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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Vimono - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Exactly. Unfortunately, from my understanding, the standard screen you still need to accommodate for these days is 1024x768. I blame the corporate market! *shakes fists*tnygwek - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I too liked the old design.As you said, it was easier to see the most recent articles head lines all at once.
And the small text below the pictures at the top was nice. May be the text of a picture could appear/unfold below its title when moving the cursor on that picture.
Otherwise, as far as I have seen, the new look is nice.
JimmiG - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
A "most recent articles" section would have been nice. Lots of scrolling to gather all the most recent reviews.Vimono - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
"A "most recent articles" section would have been nice. Lots of scrolling to gather all the most recent reviews. "Doesn't the carousel hold the latest/most recent articles? You shouldn't need to do any scrolling at all :)
nevbie - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
agreed1. I don't want to scroll my screen in order to see article topics, the more I can see instantly after opening the front page, the better.. up to some limit, but the old one was not too full. I do not want to do many actions.
2. Rotation in flash is BAD, because it takes time and requires actions (overly complicated). You get bigger buttons for the articles, but that has little value. It is better to have less area for recent articles, and get more articles in the same space.
Mr Perfect - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
Yes, what is it exactly that the carousel does? Does it simply show the 5 newest articles posted on the front page? Or will it also hold unique content that hasn't been pushed down to the main list, kind of how the old layout did? Because at this point I'm just skipping over the damn thing and reading the front page listings underneath it. It's faster then watching the carousel slide by or manually clicking though it. Which, naturally, makes it kind of pointless.Mr Perfect - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Ok, after watching it over the course of the week, the carousel seems to do nothing more then slowly cycle through the five newest articles on the front page. Isn't that somewhat redundant? Those same articles are directly below it.I don't want to sound like I'm harping on the new design though, because the rest of the site is very clean looking.
FlameDeer - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Congratulations to all of you in AnandTech team! After years of hard works, this up to date nice looking new design is finally here. Hope that AnandTech will become better & better, take care :)ctrlbrk - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
New logo is truly fantastic, well done.Also -- people hardly ever welcome change, but change is a necessary part of life. :)
Mike
Rasterman - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
The new logo is awesome, but the whole top area is way too big vertically! The logo and nav buttons make up almost 400 vertical pixels, not even including a banner ad, thats way too much.