Welcome to the 2010 AnandTech Beta
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 29, 2010 11:52 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
That old design lasted us a long time, didn't it? :) Welcome to the 2010 AnandTech Beta. We've done a lot of updating behind the scenes as well as (obviously) on the front end.
Most obvious is the brand new look and feel. For a site that reviews the latest and greatest tech, we can't get by looking like we're still living in 2004. Now when the 80s make a comeback we'll be on top of that, you've got my word.
We've ditched the left hand column, streamlined some of the ads and widened the content column. While each article will still give you a preview of 10 comments, we finally have an option to view all comments on each review page. Right now we've got this set to 50 comments per page but we'll be tweaking as need be. We're also cutting down on the number of page loads you'll encounter. In view all comments mode there's no page refreshing between comment pages. We'll be bringing this feature to more parts of the site in the future. User friendliness is our drug :)
The front page allows for both linking to our superlong articles as well as shorter stories that can just appear on the front page for quick scanning. By default the latest 5 articles will appear in the rotating carousel up top, but if something super interesting comes up we'll promote it up there (similar to what did on the old site). The expanded summaries on the front page will give you more insight into what it is we're talking about in the article before you ever click anything.
Tags are enabled but not in full effect just yet. We'll be beefing up search, comments (the return of ratings!), galleries, Bench, user profiles and site layout/color customization over the coming weeks. We're planning on this being a regularly updated thing so if you see anything that warrants our attention let us know.
It's not all about a pretty face though, we're still going to be publishing the content that you demand from us. If you haven't seen it, be sure to read Ryan's GeForce GTX 480 & GTX 470 Review. And I'm commemorating today with a new SSD article addressing one of the longest running questions you've been asking: how do SSDs perform in RAID?
As always, thank you for your support over the years and for reading the site. It's been a pleasure to be able to write for you all over the past 13 years. Thank you guys for giving me and all of us the opportunity to do just that. If you haven't been able to tell by now, I love writing this stuff - and you all make it possible.
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azcoyote - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Wasted space on graphics, have to scroll forever to find articles...xeopherith - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
I really hate the scrolling top bar... I'll probably stop checking the site daily because it is so much more graphic oriented.GreenLoco - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Way too much scrolling required for navigating. Pictures are too large and there is generally a lot of wasted white and blue space. Time to go back to the drawing board and tighten-up things I am afraid.Alkapwn - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Where is my old Anandtech.com? What did you do with it?! I'll have you know, we will not pay a ransom. We do not negotiate with terrorists.Seriously though, the beta looks good... just going to take some getting used to.
Soldier1969 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
much improved this is alot better! Nicely done!pmely - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
like the graphical layout - 2 things I missDaily Tech links: old site had date separators; made it easy to see where you last read the links
Reading an article: at the bottom of the first page there was a "Print this article" link that popped open a new window with the complete article in it in a printer friendly format. It also allowed you to read the whole article without having to click to see the next page.
jah1subs - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Personally, I find scrolling a mobile device to be undesirable and have little interest in trying to absorb information dense content on a mobile device. Therefore the positive comments about mobile devices mean nothing to me. I was happy with the old site.That said, there were two features on the old website that made it easy for me to get around that are missing. The first is that in stories that are more than one page, you had an index and I could skip to whichever page I wanted to go to. Personally, I do a lot of that. These days, when I read non-fiction, I read the introduction and the last chapter and, after that, decide whether or not I will read any more. I have done that a lot with AnandTech articles. Please bring it back.
The other feature that is missing (from my perspective) was that you always grouped the Dailytech stories by date. I do not always to get a whole day's stories on one day and I used that guideline by remembering that I was one day behind, or maybe two days behind. I cannot do that any more.
Thank you for listening.
blw37 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Overall the look is good, but I much prefer to read reviews in the printable version rather than page through every single page. I presume it would be reasonably easy to put a "Printable version" link in?geok1ng - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
awful! terrible! a good pack of excellent ideas wrapped up in the worst format ever .I usinga 30"and guess what? i can not read all the new articles, must painfully scrool down bit by bit to get a glimpse.
and way too many color borders.
it probably has some positive side, but it is lost in the sea of scrolling. keep it beta, maybe using the new color identity with the old format?
ashegam - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
To me it looks just like the maximum pc website with different colors. Naturally times change and new things come along and at one point or another everything goes through a refresh. I personally liked the old design and it grew on me, it was a "WTH" moment for me when I ran into the new design today.