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Anandtech review and broken expectations

craig1410 said:
Yeah, I tweeted to them a few days ago but didn't get an answer either. Very disappointing really.

https://twitter.com/meerkat1410/status/543378394046791680

To be honest, I'm at the point where I really couldn't care less what they say in their review because the time when it could have made a difference has passed. My iMac is preparing for shipment from Apple and therefore I'll spend up to 14 days doing my own review once it arrives.
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You're also better off listening to people who actually own it rather than a website that just runs a bunch of fairly arbitrary benchmarks.

Anyway, all you really need to know is it's very, very good. Perfect? No. But very, very good. I can only imagine a small minority would be dissatisfied. So many things are known quantities, e.g. the OS, the processor, the RAM - we know the screen is stunning. So the only thing that's up in the air is the GPU, and there are enough impressions out there from numerous people.

So really, all Anandtech will say - if they get round to it is - screen stunning, processor great, GPU sadly throttles at times, blah blah. Overall, lovely. Move along! :p
 
WilliamG said:
You're also better off listening to people who actually own it rather than a website that just runs a bunch of fairly arbitrary benchmarks.

Anyway, all you really need to know is it's very, very good. Perfect? No. But very, very good. I can only imagine a small minority would be dissatisfied. So many things are known quantities, e.g. the OS, the processor, the RAM - we know the screen is stunning. So the only thing that's up in the air is the GPU, and there are enough impressions out there from numerous people.

So really, all Anandtech will say - if they get round to it is - screen stunning, processor great, GPU sadly throttles at times, blah blah. Overall, lovely. Move along! :p
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No way can I top this response. Perfectly spoken. I am enjoying the hell out of my iMac Retina regardless of what any review says or does not say.
 
Thanks guys, I hear what you're saying and I'm sure I'll be very happy with my iMac but that's not really the point is it? AnandTech have dropped the ball here not only through the lateness of their review (assuming it eventually appears) but also with the broken promises that it will be 'this week', 'oh no, next week', 'definitely the week after'. They have also ignored forums threads such as this and direct requests for an update via Twitter from me and others.

Maybe it was a cunning ploy to get more page hits on their site! If so then it's has certainly worked as I have been on the site daily for weeks now. However, for me it also raises a big question mark about the future of AnandTech as the Go To resource for in-depth reviews now that Anand Shimpi has left.

This is the first review I have looked for since Anand left and I have been left disappointed. I'll get over it of course and I'm sure I'll enjoy the iMac when it arrives next week. I wonder if AnandTech will manage to review the late 2014 iMac before 2015 begins? I'm not sure that I care any more.

:apple:
 
I think the problem is, is that it was Anand that mostly reviewed and cared about Apple gear. It seems to have reverted to a PC motherboard and peripheral review site!
 
I think there's plenty of reviews and feedback, that most people will have sufficient information to make an informed decision. While I understand people really like Anandtech's reviews, at this point in time, will they uncover anything that hasn't been said before.

They'll describe the physical makeup of the computer, going into details on the screen and chipset. They'll talk about how gorgeous the screen is, and then go n to run some benchmarks.

They'll mention what doesn't work well, the high price and then offer their advise on buying one or not.

Seems like people get so hung up some reviews when we already have plenty of data now to find out if the 5K iMac is a good buy or not.
 
maflynn said:
I think there's plenty of reviews and feedback, that most people will have sufficient information to make an informed decision. While I understand people really like Anandtech's reviews, at this point in time, will they uncover anything that hasn't been said before.

They'll describe the physical makeup of the computer, going into details on the screen and chipset. They'll talk about how gorgeous the screen is, and then go n to run some benchmarks.

They'll mention what doesn't work well, the high price and then offer their advise on buying one or not.

Seems like people get so hung up some reviews when we already have plenty of data now to find out if the 5K iMac is a good buy or not.
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What you describe here isn't the sort of review I'm hoping for from Anandtech. I'm an electronics engineering graduate and IT consultant and I'm looking for the deep, highly technical review which Anandtech have become well known for. I'm talking about CPU/GPU architectures, caching strategies, memory configuration, display controller and other things like that. Also, detailed info on the storage subsystems and Thunderbolt and other peripheral interfaces would be nice.

I wasn't looking to this review to help me decide whether to buy or not, although if any serious architecture problems were discovered then it could potentially influence whether I buy now or after the next revision. What I want to know is the esoteric technical detail that most people don't care about, I don't care much about the subjective 'gorgeous screen' comments or standard benchmarks as these are covered elsewhere.

That all said, I have a feeling that I will be disappointed when the review does come out. Not disappointed in the iMac, but in the quality of the review.
 
The only technical marvel is in the video timing controller designed to work around the DP 1.2 bandwidth limitations to get the proper refresh rate going at such a high screen resolution - but only Apple has that information and they apparently don't want to share it. I don't see how Anandtech can do much else than theorize about it.
 
crsh1976 said:
The only technical marvel is in the video timing controller designed to work around the DP 1.2 bandwidth limitations to get the proper refresh rate going at such a high screen resolution - but only Apple has that information and they apparently don't want to share it. I don't see how Anandtech can do much else than theorize about it.
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I'm not trying to be funny but have you read an in-depth Anandtech review before? I don't know where they get the information but they go well beyond theorizing...

See the Mac Pro review from last year for example: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013

I understand what you're saying about the t-con being the only new technology in the R-iMac but the GPU's are also new and I think the 4GHz CPU is also new. What I want to know is what else among the glue-logic is different to bring these components together. Like I said above, not everyone cares (or needs to care) about these details and most people don't really understand the details well enough to gain any insight but I find it interesting.
 
They have produced some great info in the past. For example, in their review of Mavericks they had an analysis of Mavericks tagging that is still the best source of info on that subject, bar none. Since it's only a tiny facet of the OS, it was remarkable they went into such detail. And for tagging aficionados it was very much appreciated.

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They have produced some great info in the past. For example, in their review of Mavericks they had an analysis of Mavericks tagging that is still the best source of info on that subject, bar none. Since it's only a tiny facet of the OS, it was remarkable they went into such detail. And for tagging aficionados it was very much appreciated.
 
steve23094 said:
They have been posting plenty of other reviews of products with a much smaller market than the riMac. They have just really dropped the ball on this particular one.
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Ryan (our Editor in Chief) had a bad case of food poisoning and has been out of the game for over a week now, which has unfortunately delayed the iMac review along with some other hot topics (like AMD Omega drivers).
 
Hellhammer said:
Ryan (our Editor in Chief) had a bad case of food poisoning and has been out of the game for over a week now, which has unfortunately delayed the iMac review along with some other hot topics (like AMD Omega drivers).
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Oh wow, that's terrible to hear. Hope he feels better. None of us considered this possibility to be honest...

Any info on the review of the 295 gpu as well? that's what most people care about, I think...

Thanks.
 
Hellhammer said:
Ryan (our Editor in Chief) had a bad case of food poisoning and has been out of the game for over a week now, which has unfortunately delayed the iMac review along with some other hot topics (like AMD Omega drivers).
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Hi,

I just wanted to echo the wishes that Ryan feels better soon. I can appreciate how difficult it is to handle delays caused by personal and personnel issues because on one hand you don't want to discuss personal issues in a public forum but on the other hand you don't want to just ignore requests for an update from your followers. A delicate balance for sure.

I've received my iMac today although I'm not allowed to open it until Christmas morning. A bit harsh given that it's actually for business purposes, bought by my own company for me to use, but I'd better do as I'm told. What it probably means is that my wife hasn't bought me anything else... :rolleyes:

Anyway, thanks for the update.
Craig.
 
craig1410 said:
Hi,

I just wanted to echo the wishes that Ryan feels better soon. I can appreciate how difficult it is to handle delays caused by personal and personnel issues because on one hand you don't want to discuss personal issues in a public forum but on the other hand you don't want to just ignore requests for an update from your followers. A delicate balance for sure.

I've received my iMac today although I'm not allowed to open it until Christmas morning. A bit harsh given that it's actually for business purposes, bought by my own company for me to use, but I'd better do as I'm told. What it probably means is that my wife hasn't bought me anything else... :rolleyes:

Anyway, thanks for the update.
Craig.
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Only one word can describe your situation. Ouch :)

----------

I had food poisoning a couple of times. Brutal life threatening experience. Will never go back to either of those restaurants. Ever.

Best wishes for s speedy recovery.
 
crsh1976 said:
Well, there goes the Anandtech quality.
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It really is a shame. I'm sure part of the reason Apple hired Anand was to kill two birds, so to speak. Anand is a very, very shrewd tech-y, and at the same time Apple HATES people like him fiddling with their toys. So, hire a very smart guy AND solve his "meddling ways" at the same time? Sounds like Apple got a bargain. Shame it happened, for the rest of us. Anand does more good outside Apple than in.
 
Hellhammer said:
Ryan (our Editor in Chief) had a bad case of food poisoning and has been out of the game for over a week now, which has unfortunately delayed the iMac review along with some other hot topics (like AMD Omega drivers).
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While I sympathize with your Editor in Chief's illness and that I understand that your organization is going through some important changes, the review for the retina iMac was announced more than seven weeks ago as "coming next week", and has been re-announced several times since as "coming next week".

If you can't deliver, you shouldn't announce it. And if you blow one deadline, at least respect the next one, or don't keep announcing other deadlines and blowing them. This way you would not give your readers false hopes and frustrate them repetitively.

I greatly appreciate your work, but I think this needed to be said.
 
@Hellhammer - just wondering if there was any update on the Retina iMac review? I've got mine now and love it as you might expect but I'm still somewhat interested to read the review.

Thanks,
Craig.
 
craig1410 said:
@Hellhammer - just wondering if there was any update on the Retina iMac review? I've got mine now and love it as you might expect but I'm still somewhat interested to read the review.
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We've had exactly the same drama with the 2013 rMBP reviews, see the corresponding thread here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1667236/

Same story: Multiple tweets about it, Hellhammer coming in at some point to comment on the delay and confirm that it will come, etc. In the end it never arrived.

Now the 2013 MBPs didn't have any groundbreaking new features. Marginal CPU and GPU upgrades, PCIe SSDs that were benchmarked on the MBAs already, and TB2 which was looked at in the Mac Pro review.
The 5k iMac has more really new things in comparison, with the screen of course, the custom display port thingy, the high end GPU which is the first AMD Tonga GPU (afaik), so I'm still hopeful that it will arrive at some point. But there were also major changes at Anandtech recently, and new products and events keep happening that need to be written about, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it will never appear...
 
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if we never see the review. In fact I'd rather they just came out and said it openly if that's the case. My bet is that they have other things on their minds following the recent organisational changes.
 
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