Hardware Extreme is a FRAUD!

[TungstenBoy]

When I 1st saw HWExtreme, I was bloody impressed. The Star painted them like Malaysia's top hardware experts. And when I stopped by to have a look, what can I say? Superb site... or that was at first sight!

Then I dropped by Alexa just to see how they fare against the big boys (like Anandtech). And there I saw :-

"Come on... What kind of articles are u writing man... They look more like cut + paste jobs of press releases than actual articles... N dun think we dun know what's going on. Look at your EVAP preview, man! It's copied exactly from the EPoX press release! For gawd's sake... at least change it a little! U r a disgrace to da community. Hope people will expose you for the fake YOU ARE when they read your stuff. At least I am! I WILL NOT BE BACK!"

I thought he was a little too much. I meant... it looked like they all wrote what they wrote. Unfortunately, I found that he was quite right. So, I posted :-

"Hi to the Tong brothers... Read about you guys a couple of times in the newspaper... Thought I would drop by and have a look. Nice site... but after reading Dominatrix' opinions, I have to admit he could be right. I took the effort to go through all your reviews... Many of the pictures appeared to be taken from somewhere else... Nothing to suggest that you actually had the product to test... Also, I went and downloaded that EPoX press release... looks remarkably identical... I sympathize with you guys for having to go through a lot these days. But I'm quite surprised to see that Dominatrix could be right. Are our Extreme Twins cheating? I hope you guys can prove Dominatrix wrong by fighting back with some evidence. I'll be eagerly watching this page for updates."

However, the more "articles" and "reviews" they roll out, the more disappointed I am. I checked the press releases issued by the various companies and I found out that they did nothing more than cut and paste them!

So, I wrote to them :-

"Ever since my last post (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/re...=hwextreme.com), I have been keeping watch over your "reviews". I'm VERY SAD to say that what the other "more aware" readers have noticed are SO TRUE!

You guys are FRAUDS! All your reviews and showcases are nothing more than cut and paste jobs of various press releases! I personally checked the press releases myself so I'm not just trying to put you down.

I don't think you can prove me wrong since the press releases are
available for everyone to see. These are facts that you cannot run from! You are just cutting and pasting them and calling them a review or a showcase. But it's really nothing more than an attempt to mislead people into buying those products.

I'm VERY DISAPPOINTED in you. I wonder why The Star even wrote anything about you two. Shame on them and shame on you!

I hope to see you post an article about your shameful behaviour and an
apology for thinking that your readers are fools. I WAS a fool to begin
with... but thanks to the others, I see the light now... and the scum that
you are.

You are not fooling me again!

PS. I will be e-mailing this to you as well and I hope to see a response here - http://www.alexa.com/data/details/re...=hwextreme.com. If you don't... we all know what that means! Serves you right for trying to cheat people."

First, I must apologize for my phlegm. But I was just SO DISGUSTED with their Opteron and Tablet PC "showcases". I have never seen anything so "plagiarised" and "profit-oriented" as their "showcases" or reviews... or whatever they want to call them.

Anyway, here's what Kelvin Tong posted to me :-

"Hello Boy Tungsten,

The Epox Tablet PC preview was indeed a Press Release written by my editor for Epox. My reviewers, Edward Chang and Johann Ramirez are working with Epox USA and they submitted the "Press Release" of the Tablet PC for us to be posted in Hardware Extreme. We are helping Epox to promote the Tablet PC back then.

Showcases, as the name suggest, are just showcases of some of the cool
products. They are not reviews.

If you have any more assumptions, doubts or questions, please feel free to ask.

BTW, we are not cheating anyone, and sorry to tell you but I won't "post an article about your shameful behaviour and an apology for thinking that your readers are fools". We never consider our readers as fools. If you think you are a fool, then you are.

"If you don't... we all know what that means! Serves you right for trying to
cheat people." So you are trying to threaten us?"

First of all, Kelvin or Melvin, I'm NOT threatening you. I'm just letting you know I'm now fully aware of your game. Like many of your readers, I didn't believe what the others were telling me about you and your history. Or was it Melvin. Anyway, the fact is that you have lied to all of us all these while.

You said that was just a press release. But why did you post it like it was your own preview? All the other sites are very honest. They post company press releases as press releases. You, on the other hand, post press releases as your own reviews/previews/showcases!

Just how ethical is that? You all decide!

[Trinity]

If you had been over in Iraq (helping Saddamn),,,, Iraq would have won the war!!! ROFL

[drab]

Coo,tungsten,you sure have the right name

[goldfries]

i'm sure many of us noted that before. but we just mine our own business.

The Star should promote the BOG instead.

btw calling them a FRAUD is a bit harsh and hard.

[Dashken]

Wow... imagine if the Star promotes BOG, the the ARP guys will be very famous. Free advertisement. Btw, how did the Melvin brothers get themselves into the Star?

Hey... this is cool... But Chai... where are the other emoticons?

[marauderz]

So I mailed Charles just now, he IS the one that wrote the article about them if I remember well enough right? Here's what I sent him

Hey Charles, Wei Min here remember me?

Anyway I want to talk to you about Hardware Extreme, well I've just been to the site... And it does not deserve the heaps of praises that they are given. A lot of their "Reviews" are just copied and pasted off the company's brochures and aren't worthy of being called reviews, after all shouldn't you really go through a product to call it a review.

Case in point, their Tablet PC RoundUp : http://www.hwextreme.com/reviews/misc/showcase11/

Wow.. Look they have a round up of all available tablet pcs! Well first of all...
You can't get these tablets locally
- Electrovaya Scribbler
- Gateway Tablet PC <- Though this is just a rebranded of one of the other Tablets
- Panasonic Toughbook
- NEC Versa LitePad

The Toshiba... The Protégé is VERY VERY hard to find here... In fact even retailers don't even know about it.

And from their pictures on the site, it shows that they never handled most of the Tablets themselves, except for the Compaq... Seems like they were toying with it in the IT shop in Sunway Pyramid.

And blantly evidence that they copied and pasted the text from company brochures, check out the Fujitsu Stylistic Section:
http://www.hwextreme.com/reviews/mis...11/page5.shtml

Third Paragraph :-
We have learned a great deal about the technology and even more about the usage patterns of pen Tablet PC users. We apply this knowledge and expertise to all our products and customer solutions. Fujitsu Siemens Computers, a pioneer in the tablet market, designed and manufactures its newly announced STYLISTIC ST4000 Tablet PC series.

Wouldn't the text above imply that the guy at Hardware Extreme developed the Fujitsu Tablet? If you spent some more time going through the site you can see more evidence of their "work".

There are many other REAL hardware sites that are from Malaysia, where they really poke and prod at the stuff which they are reviewing and would never do something like manipulating a brochure and labelling it a review.

Sites like
http://www.rojakpot.com - Well I'm more or less affiliated with them, but I'm not trying to generate publicity for them. They've got more than enough
http://www.mypdacafe.com - A site which I'm sure you're familiar with by now.

Hmm.. That's all that I know off.. I haven't been that active checking out hardware sites lately... Why don't you mail them and ask them yourself.

Take Care,
Chan Wei Min

OK... I was a bit unfair since I don't know any other Malaysian hardware sites.... but still do you guys think this will get the message through?

[goldfries]

there's another site called myWORLD. it's found at http://www.myworld.com.my

at least they did their own reviews.

[se7en]

poor little rich kids with too much $$$ to burn. They must have been still in high school when they got their first site up.

As for the star in tech article, just sufficient to say that for a paper that "reviewed" the "asian prince" website, i guess its no real big deal for them to review hwextreme as well. Let them be is all i can say. Fraud or no fraud, i never liked the site from the moment they came out with a statement that said "this site is more for the US/UK visitors" - in their reply to being asked why do they have an affiliation with pricegrabber since pricegrabber prices don't apply in M'sia. Bah~!

[goldfries]

hrmrmr........just a thought, does the name EXTREME there originate from Sharky?


hehe. their office.

doesn't look like an office to me, but definitely a good description for rich kids. their PC area is better than all of us combined. LOL

note the air-con, imac and LCD screen with the ikea rug and customized furnitures.

[lung]

I hate rich kids... They think they're good but the FACT IS... They're just good cause they can AFFORD ANYTHING!

Hell, if I can afford anything I'll be good too! (Imagine getting to try out all those cool overclocking tips without the worry of needing the cash to buy 'em stuffs)

Okay maybe I'm a bit biased but I've always envied the rich kids