I might be changing my mind about Max Tech YT channel

[Captain_Mac]

They certainly have some good videos. Their comparisons, although somewhat repetitive, are detailed. Sometimes I wish they'd focus on other comparisons tho.

However sometimes they spend the entire video shouting at the camera, or saying that they know things other YouTubers don't, which gets annoying after some time. Other times they make purely speculative videos with "CONFIRMED!!" on the title and thumbnail. They also lack understanding of the engineering process and make technology explanations that are really bad and/or aren't scientifically valid.

Full disclosure, I have been subscribed for a very long time (years). But lately they seem to be on a race to put out a video every day, privileging quantity over quality content. When they don't have hardware to review, they tend to make more speculative and clickbait-y videos in order to drive clicks.
Just go on the channel:

• "Fully WATERPROOF iPhones are coming & I can PROVE IT!" -> no you can't, only Apple can when they announce it. You can at most suggest that's the path they may be taking.
• "STOP! Do NOT Buy the NEW $599 M2 Mac mini.. 🤦" -> why? just because it has 1 NAND chip? The machine is perfectly acceptable for what it offers at that price. The customer that's shopping on that price point will be more than happy with that machine.
• "New 20" MacBook Pro - Apple's GAME-CHANGING Laptop LEAKED!" -> no it didn't, at this moment it is all but speculation based on few and dubious reports. There's no credible leak pointing to a 20 inch MBP.
• ...

Sometimes the videos happen to be correct, like the one earlier this month when Vadim claimed the new MacBook Pros were coming this January. But others get it completely wrong.

TLDR: they have good comparison videos, just be careful with the clickbait and when opening the speculation videos, take them with a grain of salt.

 

[maflynn]

I think ~80% of the iJustine hate is because she's a pretty woman.

Nah, I don't think her gender has anything to do with it. She's just crazy,

In a January 2007 video, iJustine discussed her alleged “encounter” with Jobs at a Macworld event.

“Today, Steve Jobs proposed to me at the keynote,” she joked. “You know, I know he’s really busy with the iPhone thing, but he stopped and said, ‘Justine, will you marry me?’”

she would have to complete and compete 10 windows tasks within (I think) 2 seconds each with Linus years ago?

Yes, and I think both Linus and iJustine failed the test or least struggled

They certainly have good videos.

I've not watch many of their videos but what I saw, I was not disappointed

 

[iObama]

Nah, I don't think her gender has anything to do with it. She's just crazy,




Yes, and I think both Linus and iJustine failed the test or least struggled


I've not watch many of their videos but what I saw, I was not disappointed

I don't know if she's crazy because she made a joke, but agree to disagree.

 

[cthompson94]

I understand that argument! But she also does really good unboxings and is just generally fun to watch. I get plenty of substance from the others.

I think ~80% of the iJustine hate is because she's a pretty woman. (Not saying you, just making a point.) She's been in the game longer than pretty much anyone else.

I don't think it is the being a pretty woman thing because you have Youtubers like Sara Dietschy and even Justine's sister who doesn't get the same kind of hate, and I think it is the insane amount of bubbliness that Justine does and when she does critique Apple it is said in a way that she is excusing them for mistakes and that is what got me to stop watching her videos. Her videos seem more like advertisements and not reviews and reviews from a company shouldn't sound like advertisements unless it is stated otherwise in the beginning of the video. To my knowledge though Apple doesn't pay any content creators and only lends out devices to these big creators so in theory no one should be basically be free advertising.

To OP though, Max Tech I am hit and miss with. There are times where the channel also seems to be doing very advertising like videos, but then a video with a big critique like the camera comparisons whenever the new Samsungs come out against the iPhone and they are *supposed to be blind*

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I find Max Tech to be pretty useful to be honest. While I understand some of the click bait comments, that is pretty much how how you grow your channel on YouTube - if you don't like it then avoid YouTube.

Yeah, it’s not like the information they have in their videos can’t be found elsewhere.

 

[ADGrant]

Yeah I’m not subscribed to them, far from it. I subscribe to a very few YT channels actually. Their coverage of M2 MacBook Air and the SSD “issue” frankly pissed me of because they made it sound like the laptop is slow for majority of users when in reality it’s like the best thin and light laptop one could buy (at least imho).

For me their coverage of the SSD issue (and not just on the MBA) has redeemed them in my eyes. Their speculation videos are pure garbage and their recommendations suspect but I like when they expose when Apple shortchanges its customers.

The M2 MBA may be the best thin and light laptop you can buy but it feels very overpriced compared to the M1 MBA or the M1 14" MBP which was selling for around the same money as a similarly specced M2 MBA.

 

[Andres Cantu]

I liked their channel but as time went on, they kept saying things like "100% guaranteed" about rumors that later ended up being not true and also kept making videos where they repeated themselves a lot, so I stopped watching.

Nothing against them, but most of the content I can just read about on MacRumors itself.

 

[TechnoMonk]

I never do click bait garbage. If the thumbnail or title sounds clickbait to attract clicks, I rarely click. Give me good content, where you don’t need to put some catchy title and clickbait template.

 

[TechnoMonk]

I find Max Tech to be pretty useful to be honest. While I understand some of the click bait comments, that is pretty much how how you grow your channel on YouTube - if you don't like it then avoid YouTube.

Their comparisons are valuable as sometimes it can hard to decide against different Apple products - At the moment I am deciding between the base Studio or the M2 Pro Mini - it is these types of comparison videos that I find useful.

Try both out with your usage. Return one if you don’t like. Or I usually list a favorite, try and if I like, I keep it. If I don’t like, I try something else. The comparisons are usually clickbait stuff, with little insight in to how, and what users do or use.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

^Yeah, the clickbait level of MaxTech is off the charts, even compared to some other tech YouTube channels. Yes, YouTube is all about clicks; that's how it works. But not all channels insult your intelligence with it.

At least MaxTech isn't as bad as that other Apple channel I saw with the recent video about how Apple is discontinuing the iPhone in 2023 and replacing it with the Reality Pro headset 🤦‍♂️

 

[TechnoMonk]

I understand that argument! But she also does really good unboxings and is just generally fun to watch. I get plenty of substance from the others.

I think ~80% of the iJustine hate is because she's a pretty woman. (Not saying you, just making a point.) She's been in the game longer than pretty much anyone else.

That’s it for me. She is just a happy and presentable person. I read lot of negative crap from everywhere. There is something watching people actually enjoy, not whine about stuff all the time.

 

[Analog Kid]

Now I understand how detailed their comparisons are

Don't confuse detail for informational. I generally ignore YouTube stuff like this but the original SSD tirade from last year got enough attention and the numbers being quoted from it seemed so absurd that I had to look at it myself. This is what I found and I'll never watch or listen to someone who quotes MaxTech again:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rene-ritchie-the-voice-of-reason.2351574/page-9?post=31272218#post-31272218

It's technobabble by someone who has a bunch of tools and doesn't know how to use them. It goes beyond just having a contaminated test to not really knowing how to run a test.

 

[boss.king]

Don't confuse detail for informational. I generally ignore YouTube stuff like this but the original SSD tirade from last year got enough attention and the numbers being quoted from it seemed so absurd that I had to look at it myself. This is what I found and I'll never watch or listen to someone who quotes MaxTech again:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rene-ritchie-the-voice-of-reason.2351574/page-9?post=31272218#post-31272218

It's technobabble by someone who has a bunch of tools and doesn't know how to use them. It goes beyond just having a contaminated test to not really knowing how to run a test.

Or apply critical thinking. There was his whole debacle of the M2 Air throttling when doing something stupid like exporting like 8K Blackmagic footage that made him declare the machine a failure, as if that's at all representative of the type of workload that machine is designed for.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Don't confuse detail for informational. I generally ignore YouTube stuff like this but the original SSD tirade from last year got enough attention and the numbers being quoted from it seemed so absurd that I had to look at it myself. This is what I found and I'll never watch or listen to someone who quotes MaxTech again:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rene-ritchie-the-voice-of-reason.2351574/page-9?post=31272218#post-31272218

It's technobabble by someone who has a bunch of tools and doesn't know how to use them. It goes beyond just having a contaminated test to not really knowing how to run a test.

It’s like monkey with a wrench making YouTube videos for clicks. It got the wrench but doesn’t know how to use.

 

[RedOctober]

Used to watch MaxTech vids but I find them too free with their opinions and not really a lot of substance. And I can't stand the hype.

I don't consider myself an Apple fanboi, even though I have a couple of Macbooks. Hardly use the Apple TV since I bought the NVidia Shield Pro. But if I was going to do some research before I buy stuff, I'll traverse the Youtube universe for different POVs and see if it fits my use case before opening my wallet.

 

[sam_dean]

Because sometime normal user might miss out on great Apple product if they think a problem affects them, when it’s really not. Just wanted to say this because some of my comments about then have been pretty harsh. What do you think about them?

You are correct.

If people would take a step back what are the typical use case of a 8GB RAM & 256GB SSD Mac M1/M2?

Would it require more than 2.8GB/s write/read speeds?

It is nice to have 7.5GB/s write/read speeds but I'd rather have system that has little latency as possible.

Reaction time of a device makes it appear more speedy than it actually is.

This is relative to any device marketed after Y2K.

 

[ajeossi]

I subscribe to many YT channels focusing on Apple products and MT is one of them. They are sometimes so fanatic that I find their crazy wishes entertaining, like asking for 4mn chips this year, then 3mn chips next year like the technology and industry can allow the chips to go down 1 nanometer each year. Their reviews are quite in-depth and it helped me get the right model for nearly every Apple products that I bought in recent years, my binned M1 Pro MacBook with a larger SSD being the latest. Now I get the performance and SSD speed I fancy without any disappointment because Apple is cutting corners (I know the SSD difference is unnoticeable for most tasks but I just don’t like it). As long as the review is not fake, I’m fine. The more info around, the more help for customers to make the best decisions. Time to copy this comment to their YT channel to join the lucky draw. Haha!

 

[sam_dean]

I subscribe to many YT channels focusing on Apple products and MT is one of them. They are sometimes so fanatic that I find their crazy wishes entertaining, like asking for 4mn chips this year, then 3mn chips next year like the technology and industry can allow the chips to go down 1 nanometer each year. Their reviews are quite in-depth and it helped me get the right model for nearly every Apple products that I bought in recent years, my binned M1 Pro MacBook with a larger SSD being the latest. Now I get the performance and SSD speed I fancy without any disappointment because Apple is cutting corners (I know the SSD difference is unnoticeable for most tasks but I just don’t like it). As long as the review is not fake, I’m fine. The more info around, the more help for customers to make the best decisions. Time to copy this comment to their YT channel to join the lucky draw. Haha!

Subscribing to YouTubers induced me to buy junk that I did not need.

Before heavy tech YouTube use I had

- 2011 iPad 2 16GB WiFi 45nm
- 2011 Macbook Pro 13" 32nm
- 2012 iMac 27" 22nm
- iPhone upgrade every 2 years

After heavy tech YouTube use I ended buying

- 2013 iPad Air 16GB WiFi 20nm
- 2014 Google Android One 28nm
- 2015 Google Nexus 6P 20nm
- 2016 LG B6 OLED 4K TV
- 2017 Essential PH-1 10nm
- 2017 Dell laptop 14nm
- 2018 iPad Pro 11" 256GB WiFi 7nm
- 2018 Macbook Air 14nm
- 2018 Dell U3818DW display
- 2019 Macbook Pro 16" 14nm

What I would have wanted was to avoid 2014-2019 purchases all together and did this instead

- 2019 iPad 10.2" 64GB WiFi 16nm
- 2021 Macbook Pro 16" M1 Pro 5nm
- 2023 iMac 27" replacement M2 Pro 5nm
- iPhone upgrade every 2 years

 

[UltimateSyn]

They’re thorough, if nothing else.

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

Yeah I’m not subscribed to them, far from it. I subscribe to a very few YT channels actually. Their coverage of M2 MacBook Air and the SSD “issue” frankly pissed me of because they made it sound like the laptop is slow for majority of users when in reality it’s like the best thin and light laptop one could buy (at least imho). Now when M2 Mini and M2 MacBook Pros came out I watched some of their videos again, seemed more tame, but I’m not sure. I’m not very technical person, I don’t care about benchmarks and deep dives in specs. I care much more about overall user experience and real world performance. That’s why I’m subscribed to different YT channels to get my main reviews. But I do use some processor and memory intensive apps so I’m interest in avoiding making mistakes in configurations I buy. Would be sad to buy some config just to find out that it’s not enough because Apple cut corners.

The general theme of their coverage seems to be upselling everyone to MBPs. They are doing apple a favor.

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

Subscribing to YouTubers induced me to buy junk that I did not need.

Before heavy tech YouTube use I had

- 2011 iPad 2 16GB WiFi 45nm
- 2011 Macbook Pro 13" 32nm
- 2012 iMac 27" 22nm
- iPhone upgrade every 2 years

After heavy tech YouTube use I ended buying

- 2013 iPad Air 16GB WiFi 20nm
- 2014 Google Android One
- 2015 Google Nexus 6P 20nm
- 2017 Essential PH-1 10nm
- 2017 Dell laptop 14nm
- 2018 iPad Pro 11" 7nm
- 2018 Macbook Air 14nm
- 2018 Dell U3818DW
- 2019 Macbook Pro 16" 14nm

What I would have wanted was to avoid 2014-2019 purchases all together and did this instead

- 2019 iPad 10.2" 64GB WiFi 16nm
- 2021 MBP 16" M1 Pro 5nm
- 2023 iMac 27" replacement M2 Pro 5nm
- iPhone upgrade every 2 years

Yes I’m trying to simplify my tech purchases in the same way too. I appreciate how much simpler things my stack was back then

 

[sam_dean]

The general theme of their coverage seems to be upselling everyone to MBPs. They are doing apple a favor.

Apple's doing them a favor for providing test units at launch.

Max and his channel actually have to buy multiple SKUs of Macs to bench most permutations of the product line.

After they be done they raffle off most of them as they've made their money from the views.

 

[sam_dean]

Yes I’m trying to simplify my tech purchases in the same way too. I appreciate how much simpler things my stack was back then

All because of those darn YouTubers and their enthusiasm. Echo chambers of "buy" "buy" "buy"... could have placed the money in stocks instead.

YouTubers said that Apple solved the thermal trottling issue of the 2019 MBP 16" Core i7 14nm and yet... it's slightly less bad?

During that time there was news about Intel to Apple Silicon but my experience with PPC to Intel made me think that it would just be a ~20% improvement while Intel-only binaries would be gimped until Universal 2 binaries comes out.

Something not worth delaying purchase for. Boy was I wrong. Did not realize that Apple wanted to move from 14nm to 5nm. Another would be moving all pertinent and possible parts of the system onto a chip like an iPhone.

I did not appreciate how much of an improvement an Apple-designed SoC at 5nm would be vs a 14nm Intel system outside a chip.

These days what gets my attention are the benchmarks that comes from die shrinks. When there's a new node it's just a blast of new raw performance and performance per watt.

Intel kept us at 14nm from 2014-2020. Apple had enough and in 2020 moved us to 5nm.

I knew that I'd just have kept my Macs for 120 months then upgrade. 32nm or 22nm to 5nm.

Next year 3nm M3 will be out and if that is when the iMac 27" replacement will be out then that jump for me would be from 22nm to 3nm. A dozen years leap of tech improvement.

For those reading at this point they'll balk at this as app development work would fail. Good for me that the most taxing function is RAW image editing from a 51 megapixel 2015 dSLR.

 

[Tmeb22]

My main issue with them is this:

 

[sam_dean]

My main issue with them is this: View attachment 2150992

So long as he doesn't promote the Property Gospel on the Apple videos he makes then I do not mind his faith.

When he does then he will be banished into the desert for 40,000 days.