So this just happened: http://anandtech.com/show/8790/anandtech-acquired-by-purch Makes me glad for independent hardware reviewers like Hilbert and G3D.
Well crap. Anandtech was one of my favourite sites. Admittedly losing Anand was a severe blow but it still had a good community around it and seemed to be holding to the level of detail he set. EDIT: Yes, I know the news is simply a take-over, not that it's suddenly vanished from the Internet. But I would see consolidation as a logical next step for TH.
Surprised to see this move, it's always Anand vs Tom's hardware at a certain level. Not sure on the long term this is a good move for the Anand team as the Tom's hardware culture and reader-base is just so different. Then again if the site can't properly function without the ex-owner around it probably was choosing the best alternative from the less worse options available. But well, time will tell.
I found AT's review's a lot more thorough and easy to read than TH's, though the quality has definitely gone downhill since Anand stopped working so much/left. G3D's reviews are probably the most thorough on the net in my mind, and Hilbert's quirky writing style is win-win.
After Guru 3D, Anandtech´s reviews are some of the best because they look at the technical aspect in more detail than most sites and they also provide reviews about mobile hardware that others don´t do so well, so i don´t like the fact they were just acquired by others. Also i don´t believe that this happened because Anand left. He was the creater and owner of the site but they have lots of people working for them. Not to mention that Anand´s reviews of Apple were extremely biased for reasons that become quite clear after he left his own company to join Apple... The problem, as always, is money. It´s extremely hard to make money of free sites that rely only on advertising, so more and more sites are being bought to stay open. And the few remaining independent hardware sites are also struggling because they are so small that they depend on the good will of they staff to do all the work at the expense of their own lifes. Just recently the owner of Hardware Canucks had to "close" his own site to take some vacations because he was burnout from work... I just hope Guru 3D doesn´t suffer the same fate as Anandtech and other sites... Please Hilbert, promise me you will never leave us at the mercy of crappy hardware sites!...
So... Probably less or no overlapping reviews I would guess as a cost savings measure. This could mean one less source with which to compare results and opinions from the reviewers. If this happens this would be unfortunate.
Anandtech was my second choice to read about new tech, after Guru3d. The step down in quality from them to Tom's Hardware is enormous in my opinion.
THG has a lot of issues. The bias of the copy/paste staff is just one.... They tend to twist articles on certain topics to fit their bias, often leading to completely inaccurate and baseless articles. Their mods are also quite self-serving.... They previously banned me for having a differing opinion and have threatened to ban be several times over the last few years for that same "offense" again....as well as pointing out where their "facts" were completely made-up.
The two most mainstream sites become one essentially, competition eating competition. Same old things happening.
No they havent. Each will have to maintain themselves as a separate entity to maximize their profits. If they devolved into one it would limit their ad revenue by being 'one place' for advertisers than two. Anyway, hope it works out for them with Anand no longer there. He's still young. He established the site in 97 when he was 14 years old. Guru3d and Anandtech forums are the only two tech forums I visit regularly.
Idk I've been reading anandtech for years and never felt his reviews were biased. Brian Klug also works for Apple and did most of the phone reviews, and while they all painted the iPhone positively they also called out a lot of negative aspects about the phone. He always seemed fair to me and by far the most interesting reviewer -- as he always dove into the technical decisions behind some features and did a lot research by talking with the various companies. I mean you can hate Apple all you want, their phones do a lot of things right, far better than what Android phones have offered for pretty big portion of time. Those details were things that Brian/Anand welcomed -- but at the same time they also criticized things that Apple were slow to adopt. I really miss Brian and Anand. That being said I think Ryan is a pretty capable guy too. I'm sure he'll keep the site on target and not let it diminish completely into Toms Hardware territory.
Likewise, I never picked up a bias. They gave very fair and quite positive reviews of Windows 8, the Surface and Windows Phone.