With All the Hardware Appearing, Why No In-Depth Reviews?

As someone who does a lot of system building, I depend on the results of independent testing of components to tell me what I can buy, without wasting time on repairs and replacements, because a manufacturer has suddenly stopped making quality its top priority.

Since I’m an independent, and work on really slim margins, a single mistake in choice, yielding a repair and replace operation is costly, robbing me of time that could otherwise be used making money.

So much of what I read is the fawning of a certain reviewer, brought about by either genuine love of a brand, or possibly by some transfer of funds. There aren’t many situations where more than 3 products of a type are compared – though I must say, the field has dwindled in some areas, so that 3 is the field.

What I miss are the shootouts I remember reading in Computer Shopper, PC Computing, or the old PC Magazine. I assume that ExtremeTech is what is supposed to have taken over that mantle from Computer Shopper, but it many times does not, as the reviews are simply not about computing. I fully maintain that PC Magazine should change its name to “Anything Electrical We Can Get Paid to Write About”

It was refreshing to see a review, of sorts, in Maximum PC, of DVD RW brands currently shipping. Though not truly scientific, and in many ways very superficial, it goes beyond what I’ve found in other magazines lately.

In the article, it is brought to light that the fastest unit in the test at movie ripping (something I rarely do – as in once a year or so) is from Pioneer. Unfortunately, I don’t buy Pioneer drives simply because I wish to have LightScribe, and now none of their models have it. Samsung models tend to be the slowest in their test, but they have, in both their testing, and mine, been very reliable, and very quiet. There appears to be a few hacks that will unleash more performance from these drives, without any deleterious effects (short term, anyway). The LiteOn drives get good marks, and nothing bad is said about them, but I personally have found that the brand has gotten very spotty in quality control, with my own drives failing long before some drives, also LiteOn, and still in use, also much, much quieter. Lately, LiteOn drives have been very noisy, with spin ups that sound like a helicopter taking off. I have also noticed that when changing discs in Windows Media Player (Windows XP, WMP 11, Intel motherboard) many times the disc changed is ignored – this doesn’t happen on the same hardware with older LiteOns, or with Samsung drives. It also is peculiar to WMP, not WinAmp or any other player; all other disc changes are properly noticed by the operating system.

I personally have no experience with the Sony-NEC-Optiarc drives, but they tend to look cheesy, and that is enough, along with a dearth of good reviews on Newegg, for me to avoid them. (If anyone has had good luck over time with one of these, let me know, please.)

Back to the point of the piece – with all the new, and sometimes unknown hardware appearing, it is strange that magazines once having reviews on this sort of thing semi-annually, now are bereft of such things. It must point to the lack of the hobbyist motive with computers, with the average user more worried about his following the local celebs on Twitter, and less interested in making his machine better.

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