were in charge of marketing at some tech company, I'd be weary of sending product their way unless I was really sure it would get a great review, just because they do go so indepth. Better off sending it to the tech sites that basically publish press releases and post a few snazzy photos.
And again, to be fair, they do more than a lot of tech sites these days. Even Ars Technica, which shares it's publisher with The New Yorker, and once could have been compared as the The New Yorker of tech journalism, is a completely different site with a completely different audience than it had ten years ago. Lots of click bait headlines and keep the article mill running as fast as they can. Still very good quality writing though.
Despite all of that, Anandtech is still probably one of the best 5 "serious" tech sites overall.
They have a really small staff, and between one of the reviewers being ill, and the holidays, and the site sale, they got behind.
My assumption was similar in that I think Anand is the only one there who was really an Apple product enthusiast. LOL that they weren't getting enough page clicks on the Apple gear. Nothing other than "sex" in a headline will get more page clicks than "Apple" in the title.
I've been reading the site weekly since ~2000, and I think it hit its high point several years ago... even before Anand officially left, it was obviously he wasn't spending as much time on the site - it's been going down hill for a while. They lost some good writers, and didn't always find the best replacements, IMO. It has the feel of a sinking ship.
Also, I might be way off on this, but I kind of wonder if they aren't offered as much of the more popular tech gear to review as they once received... a lot of the stuff they review isn't worth reviewing. If I were in charge of marketing at some tech company, I'd be weary of sending product their way unless I was really sure it would get a great review, just because they do go so indepth. Better off sending it to the tech sites that basically publish press releases and post a few snazzy photos.
And again, to be fair, they do more than a lot of tech sites these days. Even Ars Technica, which shares it's publisher with The New Yorker, and once could have been compared as the The New Yorker of tech journalism, is a completely different site with a completely different audience than it had ten years ago. Lots of click bait headlines and keep the article mill running as fast as they can. Still very good quality writing though.
Despite all of that, Anandtech is still probably one of the best 5 "serious" tech sites overall.
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Where to go for similarly deep reviews
Could you guys who are complaining and removing your AnandTech bookmarks please mention where you are going now to get similarly in-depth coverage? I mean, sure, the Nexus 9 review was "late", but it was worth the wait for the detail and analysis on Denver. Are you finding that kind of material somewhere else sooner?
Could you guys who are complaining and removing your AnandTech bookmarks please mention where you are going now to get similarly in-depth coverage? I mean, sure, the Nexus 9 review was "late", but it was worth the wait for the detail and analysis on Denver. Are you finding that kind of material somewhere else sooner?
Very good question. However at this point I think the question is not where to find this material sooner, but instead where to find it at all, since it is not clear whether the Anandtech 5k iMac review will ever appear (hint: the 2013 rMBP reviews never appeared, despite multiple twitter announcements and "sorry for the delay" posts).
For laptops (i.e. MacBooks) Notebookcheck.net is a good source for reviews that go a bit deeper - extensive gaming benchmarks, measurement of external temperatures and noise levels, reports on throttling, etc.
What they don't provide is the background information on new technologies etc. And unfortunately they don't do all-in-one reviews, so nothing for the iMac.
barefeats.com - many many benchmarks. Very useful e.g. to get some idea about the value of upgrades
arstechnica.com - in general I don't like the page so much, but for the iMac they did some gaming tests, that was useful
Well it won't be anandtech because they're not doing in-depth coverage on products I'm interested in, so its not a big deal. True, they may not miss my visiting, they have millions of hits, but for me, its a site that doesn't meet my needs any longer.
It makes no sense in the known universe for ANANDTECH not to have Apple reviews.
NONE, nada, no excuse will hold water. They have made a serious mistake here.
Apple makes some of the best and most interesting tech products in the world. AnandTech is a tech site. Your witness.
NONE, nada, no excuse will hold water. They have made a serious mistake here.
Apple makes some of the best and most interesting tech products in the world. AnandTech is a tech site. Your witness.
That's what I don't understand either. How many hundreds of thousands (millions?) 5k iMacs will Apple sell compared to say this power supply http://www.anandtech.com/show/8952/be-quiet-dark-power-pro-10-650w-850w-psu-review? It's not even logical from their financial point of view, a riMac would get lots more click throughs and therefore advertising revenue.
We might be proved wrong soon:
https://twitter.com/RyanSmithAT/status/562955008153759745
https://twitter.com/RyanSmithAT/status/563179982046765056
But justifiably disappointed nevertheless.
My assumption? A power supply is a lot easier to test/review than a 10 page iMac review. Also their bread and butter are DIY pc gamers.