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Eh, I stopped paying attention to Linus after the whole debacle last year.
Hmm, no, actually I think I stopped paying attention to him quite a long while ago. I think once they went all in on the clickbaity titles and just non-content, algorithm filler.
I first reevaluated my perception of him (shall we say) after that AWFUL “let’s try Linux” series, and it didn’t exactly get better from there.
The Microsoft ball gargling is ridiculous on its own
The Linux series was one of the best, because it showed what would happen if someone who didn’t know what they were doing tried to move to Linux. Linux shills have been preaching “it’s the year of the Linux desktop” forever now, but since it’s so different from windows and macOS there’s a massive learning curve that only shows up once you’ve switched.
I would bet 8/10 people who have used windows/macOS for 30+ years would have many of the same problems as Linus did. I know I’ve made many of the same mistakes that were made by Linus/Luke in that series, including accidentally nuking my DE.
Linux sucks as a desktop if you aren’t already familiar with Linux from the terminal. There’s a few edge cases, but for the most part it’s not a good experience if you do anything more than web browsing.
I’m no Linus shill, though I do enjoy their content for the most part. He’s not a tech god like people make him out to be, he’s just a slightly above average tech nerd who’s a good presenter. And that’s the audience that the Linux shills are trying to push the OS onto.
I'm genuinely curious how saying that Linux GUI desktop has issues equates to gargling Microsoft's balls?
Whenever I see Linus I feel like everything is rushed and not thought through. He barely knows what he is holding. He just doesn't care; he has 20 more reviews he has to record today. Or something like that.
"Deal breaker! It doesn't even do my laundry."
That's honestly my biggest problem with him as well. He makes such a big thing about having 900 videos a week or whatever that it just makes you think that he can't possibly put any real effort into any of them, it's literally not possible. Why not reduce the number videos and actually produce better quality content.
Part of the problem is that he has to be in every video or almost every video the channel producers. If you look at something like Corridor Digital they have a number of people who are regularly on camera so individuals don't have to do a bunch of videos one after another. So each individual video gets more focus.
What's the point in putting out a badly informed review, all it does is weaken your brand.
I don't think Linus Sebastian is worth watching during the NCIX days because he always seem like someone who would spend the least amount of effort and say whatever is popular to get the most amount of views. As you can see in this video, a lot of the criticism he made on the Fairphone are really nitpicking and isn't fair (heh) at all.
For example, the phone thickness, which he measured with a caliper as a point, is not a metric most people outside of reviewers would care about, especially since most people puts a beefy case on their phone immediately anyways, and size is usually the main tradeoff with modularity.
Or their point about using a Qualcomm industrial chip instead of a Snapdragon chip as a point against Fairphone, when they have previously stated that it is to get a longer time of support.
That being said, having a long, uncut and unfiltered reaction video towards criticism by having the co-founder improv on the spot was not the smartest thing to do on Fairphone's part. He came off as defensive and completely unprepared in the video and failed to address the criticism effectively (with some easy rebuttals if he was given even a little time to prepare) effectively, which is not great for PR.
The video could be much more effective if they cut it down to half the length with an actual script. It's a YouTube video, there's no reason to do it completely live and unscripted.
For the last part: I'm pretty sure it's just his thing to do "real" things, instead of scripting, cutting it down, watching it before or anything.
I also very much got the feeling that he acted in a defensive and hurt way, but it's his real emotion and I can understand it since Linus is bashing the phone much more than "necessary".
Or their point about using a Qualcomm industrial chip instead of a Snapdragon chip as a point against Fairphone, when they have previously stated that it is to get a longer time of support.
Of course the support is great, but some other phones also achieve that without a slow and old SoC.
The Fairphone seems pretty nice in theory but the performance is pretty poor and the price is high.
Linus is full of shit in a lot of videos
I know what phone I'll be looking for when the piece of shit in my pocket finally dies. That maneuver where he popped the cover with a fingernail and hotswapped the battery sold me.
Hey, totally unrelated question: Didn't linus recently take a lot of flak for shady/unfair reviewing practices?
Didn't linus recently take a lot of flak for shady/unfair reviewing practices?
No, he took a lot of flack for rushing through them with lots of errors.
He's trash and the people that defend him are useful idiots.
Yeah. He took flack. It was more about the completeness and accuracy of the reviews rather than being unfair.... at least from what I recall.
They did a whole show of the matter, suspended uploads for a week or so, did some internal restructuring, hired a new CEO. Linus is now chief vision officer or some such nonsense.
Bluntly, I liked LTT videos more when they were a scrappy bunch of nerds working out of a house, putting out a couple videos a week...
You knew the information wasn't perfect and that was fine. It was enough to give you an impression of what to expect. They did a recent comparison that confirmed something I already knew, by taking a smattering of the "same" CPU and testing them against eachother. They found that some were quantifiably better than others. To me this was proof that all reviews are skewed. You never know which way they'll be skewed, and it really doesn't matter. The fact remains that all tech reviews are going to be different than personal experience. They're also going to differ from reviewer to reviewer since, even if they're using the "same" hardware, that hardware might be slightly faster or slower than other reviewers by a small margin. Once upon a time the hardware was so similar and the differences were so small you could effectively ignore this variance. Modern hardware is so fast that even a small variance can make a pretty significant difference to benchmark performance.
So you have to take literally everything posted as a review with a grain of salt. It's not accurate to what you would experience buying the exact same stuff off a shelf. As lithography gets smaller and smaller the relatively minor variance will have a larger and larger impact to the final products performance.
It's the way of things. All things. Whether it's a car or a computer, some just roll off the line different.
I seem to recall something to the effect of "theft of a prototype:" like a custom water block or something like that he was supposed to review, and then gave a rushed, improper review, and then misplaced or in some way failed to return the prototype. IIRC.
When they ditched the headphone jack fairphone ditched environmentalism.
The fairphone 3+ was their last fair phone.
It's just another cheap phone now. Made in the same place from the same stuff as other makers, with maybe a year of extra security updates.
They started by doing stuff differently, now they do things the same as everyone else and want to pretend they're different.
It's still a modular, repairable phone. That's objectively different to a regular phone. Not to mention the broad support for ROMs.
I still wouldn't buy one because of the cost, reduced performance, reduced battery life, and worse screen than other phones. It's not worth it even if it's upgradable as it can't be upgraded enough to stay relevant forever anyway unlike a framework where you can plop in a new motherboard.
Linus simply isn't the target audience for this phone. He says he's onboard with their mission and everything, but then makes points that aren't relevant to their mission. Also, if a company as dedicated to their mission as FairPhone (or so they claim, I haven't personally checked) can make a phone like this, then probably the reason other companies make better phones is really because they don't care about ethics and morals but cold hard cash.
The only LTT review I'm interested in is a review of the culture in the workplace.
I agree with a lot of the points LTT had, I was pretty excited for this video when I saw it. But the response was just complaing and excuses instead of just being nice and simple "here's the issue you had, We can either fix it, or can't for these reasons..."
ITT people mad at Linus for pointing out all the reasons the phone wouldn’t appeal to a mass market audience
I don't care what fairphone or Linus says. They got rid of the headphone jack. A "modular" phone my ass.
Whatever you wanna say about the fairphone, LTT shouldn't have any say in the review industry after their back-to-back lying to the public AND sexual harassment debacles. They've been sleazy for years, taking money from companies they claim to review impartially, and twisting everything into a meme factory instead of putting the tiniest amount of effort into quality reviews and tech journalism.
Linus is absolutely the last guy you should be listening to on anything unless he's explaining how he managed to salvage his reputation after covering up toxic and predatory workplace behaviour and still coming out the other side a multimillionaire.
5 years later
This phone sucks, the display looks moderate at 1° viewing angle, isn't as powerful as my desktop PC, and we think all resources should be mined in the most unethical ways so we can have 20 more hours of tiktok on a single charge.
Tech channels go further and further from the mark of "good". I'm not playing AAA games on my phone, I don't watch YouTube for 20 hours straight, I prefer larger bezels (even if slightly uneven) because I tend to touch the screen accidentally if they're too small, and I prefer more responsible resources even if it means less battery life or performance.
I don't need a PC in my pocket and Linus is just going too far into the techbro headspace for me to trust him for anything .
This video is how so many tech reviewers are now, credit to MeatCanyon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GsoZOpw8aE
Fuck Linus "Tech Tips"
Tbh both have fair points from their side of bias.
The framework laptop is not handicapped in terms of performance nearly as much and has a much more reasonable price for what you get idk what you're talking about
I would say this is a "bad take" from Linus.
You really can't compare a Fairphone to any other phone on a level playing field because it has goals that literally no other phone has, and will inevitably make compromises to achieve those goals.
He had multiple "dealbreakers" that are trivial to most. He seemed to approach this entire review from a very selfish perspective. And while a personal view can be useful, it shouldn't be entirely self-centered, which is how he came off.
Thicker phones is something enthusiasts have been clamoring for for years. The number of trade-offs they've made in exchange for a couple extra mm in phones is absurd.
Same goes for a couple of extra mm in the bezels.
The off-axis viewing angles is something that has always confused me. Who looks at their displays that way?
Gaming is not great? Who cares? It's not a gaming phone.
Camera is not great? Most of modern camera quality is in software. Install Gcam or Open camera and save yourself the cash. F5 had some of the best photos of the ones they showed anyway.
Like Jesus, these are the things you want to focus on? Is there nothing more important you could talk about in this short review?
Most of these can be fixed with a software update (which isn't an excuse).
The guy in the video also had a bad take, comparing the F5 to F4 over and over again. Like who are you, Apple? It doesn't matter to the end user.
My biggest gripe with Fairphone is their lack of a headphone jack. I think that's a legitimate dealbreaker for a lot of people and also goes against the "fair" ethos. But that was never mentioned in this review 🤷
Phones don't use much energy. I'm not getting the "efficiency" thing for wireless charging. Even new standards are basically the same.
This CEO sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about
Energy lost as heat during the power transmission. It's what makes the phones warm during wireless charging. That heat decreases the lifespan of the battery and makes the phone uncomfortable to use, which is why wireless charging speed is limited once the phone reaches a certain temperature. I specifically avoid using wireless charging on my Pixel to extend its battery lifespan since it will live for 7 years and battery replacement is expensive. New wireless charging standards could probably play with frequency and other parameters in order to reduce energy lost as heat, similar to how increasing the voltage in a circuit decreases loss to heat for the same cables.