Gamers Nexus vs LinusTechTips: Smackdown

Ranulfo said:
I guess GN won't be going to the LTT convention they have each year now.
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Anyone who believes that doesn't understand Linus. While Linus can be aloof and at times contradictory, he's not a completely heartless bastard. Linus can take criticism. Lord knows he dishes it out.

If Steve/GN doesn't show up at LTX 2024, it's a decision Steve/GN made.

Then again, Linus already stated in a past WAN Show that he won't host LTX next year if this year's wasn't profitable. During last Friday's WAN Show he did share that LTX 2023 was barely profitable.
 
never take Linus seriously anyway when it comes to watching his videos (Which i stopped years ago). Same reason I stopped watching Jay2cents. I want real technical hardware reviews that take time to produce proper reviews. Back in the day that is why I came to [H]. Now I watch usually either HUB or GN for reviews. Even they have made mistakes and corrected them and let people how they made the error etc.

I remember a recent video where they couldnt figure out why certain X670 motherboards were performing better than others. What they found was some vendors left resizable BAR on and some didnt. Admit your mistakes, Tell them you did it, show the correct results and move on.

No real PC tech geek takes Linus serious.

Just my 0.02c
 
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Absalom said:
Also LTT Noctua bias has been a thing for a while. It never rubbed me wrong because Noctua legit makes great products. But a lot of parading of Noctua products by Linus as the end all be all just comes off as silly and unprofessional. At this point it's a meme when Linus pulls out a Noctua product for a random build. He stuffs Noctua fans into almost every 1U server rack they get their hands on.
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The NH-D15 can handle every CPU ever. Use it on all your builds! Disregard our in house testing that shows a 13900k hitting 100C and thermal throttling. P.S. please buy our limited edition Noctua screwdriver. Thanks, LMG.

This video was a great watch. I don't follow any of the Linus Media Group channels so this is pretty eye opening. Gotta get out that quantity over quality for the algorithm! I'll continue to not watch and as far as video content goes, I'll keep on watching Gamers Nexus and Harbor Unboxed who both do absolutely fantastic reviews and proper research on the products in question.
 
Absalom said:
Anyone who believes that doesn't understand Linus. While Linus can be aloof and at times contradictory, he's not a completely heartless bastard. Linus can take criticism. Lord knows he dishes it out.
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Linus really can't take criticism, at least not at first. He tends to take any criticism of LTT as a personal attack on himself. He'll, usually, come around on things once he's had time to cool off and likely had other people he trusts talk to him about the issue, but his initial response is rarely to take it in stride. I imagine he'll be pretty pissed about the video at first, but hopefully he'll either wait to respond or the new CEO will take it out of his hands and handle the response in a better manner.
 
Ranulfo said:
I'm only half way through it now, lots of little and not so little mistakes in their testing. The one on the 5600X3D specs is hilarious. 99MB of cache!
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Mistakes happen, but the important take away is that they do not immediately take down and edit when there is a gross error such as the case with the 4090 or that keyboard with 'stickers'. They simply throw an astrex in there or use their privileged 'replace on the go' video edit when the new one is finished.
 
Absalom said:
LTT is my go-to for entertainment and I do not go there for unbiased or even accuracy because I have enough brain cells to know that those things are not and have never been their priority. They pump out content like no other, but therein is the tradeoff vs quality.
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I'd say 90% of their content is just them building a PC, but with a twist. The only time I actually watch their videos is for their unique odd videos, which they do time to time. For hardware reviews I stick with Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus.
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Linus has stated on many occasions that his mission (lifelong or otherwise) is to make websites like userbenchmark.com irrelevant. That's a pretty low bar, indeed. Wanting to be the Pied Piper for tech lemmings sounds lunatic. Maybe that's what the 'L' in LTT really stands for?
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I haven't seen him do anything that would make userbenchmark.com irrelevant. If anything, he's giving them more credit. His lifelong mission is to make money, which is fine but not at the expense of your credibility. A tech reviewer without credibility is just another Tom's Hardware or The Verge. Linus himself has shown very little regard for his viewers when he refused to give them warranty and calling out adblockers as piracy. Linus is a business man so it shouldn't shock anyone that he's a money first guy.
 
I always thought of LTT as more entertainment (Barbie Movie) vs fact(ish) facts(Oppenheimer), where GN is hard(ish) facts. That being said, just proves the point that you always need to do your own research and make the most informed decision you can. I understand how a company (LTT) of that size makes mistakes, but yea, the QA process may need to be tightened up. BUT that also slows the release cycle, which decreases views/earnings/etc. so it's a hard call to make if you're someone in that position with hundreds of folks relying on you so they can put food on the table. It's a rock and a hard place kind of deal. Execs rarely slow down and reflect, they push push push and then bounce to another company after shaking things up, for better or worse.

From a community and ethics standpoint, doing things like auctioning off that water block, nor testing it properly, should speak volumes to the audience. Responsibility and reflection is paramount. That may sound contradictory to the above, but I see both sides of that coin. Me? Quality over quantity all day, every day. A company is a community, all should feel safe to raise concerns to leadership when something isn't right.
 
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OKC Yeakey Trentadue said:
Mistakes happen, but the important take away is that they do not immediately take down and edit when there is a gross error such as the case with the 4090 or that keyboard with 'stickers'. They simply throw an astrex in there or use their privileged 'replace on the go' video edit when the new one is finished.
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While I agree that the 4090 video should have been immediately taken down, I don't agree with the keyboard one. Context. The keyboard is an accessory. The video was to review an Alienware PC purchased. Whether the keyboard used stickers or not, I could have cared less. The keyboard was a throw in with little value added to the overall cost.

Add to it the fact that the customers buying these overpriced Alienware machines aren't the type that care whether the keyboard thrown in was quality or not.

So, no, leaving in the poor journalism on the Alienware keyboard isn't a hanging offense. Sorry. Context matters.

Also, Alienware means Dell. And Dell deserves a good bashing once in a while. They rip customers off with pushing their questionable added services (which aren't free). Punching Dell over a keyboard is fair in my book.
 
Absalom said:
Also, Alienware means Dell. And Dell deserves a good bashing once in a while. They rip customers off with pushing their questionable added services (which aren't free). Punching Dell over a keyboard is fair in my book.
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I am not sure if serious here, punching Dell for something just false about their keyboard is fair ? And it is not about taking the video down, it is not like they did not the error, it is about editing the video to not keep an obvious error that brought zero other value.
 
Derangel said:
Linus really can't take criticism, at least not at first. He tends to take any criticism of LTT as a personal attack on himself. He'll, usually, come around on things once he's had time to cool off and likely had other people he trusts talk to him about the issue, but his initial response is rarely to take it in stride. I imagine he'll be pretty pissed about the video at first, but hopefully he'll either wait to respond or the new CEO will take it out of his hands and handle the response in a better manner.
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How come we don't know anything about Linus Sebastian's parents or his early life other than he grew up in British Columbia?
 
Dopamin3 said:
The NH-D15 can handle every CPU ever. Use it on all your builds! Disregard our in house testing that shows a 13900k hitting 100C and thermal throttling.
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If I remember correctly, Steve was skeptical of that result.
 
LukeTbk said:
I am not sure if serious here, punching Dell for something just false about their keyboard is fair ? And it is not about taking the video down, it is not like they did not the error, it is about editing the video to not keep an obvious error that brought zero other value.
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I'm saying that not every video HAS to be taken down. It depends on the context.

Punching Dell is my way of saying Dell is a big company and can take a punch. If you actually watch the video in question, the Alienware unit tested was ultimately praised. So the keyboard is just a nitpick. It sounds silly to condemned the whole video just because they goofed on the keyboard. They are human after all.

In an ideal world, perfect journalism should be upheld. But we don't live in an ideal world, so I say LTT deserves to be cut some slack on the keyboard goof. They could have left the keyboard out of the review altogether an no one would be the wiser.

The 4090 graph was something you do not fuck around with though. You can't just make a just launched product look 400% times better than it's nearest competitor and shrugg it off as a minor user error. It sticks out like a sore thumb and could affect someone's purchase decision. A $1600 purchase decision.
 
That Billet waterblock review/test was really just a typical LTT gong show. Goofy noobs (literally) try to put together a custom waterblock for the first time. They test it on a ddr4 board and then do the video with a ddr5 board and fitment problems ensue. Break out the cnc machine to cut down a mobo heatsink! Goofy antics galore! Isn't it funny? Wrong video card? No problem! Oh no, it is overpriced waste of time! Don't buy! I don't care for water cooling but even I know these things are meant for specific cards and usually fit the reference designs only.

At least test it properly before you state the obvious that it is not worth the price/performance. Nah, goofy nuts jokes galore. Then they auction it off. Apparently that was a miscomunication and Linus said they're gonna pay them for the block. Bah, just clown show stuff.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2hey3mNnN0
 
Eh, much ado about nothing if you ask me. Linus didn't release a video where he threw HUB under the bus, they gave a tour and one of his lackies who was giving the tour happened to make a comment that specified other companies, and that other person posted the video of the tour (not associated with LMG). Now that said, it turned into this big brouhaha where GN decided to post a look at some of the sleeziness that is LMG which is where things get interesting, just like this interesting overpriced backpack from LTT stores dot com, I really love them screwing up with the waterblock putting it on a product it wasn't designed for and calling it crap, then defending that action by saying it would cost money to pay someone to do that, and then when they asked for their prototype back they said sure give us a bit, and then turned around and auctioned it off, that was grade A classy right there! But not as classy as this segue into our sponsor...
 
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Absalom said:
While I agree that the 4090 video should have been immediately taken down, I don't agree with the keyboard one. Context. The keyboard is an accessory. The video was to review an Alienware PC purchased. Whether the keyboard used stickers or not, I could have cared less. The keyboard was a throw in with little value added to the overall cost.

Add to it the fact that the customers buying these overpriced Alienware machines aren't the type that care whether the keyboard thrown in was quality or not.

So, no, leaving in the poor journalism on the Alienware keyboard isn't a hanging offense. Sorry. Context matters.

Also, Alienware means Dell. And Dell deserves a good bashing once in a while. They rip customers off with pushing their questionable added services (which aren't free). Punching Dell over a keyboard is fair in my book.
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The video was on an entire Alienware branded set-up, not just the PC. The keyboard was not a "thrown in" item, it's a $230 accessory they got to go with the whole set-up. it It helps to get the context right when telling people that "context matters".

As for the keyboard error itself: In isolation it's not a big thing. The keycaps being so crap that it looks and feels like Dell is using stickers instead of printing is a pretty big knock on the keyboard and Linus' making the mistake on an initial, quick, inspection is understandable. However, we're not talking about things in isolation here. It's emblematic of what Steve was talking about: LTT's demand to have so many videos up per-week that does not allow time for corrections to be made when errors are found during the editing process. Something like that would have been super quick to fix with a little VO placed over b-roll of the keyboard offering a correction. Heck, on it's own, the on-screen text correction really isn't that bad, but when they have to use it so often for minor mistakes that could (and should) be fixed before releasing the video it becomes a problem. And let's not misrepresent what Steve pointed out about the video either: It wasn't just the keyboard goof, Linus also messed up with the video card. Not only that, but it was messed up in a scene where Linus wasn't even on camera and it was just his voice giving the specs. It could have very easily been fixed before publishing if LTT allowed time for that.
 
If you take anything from this video I think it is this. Auctioning off a review or engineering sample from a startup... is insane. This is also after LMG said they would return it. After the product was done with, should have been boxed up and shipped the same day.

If anything this video should be use to highlight that as a warning sign to any future companies looking to do work with LMG.
 
WarriorX said:
If you take anything from this video I think it is this. Auctioning off a review or engineering sample from a startup... is insane. This is also after LMG said they would return it. After the product was done with, should have been boxed up and shipped the same day.

If anything this video should be use to highlight that as a warning sign to any future companies looking to do work with LMG.
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I imagine there was an internal communication issue within the company that led to it being auctioned off, but it's still insane and should have never happened. Reading through some of the comments on GN's video, someone stated that apparently LTT offered to reimburse Billet but I'm not sure if just giving them money is really any help. The cost and time to get another prototype created could kill the company, not to mention the risk that it ended up in the hands of a competitor. Hopefully, it was just a wealthy fan that ended up buying it. LTT should have information on the person who purchased the prototype, so they really should be contacting them and offering whatever amount of money it takes to get it back.
 
Absalom said:
Punching Dell is my way of saying Dell is a big company and can take a punch. If you actually watch the video in question, the Alienware unit tested was ultimately praised. So the keyboard is just a nitpick. It sounds silly to condemned the whole video just because they goofed on the keyboard. They are human after all.
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It is not about making an error with the keyboard, it is making an error about the keyboard, detecting they made the error before releasing the video, deciding to just add a little note at the bottom of the video instead of editing the error out of said video, a part that was easy to edit around. This not an error anymore, it is a decision.
 
Linus posted a response to his forums:

https://linustechtips.com/topic/152...nd-integrity/?do=findComment&comment=16078641

"There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.



With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...



I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.



Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.



Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).



With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient.



We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.



Thanks for reading this"
 
Derangel said:
I imagine there was an internal communication issue within the company that led to it being auctioned off, but it's still insane and should have never happened. Reading through some of the comments on GN's video, someone stated that apparently LTT offered to reimburse Billet but I'm not sure if just giving them money is really any help. The cost and time to get another prototype created could kill the company, not to mention the risk that it ended up in the hands of a competitor. Hopefully, it was just a wealthy fan that ended up buying it. LTT should have information on the person who purchased the prototype, so they really should be contacting them and offering whatever amount of money it takes to get it back.
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That may be true but do they not have several LMG employees walking around the expo, maybe seeing the item at the auction and be like, hey is that suppose to be there? But ya I agree money isn't really the answer, that just sounds like hush money please don't try to sue us.

I hope the startup is able to recover. Even if the product isn't 'good' or is niche its someone business they messed with.
 
Derangel said:
The video was on an entire Alienware branded set-up, not just the PC. The keyboard was not a "thrown in" item, it's a $230 accessory they got to go with the whole set-up. it It helps to get the context right when telling people that "context matters".
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Ok, so I got that detail wrong. It's been a few weeks since I watched it and I had forgotten they were purchasing everything left and right from Dell to assemble this Alienware only concept build. The fact they purchased it separately doesn't change my opinion stated at all.

Derangel said:
As for the keyboard error itself: In isolation it's not a big thing. The keycaps being so crap that it looks and feels like Dell is using stickers instead of printing is a pretty big knock on the keyboard and Linus' making the mistake on an initial, quick, inspection is understandable. However, we're not talking about things in isolation here. It's emblematic of what Steve was talking about: LTT's demand to have so many videos up per-week that does not allow time for corrections to be made when errors are found during the editing process. Something like that would have been super quick to fix with a little VO placed over b-roll of the keyboard offering a correction. Heck, on it's own, the on-screen text correction really isn't that bad, but when they have to use it so often for minor mistakes that could (and should) be fixed before releasing the video it becomes a problem. And let's not misrepresent what Steve pointed out about the video either: It wasn't just the keyboard goof, Linus also messed up with the video card. Not only that, but it was messed up in a scene where Linus wasn't even on camera and it was just his voice giving the specs. It could have very easily been fixed before publishing if LTT allowed time for that.
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Not oblivious to what Steve was demonstrating in the GN video. I have indeed watched it. I don't agree with all points Steve was making, but I do acknowledge the LTT hypocrisy.
 
Odigo said:
Linus posted a response to his forums:

https://linustechtips.com/topic/152...nd-integrity/?do=findComment&comment=16078641

"There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.



With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...



I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.



Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.



Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).



With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient.



We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.



Thanks for reading this"
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While I understand why Linus would say he was disappointed and that he wished Steve had talked to him directly, it's basically asking for GN to treat them different than they would for any other company they were planning to publicly call out. Sometimes making issues public is the best way to apply pressure and get things resolved. Linus can talk all he wants about adding checks and balances to videos, but as long as they're on a massive time crunch issues will continue to happen in their videos. The claim about KPIs being set around accuracy is pretty clearly not something that members of his production team agree with, based on their comments in a video where the team was asked to give their opinions on working at LTT. Things may have been tweaked since that point, but the push still very much seems to be quantity as LTT have not reduced the number of videos they put out across their channels. The quick pace could easily overwhelm the lab team and lead to inaccurate results, as seen in their cooler testing videos. LTT can spend all the money they want on fancy testing equipment and building software suits for benchmarking, but without proper test procedures in place before hand it will make all of the data entirely worthless. There's a ton of potential in the labs team, especially with their stated goals, but basic testing procedural issues should not be happening.

His comments on the Billet video still feel like a bit of cop-out. Even if re-testing wouldn't change the conclusion (which is totally fair) it's the duty of a review to provide accurate information. Whatever recommendation you give for a product, it is still ultimately up to the viewer to decide for themselves whether or not they want to purchase the item. They cannot do this when given bad information.

Linus claiming he has a long history of meeting issues head-on is easily misproven with the backpack warranty issue. His entire response to it, until he was basically forced to act due to to community backlash, was to basically say "trust me, bro". He took every single complaint about the issue as a personal attack and lashed out at the community, despite that fact that LTT would (rightfully) call out any other company that refused to list warranty information and resorted to making vague "we'll make it right" statements instead.
 
Derangel said:
While I understand why Linus would say he was disappointed and that he wished Steve had talked to him directly, it's basically asking for GN to treat them different than they would for any other company they were planning to publicly call out. . Sometimes making issues public is the best way to apply pressure and get things resolved
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It is not either or and it would not be special treatment it is supposed to be the norm, back in the days you would always ask about the other side of the story and just make your call out video better (for example have that they reimbursed the cost of making a prototype to the company they sold theirs to a charity auction), GN obviously is not a journalist and do not pretend to be so he skip that kind of very minimum step (it is a very minimum, the base of the base to always contact the people for comments)
 
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Watching LTT is like watching a hooker go door to door until someone who doesn't know better let's her in. Then the person tries to build a PC, because the hooker told them to, and when nothing works they end up here with a screwdriver, a 4090 video card, a 2600k and a Thunderbird Slot A motherboard with an AGP slot on it wondering why nothing works.
 
T4rd said:
Just noticed this top comment on the video, lol.

View attachment 590329

If you don't get the reference:


View: https://youtu.be/4To-F6W1NT0
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I had never heard of this Ross person before, but I had heard of GrapheneOS and was considering checking it out, but after this, it really seems like th eproject lead is a toxic personality I would want absolutely nothing to do with, and when someone behaves like that, you can't trust their work. I understand it isn't the first time the project has had some controversy as well, what with contentious business splits and forks in the past. What a shame. I really want a privacy centric project to succeed, but this is a total turnoff.
 
I stopped watching any Linus-produced videos after he used a solo dev's benchmarking software without a commercial license then when called out (including by his own community, judging from Reddit topics) claimed the use was educational as if to self-exempt his company (edit: should point out this was face-saving after eventually paying for a license). Linus has shown he becomes a jerk when he takes heat when it's called for, which suggests he always thinks he's right.
 
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