Maximum PC

Do0d! Don’t get mad. You’re missing the big picture. Maximum PC is on the leading edge of the future of personal computing… hence the name, “MaximumPC."

Other computer magazines only ‘follow’ trends, whereas MaximumPC shows us where the trend is headed… leading the curve rather than following it!

So, unless your VCR is still blinking [12:00], you should be glad to have a magazine that can give you a glimpse into the future!


LOL
I just realized, I said 'Future', twice!

lets see, there is a good chance i have been using computers longer than you have been alive. my first was a trash 80, land line has been gone about 16 years, with a turn on one time for DSL.

last time on a typwriter was about 24 years ago, but that was at work, had a computer at home.

still have a couple of VCRs and about 200 tapes with a great deal of boxing on them, oh and one movie, mick jagger, performance.

there have also been "gadget" magazines featuring phones and such, i dont think any of them lasted a year.

The only was that this would be a problem is if the editors reduced the amount of the regular articles about PCs.

Why would you complain about MORE content.

Now you've got the right idea. If you hate this mag so much, you can leave. I'm fairly sure that MaximumPC assessed whether this increased gadget coverage would draw more people than it chased away before introducing it. However, since you're the marketing expert here, you clearly should cancel your subscription quick before Future US folds.

I, for one like that they are covering more than just PCs. They still do plenty of coverage on PCs, but they toss in other devices, such as smartphones. Like it or not, the smartphone is more and more becoming one of the average user's primary Personal Computing device. I think people have lost perspective on what a PC is. PC. Personal Computer. A mac is a PC. A laptop is a PC. A smartphone is a PC. A server... is not a PC. Get it?

If you want nothing but big clunky desktop PCs (nothing against them, I mean I love my desktop, but its certainly not my only PC) and nothing else, you came to the wrong place bro.

I hope you guys realize that the Maximum PC homepage and the magazine are two totally different things. I can't speak for Future US or Maximum PC, but from what it looks like there will be less content on GPS's, cellphones, PDA's, etc in the magazine, but there will be content related to both on the website. I don't understand why Future US doesn't just register another domain and put the other content on there and link to it, but they must have a reason.

Well, yeah. I thought that was the whole MaximumTech thing, right?

You realise that not a single editor actually responded to your post, right?

Further, you realise that what you like does not determine what will make a magazine successful? Because I'm sure that they have professional market research people analyzing trends and determining what most people want to read.

Smartphones are hot right now and they'll only get hotter. PCs are becoming hubs of technology rather than simple entities unto themselves. Cellphones are simply another extension of your PC .. like a router, printer or monitor. Hell, my phone is my wifi hotspot when I'm away from my home office and there are no free wifi connections available. I open my netbook or my laptop and if they can't find an open connection, they open a bluetooth connection with my phone and I'm surfing at up to 14Mbps on my HSPDA connection.

This is Maximum PC .. not outdated poor man's PC. Catch up or get left behind.

It is interesting to note the number of times an article in MPC gets referenced when discussing hardware/software in the forums here and how many off site references are used. It seems to me that as late as a couple of years ago MPC had articles and reviews and tutorials on most of the subjects discussed in our forums that could be referenced when making buying recommendations, for instance.

Another good example would be when someone asks about the pros and cons of various SSD's their controllers best set up practices, maintenance etc. There is damned little authoritative information on this site. In fact we just had a discussion on this and the only decent references to point to were other "tech sites". The same goes for hard drives and virtually every other component in a computer.

The one good article was the round up on SLI/XFire configurations. Though to me it was a bit superficial/abbreviated. We routinely have people asking basic why's and where fores of power supplies. When was the last time MPC actually got right into the guts of power supplies and explained what to look for in a good one. When was the last time MPC did a relevant PSU review and actually addressed test results for noise, ripple, max load performance, over/under voltage protection etc?

I like MPC, they have some very good knowledgeable people but they are spread way to thin. It's getting to the point that what reviews are done are minimal. When's the last time MPC reviewed a video card, CPU, or motherboard even close to the depth of some of our more "respected" sites. In sufficient manpower is not an excuse. The title of the magazine sets the standard.

Has MPC ever addressed the pros and cons of the 1156/1366 platforms and discussed their strengths and weaknesses such as PCIe buss limitations? Has an article been written pointing out how AMD addresses the same buss issue's? Hell a lot of this stuff doesn't even have to be "hands-on test material". Just hit the important points of the standards and how they are commonly implemented amongst the various mfr's.

We harp on noobes about not reading up on the basics, but when we try to educate it's been a long time since we could say read this article in MPC. Instead we have to send them to the likes of Hardware Secrets or Anand Tech. I'd say there is a hell of lot of subjects that could be covered in a meaningfull way. All of them have little to do with running shoes, coffee makers or photos of someones desk.

Okay, I admit it I'm being a rabble-rouser. I'm off my soapbox now.

For the psu reviews, I don't think that mpc has thr power supply testing equipment to properly test psu's, so they won't write reviews on them.





Ted

Yes, when they first came out.



Power supply articles don't sell magazines.

Magazines are about news .. not an information library. Power supply technology hasn't changed, so why would they produce an article explaining something that has been around for well over a decade?



Depth requires space. Also, when MPC does review a new GPU family, they do it with the kind of depth and accuracy that only Anandtech or Ars Technica can match.



MPC has white papers that describe all of these things and far more 'in-depth' than any magazine since Boot.

Are they perfect? No. They have to sell their magazine to a broad spectrum of readers or they'll go under. As a result, they have to provide a broad coverage. All PC enthusiasts will, eventually, evolve past it .. this is part of the problem with enthusiast tech magazines .. at some point, your audience will outgrow their need for you.

Sometimes, we come back. If you've been away from the 'scene' for a while, you may need MPC to give you a refresher course on what is new and great in the industry. But they can't be everything to everyone.

Just a quick note to the people complaining about phone coverage:

You'll note we don't cover dumbphones, only smartphones. Phones with processors, RAM, operating systems, and installable apps. They aren't as powerful as desktops or even notebooks, but to ignore them would be foolish.

MaximumPC used to be called boot. Boot was created when our publisher decided that a magazine called CD-ROM Today was too self-limiting. I think that was a good move. Why limit yourself unnecessarily? We have to keep up with the times.

That's one reason for Maximum Tech. To ignore smartphones and gadgets and other electronic devices would be incredibly myopic. By the same token, to leave our power-computing base would be foolish. PCs are our bread and butter, and there's still nothing that can match the power, customizability, and variety of a desktop computer. That's why MaximumPC still exists. But to capture all the other aspects of personal computing, we need more space. Hence, Maximum Tech. That gives us the freedom to cover the smartphones and tablets and espresso machines while reserving MaximumPC for more, well, PC stuff.

I shudder to think that Maximum PC would post a 19+ page review of a single product like some other sites do (btw, "19" wasn't a random number -- I just recently flipped through a 19-page write-up of Asus' Matrix 5870).

Make no mistake, though the write-ups in the mag are comparatively short (and those get ported to the website), there's a ton of testing that goes on to arrive at those succinct reviews. The longer write-ups are typically reserved for new chipsets and architectures, like Loyd Case's DirectX 11 feature.

This place reminds me a lot of Computer Gaming World, right before they went belly up.

If the magazine or publisher gets advertising revenue for running articles about cell phones, I can see why they want to do it. Their traditional advertising must be drying up.

If these writers are getting paid for posting press releases from cell phone companies and carriers, I can see why they want to keep doing it.

The content changes and belligerent attitude toward readership reminds me of magazines that crashed and burned. You guys are probably under a lot of stress.

I'm not going to respond to each of your points, because I already did, back when I posted about how we have to change with the times, and smartphones are well within our mission statement. In fact, they're more powerful than the computers we were reporting on in "the good old days."

To address a point in your first post: You subscribe to the magazine, which is full of PC news and reviews and other coverage. The website, which you get for free, also has those things, but in addition has a substantial amount of smartphone coverage. If you can't ignore that, maybe MaximumPC.com isn't for you.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking, "I'm not interested in X, therefore nobody is, and it's stupid, and nobody's allowed to write stories about it."