The LCD Buyers Guide

[Salahuddin]

I'm totally aware that Tom's Hardware is not considered a very objective site by some... but almost all of those comments are directed towards the Intel vs AMD debate and perhaps some motherboard hardware. Regardless, for LCDs Tom's Hardware provides very objective data and testing that hardly any other review sites provide (the graph of panel response for instance).

The truth is that the guide was compiled by Turok, leviathan18, IYP, and myself... and so our biases will be inherent to it. A site that is dedicated to reviewing hardware and reviews many components is always going to be more valuable than someone going on a forum and writing a review about the monitor they bought. An anecdotal response has absolutely no standard and is the lowest form of scientific evidence available. After all the research I've done on these LCDs to try and narrow it done to the facts, I don't feel comfortable having just anybody's comment tacked onto my work. I mean, what is to stop someone like me or you writing a review on how the crappiest 25ms PVA panel is the best gaming monitor in the world and posting it up on the guide?

Sure review sites can be very biased. But, they have at least some standard to the public they have to adhere to or else no one will invest back into them. Therefore I'm not against having biased review sites up there. There are several sites I included that I don't necessarily agree with everything they have to say, but because I know they used some standard (however biased) I included them.

I'm a physician and I see numerous patients come asking me about this and that "herbal" medication and they bring me evidence like "it worked for so and so." The fact is, that form of evidence is useless to me because it has no scientific value. At the same time there is TONS of bias in medical research due to the influence of drug companies on research. But, I know that regardless of this bias, all research has to adhere to certain principles that I myself have to analyze so that I can choose what is best for my patient. I can read a research paper and think its full of crap, and at the same time, I can read another one and think it has a lot of good information. I base these decisions on how closely the authors follow the scientific method and what objective data they provide. Sure I might not be correct all the time, but its the best manner of approaching that which is truly unbiased (which is impossible). Including anecdotal "evidence" in this approach causes more, not less, bias. In fact, it actually clouds the the "true" evidence because people are unsure on how much weight to give each form of evidence. If doctors payed equal weight to all the anecdotal evidence that goes around to all the other research that is done, even if its biased, we may very well be prescribing Ginko Biloba to lower your cholesterol instead of medications that are known to work!

I mean, if Tom's Hardware reviews the VP191B, puts in a colour accuracy chart, a response time graph, a thorough explanation of their testing methods, and compares it to other LCDs... how can that be weighed equally to someone that says, "I just bought the Dell 2005FPW and its the best monitor, absolutely no ghosting or anything, I play WOW on it everyday... its AWESOME!" There is absolutely no comparison between these reviews even though they both may be equally biased. Another person may come along and say, "there is so much ghosting on the 2005FPW I don't know how anyone plays games on it" and the reader ends up being totally confused on the subject.

Now you can ask "who is qualified to weigh what evidence is allowed and what isn't?" The short answer is those who have developed the guide in the first place. After all, our own biases were already used in developing the guide and if we don't feel comfortable included certain reviews in it, I think that is quite a fair thing to do.

And don't get me wrong. I didn't ask that your sites be removed from YOUR own post Necromonger... I meant for them to be removed from the main guide (Turok had included all of them). If you or anyone else for that matter want to post your opinions or reviews in your own posts, that is totally fine and encouraged. I only meant for them not to be all included in the guide. And, if through these posts new and/or confirmed evidence is presented, I know that Turok and the rest of us are interested in adding to and improving the guide.