Do not waste any of your valuable time with this guy Thom. I have also been to his BLOG. He has posted many crazy disparaging articles on OS X and Apple, without using much objectivity. In some cases they were not even factual. He is hardly a part of the media, certainly not a journalist. He is a glorified blogger.

I also write a blog on technology and I have criticized Apple on occasion, but I am not a flame-thrower and use the Mac as my main platform. As a video, engineer, network engineer, and a web developer, I have a unique job and also use Windows and Linux daily (when I have to).

I do not think Apple is perfect, but I certainly do not support Microsoft’s way of doing business, lack of innovation, and terrible security record. As I point out on my blog and I know you do also, Windows seems to always be behind Macs in features and innovation. Windows users always get real excited when they get a feature of technology, we Mac users have had for years. I always explain it to my Windows only apologists friends this way, “Years Later, NOT as Good!”

Thom seems to have no problem with the distorting the truth. He proves he is no journalist or responsible part of the media. Look how the some of the uninformed media is running around telling about Mac OS X worms and viruses! All while there is no exploits in the wild!

Vista still can not make it to market. Most of what will have is “ripped” off from OS X. It still will not ship even next year with desktop search! Google built a better desktop search for Windows, than MS could so far. And of course OS X has Spotlight. XP a five year old OS is SILL insecure. Maybe Thom will want to write about that and compare it to OS X! His site is what, OSNews or something.
Stephen Antonucci
http://www.ReelSmart.com

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/1769/picture17nx.jpg

By the way, there actually are factual errors in the review, but that’s not what I was attacking. (One factual error is the statement that the PowerMacs don’t come with RAID… simply not true. He’s thinking like a Windows user.) I was attacking the deliberate omission of facts, the sublimation of facts, and the distortion of facts.

Example One
Take a look at this url, which is the full page I took a screenshot snippet from for the article: http://www.pcmag.com/products/0,,qn=Desktops+Over+%243000,00.asp

Now, imagine you’re someone shopping for a new PC. You’re on a budget, but you can afford something over $3,000. You have no existing prejudice either for or against Macintosh products. In fact, you are inclined to be favorable because you just bought a new iPod and really like that. Everyone has told you that Macs are more expensive, but you want to see for yourself. So you turn to a respected rag like PC Magazine and go to the Desktop Computers portal on their site.

You select PCs “over $3,000″ and study the comparison chart. Ooh, forget the Macintosh. It starts at $7,000. Next, sort the table by price. The first time you sort, it defaults to showing prices in descending order, so the most expensive are at the top. (Ah, interesting. PC Magazine has made one small concession to my article. Before, the Quad came in at the very top of the list, since they were using the $9,522 price as the sort field. Now it’s a few computers down, because they’re sorting on the $7,000 instead.)

This is where the magazine is totally misleading. My Joe PC purchaser no doubt concludes that he’d have to spend $7,000 at least to buy a Quad. It’s perfectly true that you can spend that much, but I bought one for half that, and it wasn’t the base model, either.

You might say, “But he’ll click on the link and read the full review.” And I say, No, he won’t. Particularly if his default decision is to buy a PC. Instead, he’ll click the sort button again, to see the list from the least expensive down.

Now, there are 8 or 9 pages of PCs in this list. Looking at it from the bottom up, the Quad would appear on page 2 of the list, rather than page 9, if its true base price were listed instead of the contrived $7,000 price.

One thing that PC guys don’t understand is that Apple computers come with most of what you need by default. Where other manufacturers make you start with a totally stripped model and then add necessary stuff, computers like the Quad come fully loaded for most uses without adding anything much. Yes, you have to add RAM… but I always buy third-party RAM because it’s cheaper and very easy to pop in myself. I often add a second hard drive, but 250 GB is really quite sufficient, don’t you think? In this case, I bumped up to the Nvidia GeForce 7800 because it had such great reviews and appeared to be a major enhancement over the default video card. I added Bluetooth and wireless for $99. That was it. So, showing $3,299 as the base price for the Quad is completely accurate and consistent with the way they price PC’s. Fine if they want to show a range… a price with a monitor and one without. Picking the most expensive monitor seems a bit misleading to me, though. Nobody buys a 30-inch Cinema Display (that I know).

Example 2
Suppose by some wild circumstance our buyer decides to click through to the Quad detail page at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1904636,00.asp

Nowhere on this page does our shopper learn that the machine has a base price of $3,299. This isn’t a case of “mentioning” a price or not. It’s not shown at all! So far, he’s seen the $7,000-$9,522 three times… once in the comparison table, and on this page, twice, because it’s reiterated in the summary text at the bottom of the page. In fact, in the text, the author says “$9,522 direct”… what is that supposed to mean? To me, “direct” means if you buy directly from the manufacturer, but I don’t know what he means here.

The author also doesn’t say that this is a built-to-order machine and that he’s chosen the most expensive options in nearly all cases. (He could have ordered more than 4GB of RAM, two monitors, etc, but he apparently showed some restraint at the last minute.) Nor does he say that the price reflects those choices.

Before I leave this page, let me point out what the author chooses as a “Con” in the summary Pros/Cons writeup at the top. Keep in mind that a lot of busy, hurried consumers will never read past the top of this page, so this material has much more impact than anything he says later on in the review. As a journalist, I would think you’d understand this basic fact. Or do you want to argue with me about that, too?

Back to our “Con.” I pointed this out in the article, but apparently you missed it, or you didn’t agree it was important. The first con is “nVidia Quadro graphics are overkill. Very expensive.” Now, that may be true of the particular configuration he chose, but it’s not true of the PowerMac Quad in general. Don’t you think that to pick the most expensive options and then to call them “cons” is a bit disingenuous? For one thing, the Quadro isn’t even an Apple product. And to brand the computer as “very expensive” will definitely be misconstrued by our casual shopper as applying to the PowerMac Quad line as a whole. After all, the product reviewed is the “Apple Power Mac G5 Quad”, not “Apple Power Mac G5 Quad, Maxed Out” or some such. Saying the Quadro is overkill is an opinion, and the author is entitled to express it. But calling it a “con” when Apple didn’t choose it for him is hypocritical to the max.

Example 3
By some miracle of patience and perserverence, our shopper clicks on the tiny “read the full review here” link at the bottom of the page. Up comes another screen listing that same outrageous price, but if the shopper reads a couple of paragraphs into the article he’ll finally learn that the base machine is $3,299, not $7,000. (I swear the PC Magazine author’s statement about having added “top of the line” components to drive up the price was not there when I wrote my article, but at least it’s there now.)

Then, he sees a little shopping basket link that says “Buy it here: $7,023-$9,522″. When he clicks on that, he learns that can’t actually “buy it here” at all. The page he links to shows prices like “$3144 - $3299″. He clicks the first link and sees he can buy the machine from three different vendors, none of which he’s ever heard of before. And none of which offer the kind of components PC Magazine talked about in their review.

Don’t you think that if you review a product, you should link to some place where you can actually buy the product that’s reviewed? I believe that’s the way it works virtually everywhere. But in this case, the one place you can buy this product–the Apple store–isn’t on this list. Presumably, PC Magazine provides the “Buy it here” link as a service to consumers. But there’s a definite disconnect between (a) what they’ve reviewed and (b) the price they’ve listed for the product and (c) the list of places you can buy the product. I think that’s wrong, but it’s not the problem that spurred my article.

Enough examples
The issue here is that there is a widespread misconception among the 90% of the public that uses Windows PC’s that Macs are “too expensive.” As I demonstrated in a thorough comparison last year, that’s not true anymore. By playing light with the facts, picking the top-of-the-line components for the Quad, and showing that outrageous price everywhere on the site as the system’s price, PC Magazine is either intentionally or unintentionally feeding that stereotype.

PC Magazine is a major source of information about the Macintosh for people who know nothing about it. If it wants to cover the Mac, it needs to do so objectively and realistically. Fully loading a PowerMac Quad and presenting it as a standard configuration is intellectually dishonest and helps no one… least of all the consumers who presumably turn to the magazine for help in selecting computers.

The goal of reviewers straddles a fine line between providing a service to consumers and providing sales to the company making the product. Too often these days, the purpose of reviews seems to be the latter. I’m not arguing this case to help Apple… I’m arguing it to help PC users understand the Mac better and to make sure they’re getting accurate information. Judging by this standard, this PC Magazine review is a failure.

P.S. Thom, that’s all I plan to say about this here. If you want to continue arguing with me, please contact me offline at llscotts@fastmail.fm

I’m not an unhappy customer at all. Quite the opposite: for me, Apple makes the best computers and software out there. However, that doesn’t mean they’re god and picture perfect. They have their flaws, and I *will* point them out both in my ‘job’ as managing editor of OSNews, as well as on my blog.

You couldn’t care less whether Apple is misrepresented in the media, and you see no reason why anyone else should care, either.

I am part of that media, you know. I indeed couldn’t care less, because it is not my job to force other websites to stop posting stuff that might be infactual. I am only responsible for what gets posted on OSNews. The rest of the tech websites can do whatever they want.

As you state in a recent posting

I’m trying to figure out what that quote, ripped out of context I might add, has to do with this overblown ‘issue’.

That post was made in response to various complaints I’ve been seeing lately concerning Apple’s choice of using the unified menubar approach– it’s something I personally love. I also think it is superior to the way Windows or whatever does it. So, I stated that if Apple ever were to move away from it, I’d sell my Apple gear. Which makes sense, as then Apple would loose a major, distinctive, positive feature for me.

but then why don’t you stop trying to devalue the work of folks like me who believe otherwise?

Ah, so basically the premise of your blog here is: agree with me, or you’re stupid and are trying to devalue my work. I’m sorry, but that don’t make sense. I’m just expressing my opinion here, nowehere did I attack you in any kind of way. I disagree with you, and explained why, here. If you don’t want that, then please disable commenting!

It sounds like you should just go ahead and get a Windows PC and be done with it.

I’m just pointing out that I find this a non-issue, and ‘hence’ I must buy a Windows PC? Err…

You clearly aren’t of a mind to read my article objectively, and I’m pretty sure you’ll believe what you want to regardless of the facts.

There are NO factual errors in the review. You want the reviewer NOT to, or at least not so prominently, mention the price of the product he reviewed in favour of a price of a lower-spec’d model. That’s fine, it’s your opinion, I respect that. However, that will not stop me from voicing my opposite opinion.

I don’t see the point in commenting when contradictory opinions are not tolerated. If you want to have free and open discussion on this blog, then don’t try to play the nonsensical ‘fact-is-fact’ card. This whole issue revolves around personal taste of how to perform reviews. There is no factual standard of reviewing. Everybody does it differently– including me.

P.S. I think the slowness was caused by the “live preview” script I was using. I’ve removed it now, and it seems much snappier. Thanks for pointing that out.

Yeah, it’s greatly improved now!

I’m not going to waste any more time trying to convince you, because, judging from your blog you are clearly an unhappy Apple customer. You couldn’t care less whether Apple is misrepresented in the media, and you see no reason why anyone else should care, either. As you state in a recent posting,

the moment Apple abandons the (for me) superior single-menu-atop-the-screen-for-all-apps, is the moment I will sell everything related to Apple in favour of something else.

That’s all well and good, but then why don’t you stop trying to devalue the work of folks like me who believe otherwise? It sounds like you should just go ahead and get a Windows PC and be done with it. You clearly aren’t of a mind to read my article objectively, and I’m pretty sure you’ll believe what you want to regardless of the facts. Kind of like President Bush when he decided to invade Iraq, actually. It’s a strange world when facts are considered relative.

P.S. I think the slowness was caused by the “live preview” script I was using. I’ve removed it now, and it seems much snappier. Thanks for pointing that out.

Does that clarify it for you at all? PC Magazine is being dishonest and, I would say, deliberately unhelpful for readers who might be interested in Apple computers.

I’m sorry, my opinion remains unchanged. You sound an awful lot like Kelly McNeill, overreacting about something so insignificant just tbecause it might (might!) put Apple in a minute portion of bad light.

However, if someone is going to spend that much money on a computer, he won’t base his decision on a PC Mag review anyway. In other words, what’s the big deal??

PS: test this commenting engine with Camino– it’s unusably SLOW.

I think you’re being deliberately dense. If you look at virtually any other respectable product review model, you’ll see that the standard is to note the base price as the comparison price, and then to note the price of the system reviewed in the text. PC Magazine does the opposite: It notes the base price in the text (which isn’t picked up by all syndicates and isn’t read by all readers) and shows the as-tested price as the official product price to be used for comparison purposes. That’s the price that shows up in all the tables on PC Mag.com and in their product summary. And it’s flat-out wrong!

Here, for example, is how Car and Driver Magazine presents car prices:
2007 DODGE CALIBER
Vehicle type: front-engine, front- or 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon
Base price: $13,985
Engines: DOHC 16-valve 1.8-liter inline-4, 148 hp, 125 lb-ft; DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter inline-4, 158 hp, 141 lb-ft; DOHC 16-valve 2.4-liter inline-4, 172 hp, 165 lb-ft

In the last paragraph of the review, the write:
Don’t expect to see many $13,985 Calibers. Most of the samples we drove were close to, or above, $20,000.
If you check other product-review magazines, the approach is similar. One variation is to note the price range of the product rather than just the base price.

Does that clarify it for you at all? PC Magazine is being dishonest and, I would say, deliberately unhelpful for readers who might be interested in Apple computers.

Where’s the problem?

The issue has nothing to do with the price of Apple RAM. The issue is the perception this review gives of the overall price level of Apple computers. Not only did PC Mag add 4 GB of RAM (I doubt that Apple sent all reviewers a machine with these specs, by the way… As I said, Macworld reports the machine’s price correctly), they also include the 30-inch Cinema Display monitor and 1 Terabyte of disk space.

That much is ridiculous enough, but PC Mag also added the cost of the $1650 Nvidia Quadro graphics card. No real Mac users buy machines with these specs, and it’s irresponsible to review a machine with specs that aren’t realistic and then to list the machine in a comparison with similar Windows systems showing only that price.

It’s certainly true that you can get to that price by building to order… I go through a couple examples of how you can get there in the article. In fact, you can get to over $20,000 if you really go hog wild.

In fact, the magazine doesn’t ever explain how they came to order such an expensive test system. Do you know how reviewers get test systems from Apple? I assumed that they all got the same thing.

If PC Mag was free to select whatever components they wanted, this is even more seriously bad. By selecting those components, they were able to glow about the Mac, but they ensured that an obscenely high price would forever accompany that praise. Given that their readership consists primarily of PC users–many of whom Apple would no doubt like to see “switch”–it strikes me that PC Magazine’s action pretty much guarantees that none of the people who read that magazine (or the others that syndicate its content) actually will switch.

I never said the reviewer made a typo, nor did I say anything about copyediting. I was talking about serious errors in journalism (the kind of editing the editor-in-chief would do), and a complete lack of responsibility toward the product they were reviewing. IF, as you say, this has been standard practice, it’s even more reason for some of us to make a stink about it now.

Thanks for your feedback,
Leland

What they should have done was add a note somewhere in the piece that this was a build-to-order model (and they always get computers from the manufacturer so they can return them when testing is done), and not the base model. I’ve been reading this rag for years and they’ve always done it that way. But they shouldn’t use it to ‘compare prices’ with other computers as it’s an inflated price, and not what the average consumer would purchase (but then again, we Mac users have always been above average!).

It doesn’t surpirse me though. Journalism has gone downhill throughout the industry, but it’s suffered the most in the technology arena. Over half the articles I read online have numerous glaring errors in them. Most of the time, it’s simply rehashing information from some unreputable source. Many journalists just don’t do the kind of fact checking that a necessity for good journalisms.