In 2010 we went through the single largest redesign in AnandTech history. We modernized the site, finally moved to a tag based architecture and made a number of other tweaks. The web moves a lot quicker than it did even just 3 years ago, so last year we started working on another significant redesign. Today marks the debut of that design.

Going into the redesign we wanted to accomplish three major goals. First, we wanted to have a design that put our smartphone and tablet coverage on equal footing with our traditional PC roots. The redesign consolidates our coverage areas into four major categories: PC Components, Smartphones & Tablets, Desktops & Notebooks and finally Enterprise. The super categories are largely self explanatory and you can drill down into each one of them for more specific navigation.

It's important that our site design reflects our internal focuses. We are as committed as ever to our PC component coverage, but we also devote an equal amount of time to what we're doing in the new mobile space. From my perspective, whether it's a smartphone or a server, we're still talking about some form of computer - just in a different case.

Our second major goal with the redesign was to more prominently feature Pipeline, our short form content section. We launched Pipeline in late 2011 as a way of dealing with content that either didn't demand our full review treatment or that we didn't have time to dedicate deep analysis to. Since then Pipeline has become a very important part of the site, and we wanted to elevate its position on the front page as a result. Pipeline stories on the right are ordered from newest to oldest, with even older pipeline stories appearing under the 2x2 grid of featured articles.

Finally, we wanted a design that would be more accessible and speak to the broader nature of our audience. While you all know why you come to AnandTech, it's very important to our continued success and ability to remain independent that the site accurately reflects the diverse audience. Whether you're coming to us for motherboard reviews, analysis of the latest microprocessor architectures or to figure out which smartphone or tablet to buy, you're likely a person relied on by dozens of others for recommendations.  We remain an independent website, which comes with its own challenges when it comes to proving our worth to the agencies and marketing organizations that help keep us operational. Looking the part is just as important as having the content to back it up.

We made sure not to take away any features with the redesign. We still include our well used Print View on all articles, but now allow you to use it both for single page reading as well as for actual printing. The previous Print View didn't have all of the styling of our article pages since it was purely optimized for printing, now we have both modes.

Other features have been enhanced as well. The View All Comments button now actually lets you view all comments on a single page, rather than just showing you 50 comments per page. You can also now permalink to individual comments. I'm always humbled by just how awesome your comments are, now we can finally link directly to individual ones. 

We now support larger images inline (we will be adding site-wide retina/hi-DPI support soon!) and our graph style has been updated as well, which you'll start seeing us take advantage of with all new content going forward. The review body text is also larger and hopefully easier to read, which should help when we post some of our ultra long form content. 

The Podcast now has a permanent link at the top of the page as well - thanks to all you who have been asking for that.

The Twitter feed on the front page now includes tweets from a number of staff members including Brian, Ganesh, Jarred and myself. We've also made it easier to follow us on Twitter and Facebook with direct links in our header (hint: it helps us tremendously if you do). Our most recommended content on Facebook is also nicely streamed in to the right of the site as well.

There are more functional changes that we'll be introducing throughout the new year. We just had to get the redesign out of the way first so we could start building on it.

I hope you all enjoy the site redesign. I know big changes aren't always easy to get used to, and as always you have my commitment to fix/improve anything that truly needs it. I'd love to hear your feedback on the design in the comments below.

I'd like to close with a thanks to all of you for continuing to read and support the site. I've always said that AnandTech is your site and I do firmly believe that. We are here to serve you and you are what make this site possible. Thank you for reading, and thanks for making the past 16 years possible. If you are a relative newcomer, please be sure to check out our About page that helps explain the philosophies that drive us.

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  • dado023 - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    how to switch back to previous design?
    I find this new design really not needed, just confusing me, ergo i will read and visit anandtech.com not so much as i did before......sorry, but thumbs down from me. :\
  • cmdrmonkey - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    It's 2013 and still no mobile version for smartphones? For shame Anandtech.
  • ahmaden - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    get my annadtech back :(
  • brianb_01 - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    I visit this site several times a day and have for a few years now. Just want to put my two cents in that I don't care for the redesign.
  • level1james - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    The only thing that really stands out to me is the sidebars on the right.
    the gray on gray on black, white on dark gray on light gray, and the white on light gray on light gray just has weird contrast.

    Also the logo. the brushed metal background looks a bit half-baked.

    looks good otherwise
  • antoinedurr - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    The biggest issue for me is I no longer know what to look at. The ads flash and slurp all over. The masthead is mostly an ad rather than a bold and aesthetic statement of where I am. There are no less than two pipeline sections, one of which cuts the content in half. Nevermind if this layout is too wide, too narrow, doesn't work on this or that gadget. There's no focus, that's the main problem. All the layout stuff is secondary.
  • ludikraut - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    You need to use something like ABP to ditch all of the adz. It's even better with the element filter added to ABP. Between the two of them I no longer have to look at annoying FB integration or the even more annoying twitter side-bar. Just a nice, clean masthead, the pipeline sidebar and dailynews sidebar and the article. Of course, it still doesn't fix the main issue with the new redesign, which is the schizoid layout on the main page.
  • Octoberblue - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    Wow, looking at the oldest screen shot really brought back memories. Things were more exciting to me back then. When new diy hardware changes made a huge difference in your day-to-day user experience, not just in games, but ordinary desktop apps. I guess when hardware was slower it was more exciting to be in on all the speed improvements. That's the irony: nice that everything is so fast now, but somehow not as much fun.
  • Saruji - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    Yeah so NOT A FAN. Loud and intrusive, whats is all of a this billion gigabyte of data coming at me at the speed of chrome...and which of them are ads? Let me break this down really quick, here is your most popular section, its called, "Smartphones & Tablets" with a strong focus on the sections titled "Apple" and "Android"....suprise! Next popular on the list will be "PC component" with a focus on cpu, this section and subsection will likely mostly consist of apple haters being hip to the idea of diy pc! (Pssst, it will have a strong android section readers correlation). I have been reading articles on the site for almost 16 years, there used to be a "linux" section that would get updated almost annually! I was really hoping to see some converging(and improvement) or cross tests of sections, which is what your supposed "smarter reader" audience is looking for. I imagined things like Phoronix/Slashdot with added Anandtech original content all fused together for an immensely enjoyable read. If you wanted to improve the site, fix the search function, maybe come up with some original ideas for interesting articles and investigative reviews of projects? I dont know, but this redesign looks like, and no offense i'm being frank, engadget took a dumb, which tells me you want their readers. As I see it you have niche readers, that seem to care about things like screens on a tablet or phone, and the technicalities that you go into. The audience that you seem to be marketing is not your audience, its someone elses audience and they do a far better job at entertaining them with shiny. SO MUCH NOISE!
  • YukaKun - Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - link

    The white abuse hurt my eyes while reading a long article. I liked the color theme from the previous design best.

    It's a good design overall, but there's something that keeps me from liking it.

    Cheers!

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