Rene Ritchie.. the voice of reason

[turbineseaplane]

Real world usage > benchmarks every single time.

...and yet I'm getting folks being dismissive of my real world reports of my wife complaining about swap usage slowing down her M1 MBA (8gb RAM) ... and how that will translate to an even bigger problem for many base M2 MBA buyers (with 1/2 the SSD speed to help during Swap)

 

[iGeneo]

The lengths some people will go to defend Apple at all costs...it's truly astonishing.

What happened to naming all the pros and cons of the device and then letting people choose?

Ok.. you go first... can we all sit in judgement of your spouse? Not that we've met them, but we can all sit on the sidelines and pass judgement

 

[StellarVixen]

Ok.. you go first... can we all sit in judgement of your spouse? Not that we've met them, but we can all sit on the sidelines and pass judgement

Absolutely, I agree. Maybe I get a little upset, but I cannot change their preferences and tastes.

 

[tweaknmod]

I made a thread related to this here - minutes before I saw this one... Serendipity.

 

[Shirasaki]

Hard disagree. Benchmarks don't remotely reflect real world usage which is the problem. I've posted this in other threads but I spent hours (days at this point) hammering my new MBA since I got it. I ran simulations in Houdini, rendered and animated in Blender, edited and exported 4k video in Final Cut, made music in Logic, worked in Xcode, played games, etc and this machine handled it all and didn't even get warm.

Why? Because it's real world use by a human, not a program designed to max everything 100% constantly for hours.

Real world usage > benchmarks every single time.

If you disagree with benchmarks, I guess you also don’t give scientific research a ton of weight because they don’t really reflect real use either. However, what benchmark can do is giving users a clear idea of relative performance between different hardware and different configs of same classes of hardware. Yes, most people don’t intentionally stress their machine 7*24 at 100% load, but if 100% load performance has noticeable differences, one can reasonably assume medium to low load would have some differences as well, albeit less pronounced.

Besides, you love real world test. Then I’m gonna ask you: how do you discuss with other people that has drastically different use cases than you about hardware performance? Or you just simply choose not to engage in such conversations? How would people compare machine performance without an agreed standard set of rules? Does someone “only opening 3 safari tabs while watching YouTube feeling snappy” have anything to do with another dude who “keeps 30+ tabs open and dozens of background apps running at the same time”? Same M2, we can get two drastic results: one says M2 is plenty powerful. The other says M2 is underpowered. Who is right? Can someone new to MacBook make a decision based on those two “real world” scenarios?

 

[chrono1081]

If you disagree with benchmarks, I guess you also don’t give scientific research a ton of weight because they don’t really reflect real use either.

Im sorry but the fact that you made that leap (and think what you said is accurate) shows me I'd be wasting my time debating with you.

I said what I said and I stand by it. Period.

 

[anshuvorty]

Rene makes many good points

Solid perspective...

Welcome to the toxic world of content creation Rene!

 

[Apple_Robert]

The lengths some people will go to defend Apple at all costs...it's truly astonishing.

What happened to naming all the pros and cons of the device and then letting people choose?

That went out of style and has been replaced with grocery store checkout tabloids for tech heads. And sadly, a lot of people on MR love their trashy tabloid electronic paper from YouTube.

 

[Tagbert]

Benchmark, however flawed it might be, by far is THE most scientific view of a machine’s performance in different metrics and can be compared relatively objectively. Now, whether user takes benchmark seriously or not matters little of other users decisions, but none should dissect the importance of benchmarks recording the progression of our hardware design and evolution.

It not so much the benchmarks, though it can be tricky to get valid numbers unless you know a lot about both the architecture and the benchmark algorithms. We saw some of this when people were first using GeekBench on early AS chips and getting wonky results.

There is the recent trend to use massive workloads beyond a typical user’s scenarios and then, after hitting a wall, to promote that as a failure that would make the machine unusable. Sometimes it is the video title that makes that kind of claim but the actual video content is more nuanced, but it is often just the title and intro commentary that people see and then post as an example of Apple’s failure. If someone pushes back against this kind of narrative, then they are labeled a shill and that they are just parroting Apple talking points. The result is a lot of people shouting at each other but not much actual communication or useful information.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Honest opinion: he loves the sound of his own voice a bit too much.

 

[Jumpthesnark]

The one thing I do wish he'd change is those video thumbnail styles..

lol

100% agree. And his are hardly the worst. To me those hysterical thumbnails with three scary typefaces and flames/explosions/skulls-and-crossbones, etc. are just a sign that the channel is probably not serious, and I can safely move along without even watching.

 

[Shirasaki]

It not so much the benchmarks, though it can be tricky to get valid numbers unless you know a lot about both the architecture and the benchmark algorithms. We saw some of this when people were first using GeekBench on early AS chips and getting wonky results.

There is the recent trend to use massive workloads beyond a typical user’s scenarios and then, after hitting a wall, to promote that as a failure that would make the machine unusable. Sometimes it is the video title that makes that kind of claim but the actual video content is more nuanced, but it is often just the title and intro commentary that people see and then post as an example of Apple’s failure. If someone pushes back against this kind of narrative, then they are labeled a shill and that they are just parroting Apple talking points. The result is a lot of people shouting at each other but not much actual communication or useful information.

Well, I blame people using the benchmark without trying to reasonably deduct conclusions based on benchmark results. Unfortunately, when money is down the line, concessions must be made and meal must be prioritised over ethics and whatnot until it is less of an issue.

Still, integrity and unbiased attitude are critical for doing reviews, yet this attribute becomes rarer as time goes by. Most are either struggling, got heavily bribed by companies, or just put personal feeling into everything, skewing the result.

 

[Zest28]

Guys, you should ignore all facts. Ignore all measurements.

Those flaws that you see in the measurements are not real, because that is my opinion.

Opinion > facts.

 

[boss.king]

Rene Ritchie is really hard to take seriously. But a reviewer who’s taking a very sensible approach to this throttling stuff is Lisa from Mobile Tech Review, heavily recommend her as a review source to add to your roster, she’s great.

 

[Madhatter32]

Rene Ritchie is really hard to take seriously. But a reviewer who’s taking a very sensible approach to this throttling stuff is Lisa from Mobile Tech Review, heavily recommend her as a review source to add to your roster, she’s great.

Agree totally. Lisa from Mobile Tech Review is an informative, interesting and balanced tech reviewer.

 

[sorgo †]

Rene Ritchie is really hard to take seriously. But a reviewer who’s taking a very sensible approach to this throttling stuff is Lisa from Mobile Tech Review, heavily recommend her as a review source to add to your roster, she’s great.

Lisa is an absolute legend and her quality output is severely underrated.

OT: One of the funniest titles/threads in a while, thanks for the laugh

 

[Isengardtom]

Rene Ritchie is really hard to take seriously. But a reviewer who’s taking a very sensible approach to this throttling stuff is Lisa from Mobile Tech Review, heavily recommend her as a review source to add to your roster, she’s great.

Also a big fan of Lisa. always levelled with a minimum of BS.

I will say this about Rene. He’s a good guy. Always very supportive of other creators

 

[Kylo83]

Max tech are the real deal unlike Rene who just wants to please apple 24/7

 

[Wokis]

It often isn't the benchmark results. The results are fine, the numbers are good bar certain outliers. How some youtubers are *reacting* to those numbers presented is what is so disappointing, as it presents a certain disconnect that is likely pre-planned and scripted ahead of when they received the laptop.

Thing is, it's not bad if the heatsink grows by the next redesign as a result of feedback from reviewers and users. Or if they don't do single-NAND base SSDs anymore and just swallow the, lets be honest, miniscule cost of offering a storage configuration where they can go with two chips or plain faster NAND. No matter how OK the performance is now, asking Apple to do better in any and all aspects is likely not going to result in worse products down the line. So I'm not the Renee Ritchie level of upset here.

But on the topic of benchmarks, note that the M2 MBP performed so good in those that some youtubers actually thought of them as not good enough, and started to stack exports/benchmarks on top of eachother to get a scandal going. Now that was a weird one.

 

[iGeneo]

Max tech are the real deal unlike Rene who just wants to please apple 24/7

Max tech has always been a doosh

 

[HiVolt]

The lengths some people will go to defend Apple at all costs...it's truly astonishing.

What happened to naming all the pros and cons of the device and then letting people choose?

Thats why i never watch this guy's videos, he's an unapologetic shill without much of a spine to criticize. this rant was unhinged.

I much rather watch Luke Miani's channel he actually showed how you can improve the thermal performance in a video today with simple adhesive pads.

 

[jz0309]

YouTubers have a single goal: clicks. The more, the better ...

My preference: ignore YouTube. YMMV.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I would rather read a user review from one of the established regulars here, than always be looking at YouTube.

 

[jz0309]

I would rather read a user review from one of the established regulars here, than always be looking at YouTube.

yep, like fixit teardowns were easy to read, now MR presents a YouTube teardown which I completely ignore ...

 

[Apple_Robert]

yep, like fixit teardowns were easy to read, now MR presents a YouTube teardown which I completely ignore ...

People today seem to be afraid to make a decision and do their own testing. They feel the need for self- validation with every little thing.