Any tech channels who aren't woefully misinformed about everything?

[othertomperson]

There's Wendell and his L1Tech channel... I unsubscribed from Jay a while ago because a lot of what he was saying was frankly embarrassing, Logan was never a compelling reason to watch Tek Syndicate. LTT's videos are pretty much unwatchable now, with Luke just having seemingly random outbursts at Apple and the occasionally reading off of an Nvidia or AMD specsheet with some of the most superficial and unenlightening benchmarks imaginable. Barnacules is highly knowledgeable, if only I gave a shit about 3D printing.

 

So apart from Wendell and Barnacules, is there a single tech youtuber who has any idea what they are talking about?

[Mira Yurizaki]

No because none of them know what they're talking about.

 

Until I see some in-depth articles in the likes of Ryan Smith whenever he does a GPU review or John Siracusa when he did a Mac OS X review, they're all just regurgitating whatever marketing material was thrown at them. I think more than half of these guys are just PC gamers who happened to have a knack for speaking in front of a camera. For example, I saw Total Biscuit on reddit ranting about how to program a game engine. Last I checked Total Biscuit has not been in any part of the software development work for a game so I can't really take his words seriously.

 

Then again I suppose it's hard to transplant a 30 page review of an OS into a digestible video.

 

(EDIT: I have a cynical look on my hobby is all)

[Oshino Shinobu]

JerryRigEverything is a good channel if you're into Phones, Cameras and some drone stuff. His phone durability tests are always entertaining, regardless of some of the (un)usefulness of some of the tests. 

[xephoneration]

paul'shwardware

 

hardwarecanucks

 

I like paul more he has been doing this longer than linus, Barnacules, and wendell. He use to be the main reviewer for newegg, but then he discovered youtube money lol

[blaze756]

I do agree that their channel content has shifted, but they've gotta stay relevant. Sometimes however I wish I was their Apple consultant or something, they constantly get the facts wrong! I mean come on guys, do some research before you make a quick video about Apple.

[Godlygamer23]

I don't know why this is was in Tech News and Reviews.

 

Thread moved to General Discussion.

[Misanthrope]

This is not really "news" but I guess this will be moved to General in a bit.

 

To answer your question I use a shotgun approach: I'm subscribed to a bunch, small and large. It can get annoying at times when products launch and they read press sheets only but at that point the smaller guys do more interesting testing and such.

 

Can't access my sub box right now but I'll edit a few of the channels I follow later.

[zMeul]

for PC hardware, PCPer: https://www.youtube.com/user/pcper

and sometimes OC3D: https://www.youtube.com/user/TimeToLiveCustoms

[alexyy]

7 minutes ago, zMeul said:

for PC hardware, PCPer: https://www.youtube.com/user/pcper

and sometimes OC3D: https://www.youtube.com/user/TimeToLiveCustoms

OC3D does some very indepth gpu testing but for anything else he seems to just copy the press release. 

[Qwweb]

31 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

There's Wendell and his L1Tech channel... I unsubscribed from Jay a while ago because a lot of what he was saying was frankly embarrassing, Logan was never a compelling reason to watch Tek Syndicate. LTT's videos are pretty much unwatchable now, with Luke just having seemingly random outbursts at Apple and the occasionally reading off of an Nvidia or AMD specsheet with some of the most superficial and unenlightening benchmarks imaginable. Barnacules is highly knowledgeable, if only I gave a shit about 3D printing.

 

So apart from Wendell and Barnacules, is there a single tech youtuber who has any idea what they are talking about?

It is hard to give unbiased opinions, and while I agree that LTT has its problems I don't think that you will find engineering reports (kind of what you are asking about) anywhere on YouTube. In general most benchmarks will not really surprise anyone unless the manufacturer hasn't put the specs out yet. On that note, reading off of a specsheet is no different than most benchmarks as the cards usually conform pretty closely to the specs because of most assembly lines being automated, the purpose of benchmarks is not entertainment, but for recommendation.

[paddy-stone]

Yeah, I really couldn't care less about someone reading from marketing etc. I watch some videos because of the content interests me only to be disappointed because it was like blah blah...30 seconds of interesting, blah blah. I prefer a more hands-on approach... if I had a face that wouldn't induce vomitting then I would make my own vids, but oh well

I REALLY wish that content creators wouldn't skip over stuff though, especially when they have clickbait titles like "how to build a PC", I watch for the LOLs by the way and just to check validity. If you really want a "how to build a pc" type thing, you should head to paul's hardware, he did a couple recently that were concise and covered most of the stuff a noob could want really, including the much missed "how to install the OS" that most gloss over... hhmmhmm linus.. cough!

Not having a go at anyone, just can't understand people making a "how to", but missing the vital ingredient, I bet loads of noobs got clickbaited with that one and then struggled to ask questions on the forums.

[mark_cameron]

1 hour ago, othertomperson said:

There's Wendell and his L1Tech channel... I unsubscribed from Jay a while ago because a lot of what he was saying was frankly embarrassing, Logan was never a compelling reason to watch Tek Syndicate. LTT's videos are pretty much unwatchable now, with Luke just having seemingly random outbursts at Apple and the occasionally reading off of an Nvidia or AMD specsheet with some of the most superficial and unenlightening benchmarks imaginable. Barnacules is highly knowledgeable, if only I gave a shit about 3D printing.

 

So apart from Wendell and Barnacules, is there a single tech youtuber who has any idea what they are talking about?

The comments about LTT are rubbish.

 

I find them 95% accurate. meaning in general what they say is scientifically accurate.

 

Even for that 5% they often follow up and investigate further.

 

Just a ridiculous post.

[mark_cameron]

1 hour ago, Qwweb said:

It is hard to give unbiased opinions, and while I agree that LTT has its problems I don't think that you will find engineering reports (kind of what you are asking about) anywhere on YouTube. In general most benchmarks will not really surprise anyone unless the manufacturer hasn't put the specs out yet. On that note, reading off of a specsheet is no different than most benchmarks as the cards usually conform pretty closely to the specs because of most assembly lines being automated, the purpose of benchmarks is not entertainment, but for recommendation.

It's not just that.

 

Specs are related to legal and consumer law compliance.

 

A company can't label a fork a spade.

 

Companies can and do get sued for trade description violations regularly and misleading consumers.

 

Youtubers like LTT should be reading the specifications. they should be independently checking if the specs are met during benchmarking.

 

That's part of the review.

 

Companies that lie or exaggerate their specifications lose customers.

 

They also get prosecuted if caught.

 

Look at Consumer laws in Europe or the USA on this.

 

If a company specs a £600 GPU card and it performs like a £200 GPU card. I have a legal right to demand my money back.

 

The specification gives me this right. plus my ability to claim false advertising against the manufacturer.

 

The criticisms of the OP are farcical. he expects reviewers to ignore manufacturer specs?? really?

 

 

Example. VW sold cars that claimed to meet air quality standards. they lied and are being pursued by regulators and customers.

 

no different for electronics industry

 

[Brian McKee]

The most in depth review channel is by far GamersNexus, not that I agree with your post btw.

[kokakolia]

I am surprised that nobody mentioned GamersNexus. That channel deserves more attention:

 

 

[VinZie]

What about techsource?

[Qwweb]

38 minutes ago, mark_cameron said:

If a company specs a £600 GPU card and it performs like a £200 GPU card. I have a legal right to demand my money back.

Sort of; for instance Quadros use the same GPU and VRAM as GTXs but perform worse in games and better in other applications because of optimization.

[SSL]

4 hours ago, mark_cameron said:

snip

 

You've latched on to one point made by the OP and basically turned it into a strawman.

 

Regarding specs, there's a difference between reading a spec sheet and vetting those specs. LTT does the former.

 

Remember the dust-up over the 3.5GB 970? How exactly would LTT reading the manufacturer spec sheet have any bearing on that issue? The point is that regurgitating information of any veracity is not ultimately helpful to literate people.

[2FA]

Even though I've hardly been watching tech videos lately: GamersNexus is love, GamersNexus is life.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, VinZie said:

What about techsource?

Setup War is not a review

[Clyne]

Tech Deals usually straight on about performance, like FPS or what part you should choose.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCss3QxegBkF8BAetIo0qXA

[Techicolors]

AdoredTV. he posts once in a while but he delves a lot into AMD, Intel , and Nvidia. not hugely tech-savvy but he makes good points 

https://www.youtube.com/user/adoredtv

[That Norwegian Guy]

PC Perspective.

 

The only channel of its kind I'm still subscribed to and actively watching every video of.

 

Left Tek Syndicate ages ago when I found out Logan was another Seagate hatekid. Linus when they prioritized shitty PAX over Computex, and in general stopped doing interesting videos and became glossy poster boys for Corsair and Razer and all the other products that get 1000 videos on launch day from thousands of other channels. Hardwarecanucks have done the same thing, now it's just a hipster overload channel.

KitGuru has to be the most boring channel on Youtube with the least charismatic people, however I still keep them in my subs just because they sometimes pull an interesting review product that nobody else covers, like the amazing Phanteks Mini-XL which I actually ended up buying.

TTL I'm still subscribed to, but I haven't watched a single of his videos in the past year. I just keep him around until Vega, but expect him to fuck it up.

 

PC Perspective still does what they always did best, haven't abandoned their original audience, and have some of the most in-depth coverage of actually interesting tech on Youtube.

[mark_cameron]

7 hours ago, Qwweb said:

Sort of; for instance Quadros use the same GPU and VRAM as GTXs but perform worse in games and better in other applications because of optimization.

Yeah but quadros are not marketed to consumers. if nvidia started to do so claiming 'best gaming experience' or the like that would be false advertising.

 

We rely on reviewers like linus (tech tips) to hold the tech companies accountable on release on consumers behalf.

 

This is one reason that in the USA they've become stricter about 'undeclared' advertising. or undeclared paid recommendations for products

 

We may be in an era of post-truth politics. let's not allow the same in tech reviews

[mark_cameron]

3 hours ago, SSL said:

 

You've latched on to one point made by the OP and basically turned it into a strawman.

 

Regarding specs, there's a difference between reading a spec sheet and vetting those specs. LTT does the former.

 

Remember the dust-up over the 3.5GB 970? How exactly would LTT reading the manufacturer spec sheet have any bearing on that issue? The point is that regurgitating information of any veracity is not ultimately helpful to literate people.

Yeah. nvidia lied about the 970.

a good tech reviewer would be checking if what nvidia claimed were true. linus did cover it widely + similar topics at NCIX and at LMG when the truth came out.

 

It's not a strawman. it's fact.

 

Linus has to strike the balance of tech and entertaining. it's a hard balance.

 

Plus he has about 20-30 people working for him now. unfortunately he can't put all the personal work he used to into videos like he did 5 or 10 years ago

 

There has been a trend of moving to 'glossy' videos on LTT. personally I would like linus to balance that with the type of work they performed and reviews he used to do at NCIX some more basic and factual reviews.

 

There's also a time and place for joking. every video doesn't need to be an episode of 'Saturday night live'