To have a day one review, you have to get a prerelease device. To get said device, you have to stick to mfg talking points. It's an awful circle of scummy companies and scummy people.
Really wish there was a reviewer who just buys shit with their own money AFTER release, and tells it like it is. Some may exist, but none of the household names have the integrity to do so.
I prefer the ltt approach here. They went pretty hard on Intel on their original Arc video a few weeks ago, but the fact that they are known for not burning bridges made it worthwhile for Intel to respond and showcase the improvements they have made since. As I said in another comment, they wouldn't have bothered if linus could've been just paid to update his review to make intel look better. But I also don't think Linus would have had that type of influence (enough for a corporation like Intel to engage with his complaints directly ) if he just kept burning bridges instead of keeping channels open.
(Gamer nexus is far far from the worst in that regard, and they too had a visit from intel engineers. But I still think the LTT approach is just different, but I dont think that means they are just corporate shills.)
Hear me out here. Maybe it is warranted and we ought, instead of directing the criticism towards the messenger or those who expose problems, direct this towards the manufacturers which produce subpar products?
I'll still totally watch GN reviews of specific products that I might purchase. But that's kind of my point, LTT and GN fill a different niche. If I'm not shopping around, at the very least LTT videos are more "entertaining". And even then, while their reviews may be less serious, they usually still end up with very similar conclusion than GN regardless of who is sponsoring them.
Linus can be cringy but imo that's better than the current trend in some PC tech channels to take completely trivial stuff, like say the 3090ti being not much better than the 3090 (oh no!), super seriously. It's useful info don't get me wrong, but it doesn't warrant an angry reaction or outrage.
(If anything GN is really not that bad in that regard compared to other channels, but it still happens sometimes.)
Literally if you haven't made and released a video in the two days after the embargo drops, you're not going to get substantial views, at least not enough to be a household name.
So, even if you are independent, you play the game and you try not to p*ss the vendor off while also maintaining independence.
Ultimately, the Intel videos by LTT and GN weren't a full review, and both were previews. But importantly, they were previews in a way that we really aren't used to big corporates allowing, and that's a positive change. While both channels were clearly being friendly, I don't think there was anything shill about it. The vendor set the bounds of what they could show in exchange for the right to share what was allowed, but I didn't see them reading from the hymn sheet. Heck, Intel spoke openly things that previously nVidia and AMD would have been trying to hide or avoid, it's refreshing.
You take the videos for what they were, a preview under specific conditions. Later on there will be full reviews, unconstrained benchmarks and time for a full critique. But I bet with great certainty, most people won't ignore these preview videos, or any "day zero" reviews, in favour of channels that don't work with Intel PR.
YMMV. But I won't say it's garbage. I do get value out of this and similar "reviews"
LTT and many other reviewers don't even go into depth and often get details critically wrong, such as falling victim to Nvidia's GTX 970 "4gb memory" scam, because they didn't know how to test VRAM and discover 0.5gb of that memory was severely degraded in performance.
They also don't appear to have any process to vet people they take money from, given they're partners with Gigabyte who dumped PSUs onto the market they knew were dangerous, and several exploded as a result.
They aren't reviewers because they have a conflict of interest. If they fairly review products, companies will not send them review units.
Ultimately, follow-ups are rare because they don't sell - the benchmarks which get referenced are the ones which spread the widest, which are the ones closest to release, which is when usually the most people are interested in a given product.