Even a creature from outer space should know you can't buy a good review on HEXUS

[shaithis]

Wow, people complaining about hexus exposing this behavior

I guess there are a few emus around here who love to bury their heads in the sand.......or are they Alienware customers?

[d3fiant]

Wow, people complaining about hexus exposing this behavior

I guess there are a few emus around here who love to bury their heads in the sand.......or are they Alienware customers?

I think you will find that some of us have taken exception to the behaviour of both Alienware and Hexus for completely different reasons. That being said, this is a place for opinions, everyone being entitled to their own, so on that basis my opinion is lets move on and hope this sad affair does not affect Hexus going forward. I have always treated this place as my primary source for reviews and for the most part the open and welcoming nature that is shown in the forums

[kempez]

Wow, people complaining about hexus exposing this behavior

I guess there are a few emus around here who love to bury their heads in the sand.......or are they Alienware customers?

Not complaining about the exposure of it - just the way it has been handled.

[sgtpokey]

Yep first time poster (or at least in a LONG time),

Just got to say I agree with some posters that Hexus leapt off a cliff of inference and it's a bit disapointing.

1a. In the email trail NOWHERE does Alienware say "We only give hardware [free of charge] to folks who give us good reviews so if you can lie in the future we'll give you free stuff", they only say "you know what, we'd rather spend our marketing money elsewhere..."
1b. Nowhere in the article or email trail do you suggest, or even provide evidence, that PRIOR to a review did Alienware attempt a bribe in the form of: "write a good review and we'll give you free stuff".
1c. So what's left is an Entitity legally and rightfully declining to provide you free hardware, since in there opinion, it would be a waste of time, money, and resources and not be in their best interest. Nothing wrong with that. It only becomes wrong if they/he publicly went further and made it a conditional statement predicated on a falsehood: "We'll spend our money elsewhere but it you lie in the future we'll give you free stuff"
1d. This is not an issue of freedom of the press. This is a basic right that people and legal entities have the right to give or not give stuff away to anyone they choose. Hexus is free to write whatever they want, just don't expect Alienware to foot [some of] the bill.

sidepoints
2. The Hexus side of the communication trail is unprofessional (but that's neither here nor there)
3. Printed private Email trails like that are [imho] unsavory and may be a legal problem for Hexus. I hope not.
4. The email trail, as noted in point 1, is NOT a smoking gun of wrongdoing.

Thanks for writing your opinions. These, I'm afraid, are mine.

[kempez]

But also remember that a review (in this case Hexus) is VERY good FREE advertising, perhaps only incurring the cost of sending/fetching the product. That's worth a lot.

[s_kinton]

Very interesting article and thread.

If I have any criticism of the review, I'd say the harping on the non-inclusion of a sound card in the SKU was overdone.

You need to bear in mind this is a £3000 system and it comes with onboard sound! Its supposed to be a ultra high end system with everything a gamer requires. The inclusion of an x-fi card would have enable EAX 4.0 and various other advantages such as the crystaliser.

I think it was very fair to say that it should have definately been included in the setup for such a huge price tag!

[s_kinton]

What is hexus' relationship to the manufacturers and retailers who host their forums here?

Seems that a mesh system was recommended as being better than the Alienware, fair enough, but why Mesh rather than another?

Re-read the article. It states that they chose to aompare it to mesh and vadim, simply because core2duo was a new technology at the time of the review and the mesh and vadim systems were the only comparable systems reviewed by Hexus at the time worth using in the review

[Poison]

Everyone with any sense knows Alienware are overpriced anyway.

[shaithis]

1a. In the email trail NOWHERE does Alienware say "We only give hardware [free of charge] to folks who give us good reviews so if you can lie in the future we'll give you free stuff", they only say "you know what, we'd rather spend our marketing money elsewhere..."

No they don't.....but reading the trail leaves me in no doubt what-so-ever that they assumed Hexus realised thats the way it is and was shocked when they took the kit and didn't write a glowing review about it.....and then told them "no more kit for you!"

Seems (to me at least) that the intent is pretty damn clear.

Maybe Hexus shouldn't have reviewed the kit? Most people realised a LONG time ago that Alienware were massively overpriced anyway.

[jlibster]

I just wanted to give my Kudos to your "idealist" attitude which I share and adhere in my reviews (I write karaoke venue reveiws in the Toronto Canada area at my blog at torontokaraoke.blogspot.com if you are interested). I have had SEVERAL Karaoke MC Hosts/Owners do one or more of the following:

1. Flame me on my Meetup site for my bad review
2. Ask me NOT to write a review after being recognized in the midst of a bad night
3. "Invite" me for a private meeting
4. invite me to review their venue

I've never been bribed yet but a few people have come rather close so I assume its only a matter of time as apparently more people read my reveiws than I would have thought being a simple blog. As a consequence I've written statements to my policies regarding reviews. At best I'll delay an article if the night is really bad (someone once had their equipment stolen and started 1.5 hours lates as a consequence with inferior equipment so in this case a delay was justified) 2 weeks and then its open season and if its bad, the Karaoke MC can try to fix it and ask to be reevaluated. Otherwise my ratings stand.

I understand that its a lot of pressure to write an honest review and many people feel it is their right to pay for "upgrades" but then its not a review, its an ad. I have been aware of Alienware's ridiculous prices for the hardware they use even before seeing your reviews on them as I build PCs for clients myself when occassion calls for it. So, Alienware, guess what? I was already aware of the suspect reivews and know of your unusually high markups so you can't Blame Hexus for what many of us in the IT community already knew.

To Hexus writers, after seeing that article on Slashdot, I'll be checking your reveiws more often. You've got a new fan.

Sincerely,

Jonah A. Libster
Karaoke Reviewer & IT Consultant

[Marci]

It's certainly nothing new to me... at one point I used to write reviews and publish them around the net in various places for a LOT of hardware companies. I always insisted on honesty, and refused to give a bad product a good review. Eventually I found that companies simply refused flat out to send any further review samples unless I guaranteed a good review. Back then I used to maintain a list of such companies, but it's a good 6 years ago now, and I stopped reviewing hardware 4 years ago so that list is now long gone, and stopped because of the expectation that I'd give crap products glowing reports... I'm all in with Hexus here.

Some companies enjoyed a bad review, and even went on to rework their products to fix issues pointed out in reviews (otherwise, how would that company be made aware of those issues unless the product was submitted to a closed-testing audience)... Abit comes to mind immediately with the NF7-S motherboard that underwent countless revisions purely down to bad reviews and poor performanec reports from reviewers and their buying audience... and the final product, the NF7-S Rev 2.0 was truly a SUPERB motherbaord of it's time. Manufacturers need to be prepared to accept and deal with bad reviews, and rather than close doors to those who write those reviews simply look at the points raised and see what (if anything) can be done to redeem that product / correct the issues.

Whenever my company has submitted review samples to anyone, the content of that review has been entirely down to those to whom it's been sent. We don't honestly care whether the review given our products is good or bad, as long as it's honest and accurate and all points made are correct at time of print. We're frequently slated for our radiators being over-priced. We won't bash someone's review for it, we merely point out that we have no control over the exchange rate when it comes to a product manufactured in the UK being shipped overseas. We don't stop sending them samples, as long as they're willing to put WHY our products are overpriced within the review.

Our company has always stood by integrity and moral values... and these are the things we hold dear. Without them the world becomes (and is) a very corrupt place, where large companies seek to lead their customers astray with false advertising and marketing rather than honesty.

Everyone at Thermochill would like to offer Hexus our full support in this issue. Stick by your guns. In a world where morals seem to be more and more frequently flung out the window, it's good to see someone standby them and continue to run their business in a way that they should be proud of.

Cheers!
Marci - Technical Manager
ThermoChill Heat Exchangers

[chrisg22]

Very dissapointed in Alienware, I thought a company would have taken any feedback onboard and worked towards a better product.

[dave87]

I personally like the way Hexus give the companies a chance to respond to any reviews, and think that puts them shoulders above the rest of their competition.

Some companies enjoyed a bad review, and even went on to rework their products to fix issues pointed out in reviews (otherwise, how would that company be made aware of those issues unless the product was submitted to a closed-testing audience)... Abit comes to mind immediately with the NF7-S motherboard that underwent countless revisions purely down to bad reviews and poor performanec reports from reviewers and their buying audience... and the final product, the NF7-S Rev 2.0 was truly a SUPERB motherbaord of it's time. Manufacturers need to be prepared to accept and deal with bad reviews, and rather than close doors to those who write those reviews simply look at the points raised and see what (if anything) can be done to redeem that product / correct the issues.

Whenever my company has submitted review samples to anyone, the content of that review has been entirely down to those to whom it's been sent. We don't honestly care whether the review given our products is good or bad, as long as it's honest and accurate and all points made are correct at time of print. We're frequently slated for our radiators being over-priced. We won't bash someone's review for it, we merely point out that we have no control over the exchange rate when it comes to a product manufactured in the UK being shipped overseas. We don't stop sending them samples, as long as they're willing to put WHY our products are overpriced within the review.

Our company has always stood by integrity and moral values... and these are the things we hold dear. Without them the world becomes (and is) a very corrupt place, where large companies seek to lead their customers astray with false advertising and marketing rather than honesty.

Everyone at Thermochill would like to offer Hexus our full support in this issue. Stick by your guns. In a world where morals seem to be more and more frequently flung out the window, it's good to see someone standby them and continue to run their business in a way that they should be proud of.

Cheers!
Marci - Technical Manager
ThermoChill Heat Exchangers

Good to see support for Hexus amongst other manufacturers.

[OT]And you were right, the NF7S v2 was an excellent board - I'm still using one in my desktop at home. The only thing to fail since I've got it has been the chipset fan, which was easily replaced [/OT]

[chuckskull]

Nice to see someone from the other side of the fence agreeing with hexus.

[Wiczy]

Wiczy, no I'm not from outer space. I'm from Down Under. (And for what it's worth, we really don't want Mr Bettinson back. You can keep him).

I can appreciate the point you are making, i just like a good bit of gossip i'm afraid

[marcob]

The inclusion of an x-fi card would have enable EAX 4.0 and various other advantages such as the crystaliser.

crystalizer?
That puke inducing marchitecture term you mean? The one that in reality makes stuff sound like crap? What about having a look here(wxw.digit-life.com/articles2/multimedia/creative-x-fi-part2.html)?
The one thing I prey for each and every single day is the enlightenment of the human race. Or at least a drastical speed up in the darwinian selection, this one would do as well.

As about hexus...it was ok, I appreciate what you guys did. But when it comes to trashing bad products... there are sites doing a better job. For instance have a look at the crystascheit article above. I guess what we need, is more of the proof why some things are bad, so the idiots stop bragging about terms that mean nothing more than b$.

Oh crap...