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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Wayne86 - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
The AnandTech title bar, the links right below, the featured stories slide, and post pictures are huge!My recommendations/preferences are:
1 .Reduce the height of the blank space for title and links right below,
2. Reduce the featured stories pictures by 30-40% (Height and width), remove the slider (lags Firefox atm), and fit 4, 5, 6 stories there
3. Reduce the height of the story pictures by half (wide angle shots, you can still get a lot of detail)
4. Change "Latest from AnandTech" to "Latest from DailyTech", remove DAILYTECH from same section.
5. W3C Strict instead of transition (yeah I know, not likely)
Thanks for reading my comments Anandtech, I love the new design and color scheme.
Yaron - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
Congratulations. The old website was really getting... well, old! :)I was wondering if there will be a version for mobile phones?
Pozz - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
glad to have the print button back, but is it me or when you actually try to print an article it only prints the first page?Belard - Thursday, April 8, 2010 - link
For the most part... my browser isn't getting cookies or whatever so it knows the password to this site... so every few posts or a restart (after rebooting/starting PC) of Opera 10.5, I have to constantly log-in.The Site looks better. The logo on top is kinda odd.
I guess the huge menu is more for iPhones & other smart phones... but it seems difficult to find new articles... what is not seen on the first screen is lost... so if you add 2-3 articles on a single day, we might not know about it.
Like the new logo.
mkorn92 - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - link
It seems to me like the things in the main column on your home page should be just that, "main". The Just-In is nice but you might want to consider putting it in its own section somewhere else on the home page. I constantly see the stuff that is just in, which is nice to know what you're working on, but it adds to the amount of time it takes to find the full articles. The Just-In titles tend to take up too much space for just a short notification of what is sitting in your labs and in the end just clutter your space. I like the idea behind it but not the way it was executed.I am also against the large scrolling thumbnails at the top. They take a long time to scroll even if you specifically click on the arrows to move through them. Also if you just skip that and scroll down you get the benefit of seeing basically a short summary so you know what the article is focused on. I know you really liked the idea of it but that doesn't always mean it is the best thing to do.
trexpesto - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Nice look - Where's the beef?bruceb - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
The main site we are on now, needs a good, functionalsearch. Say to find comments by user or ttile.
Otherwise not too bad so far.