About the "Is linux always the answer?" video on Shortcircuit about the Librem 5 and about LTT not researching products anymore.

[LevitatingBusinessMan]

I don't get this video.

First of all, I thought the purpose of Shortcircuit was to be more unboxing oriented, but to me this video looks more like a budget LTT video.
Neither the title or the thumbnail reveil the product the video is about, which I would expect from a product unboxing.

Secondly this video was so uninformed. The phone isn't viewed as a privacy focused phone but as a general Linux phone. That's cool and all but then don't pretend like it's the only one.
It's almost as if this video was made as soon as the product arrived without even taking a second to google to similiar products.

Linux phones have existed for years, and there are companies who have been making them for years. The experience of this random ass phone is not nearly the same as the experience of a phone that uses more well-known desktop environments like Gnome Touch or Plasma Mobile. I wished the video would at least mention those things.

 

If you titled the video "Reviewing the Librem 5, a Linux phone" cool, go ahead and review the phone, and your goal should be to review the experience of using that phone. Don't make bold conclusions on the usability of Linux phones when you've only tested one.

 

Why watch the video if the reviewers knows nothing of the product? I get it, Shortcircuit videos aren't meant to be following a script of some sorts. But at least do some research, and review the product. Don't review the product group, using a single product to represent the rest. It's the same as with the 99$ phone video from a few years back, you can go ahead and review that shit alcatel phone, but don't pretend like it's the only phone in that price range. There's a whole world of budget phones and they bought the worst one and pretended like it was the best. That video got so much criticism that I thought they would remove it, they never even commented on it.

 

Is there anyone on this forum who has noticed the same thing about videos on both LTT and Shortcircuit where there is just completely no research done beforehand?
The quality of LTT has dropped so much in my opinion.

[RageTester]

At least we get that review and the warning. You can use linux on any android smartphone, so indeed overpaying for a beta product is not worth it...

There is 0 value in unboxing without the review in my opinion.

[AnomalyDesign]

My understanding of the Short Circuit channel is that it is intended as a place for looking at interesting products that otherwise are unlikely to be featured in a fully researched video on the main channel.  In that sense it was good to for me (and I'm sure many others) to see a type of product that doesn't usually get much exposure. They're pretty upfront that these pieces are not fully researched and scripted, but rather glimpses of products and their immediate reactions to those products. If anything this one went further in depth than I'm accustomed to, including multiple filming days. 

[tim0901]

14 hours ago, LevitatingBusinessMan said:

Secondly this video was so uninformed. The phone isn't viewed as a privacy focused phone but as a general Linux phone.

From the Purism website:

Literally the first thing they talk about for this phone is its security and privacy. Yes, this phone is viewed - at least by Purism - as a privacy-focused device. At least LTT seems to have looked at the product's marketing materials before saying anything.

[piratemonkey]

Unboxings contain the unboxing and first impressions. I thought it was an adequate shortcircuit video. and there really is no good enough linux on smartphone distro just yet afaik (post market os or whatever, and ubuntu are both still maturing last I heard), so in terms of that, I think it's ok