We need your help to shape the future of Tom’s Hardware

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Tom’s Hardware has been a bona-fide institution when it comes to giving you the latest news, reviews and guides on cutting-edge technology. For almost 30 years, our website has offered best-in-class coverage. Over the years, Tom’s Hardware has had a heap of talented authors writing for us. But, throughout our storied history, our one goal has always been to make sure that you’re getting the best possible coverage from our team of experts.

So, we want you to help shape what the future of Tom’s Hardware looks like, so we can keep doing what we do best; offering the best coverage possible. So, we’ve assembled a survey to get to know our readers and forum users.

👉 Take the Tom’s Hardware reader survey

None of the data we collect will go towards anything but helping us understand what you like to read, and some information on who you are. It’s anonymous, and you’ll be able to give us strong feedback around the topics we cover.

So, whether you are new to Tom’s Hardware, or have been an avid reader for years, we’d like to hear from you, so we can keep doing what we do best: Offering detailed coverage about hardware, and the industry around it.

To thank you for your time, you can opt-in to a sweepstakes to win a $300 Amazon gift card at the end of the survey. Our full terms and conditions and privacy policy apply. The survey closes on April 14, 2025, so be sure to complete it and share your feedback with us.

  • ex_bubblehead
    I'll keep it simple. Drop all political content and disable comments on anything that may even hint at politics. This is a tech site, not a political commentary site. In addition, when referencing the president do not refer to him as simply "Trump". He is to be addressed as "President Trump", it doesn't matter whether you like him or not.
    Reply
  • wakuwaku
    Either get rid of staff using AI, and the AI itself altogether. Or train you staff to use AI to augment their writing. NOT REPLACE their writing on top of NOT FACTCHECKING their own writing.
    Reply
  • evdjj3j
    Shut it down like Anandtech, Tom's is just a shell of it's former self.
    Reply
  • Jeremy Kaplan
    wakuwaku said:
    Either get rid of staff using AI, and the AI itself altogether. Or train you staff to use AI to augment their writing. NOT REPLACE their writing on top of NOT FACTCHECKING their own writing.
    We're with you 100%. In fact, so is our parent company, Future: We have an AI Policy doc (internal only, I'm afraid) that spells out how and when to use AI, and it is explicit: NOTHING is written with AI. We don't use it for fact checking either. Never have and never will ... the expertise we have on staff is far more valuable than summarized BS from a bot.
    Reply
  • evdjj3j
    Since you all already deleted this excellent comment, I'll repost it.

    baboma
    I think it's fairly evident that Tom's Hardware needs to expand its coverage from just PC hardware.

    The stark fact is that sites like this need year-round content to attract year-round readership, and PC news & HW reviews aren't enough to fill the large volume required. So we have the occasional above-average first-party content, supplemented by lots of filler content that are largely scraped from other sites.

    In a sense, Toms Guide is already filling this role. But AFAICT it mainly caters to tech gadgets, with a bit of Lifestyle mixed in, and the writing level is low-quality enough to be on par with CNet's, and be a second-tier Engadget. There's already a crowd of tech gadget sites, and the economic imperative (ad-financed) means writing quality will necessarily stay at the low end. This isn't a knock, just an honest appraisal of the financial reality.

    TomsGuide's issue is that it tries to cover everything. The overly broad coverage results in shallow if not superficial content. TomsHW can differentiate from this by sticking with one or two topics that can generate lots of content (and interest), and provide more depth.

    Sticking with the PC theme, and consumer tech in general, one emergent topic (and interest) will be client-side AI. For now, the interest is still around the basic "ChatGPT's uses" level, but will grow as AI uses expand. You can cover everything from how-tos ("install & optimize LLM on your PC", "best LLMs", etc), to best practices, to higher-level items like AI's impact on society, etc. Look at the exploding AI topics/channels on YouTube as a guide. Then hire one or two good AI writers.

    But any way you slice it, any "improvement" will mean more money spent. So the real question is, will THW get any more funding for improvement, or is this just shuffling stuff around to make things look better.

    PS: Also, can you get rid of the braindead Hammerbot shtick? At this point, it's just an embarassment.
    Reply
  • punkncat
    ex_bubblehead said:
    I'll keep it simple. Drop all political content and disable comments on anything that may even hint at politics. This is a tech site, not a political commentary site. In addition, when referencing the president do not refer to him as simply "Trump". He is to be addressed as "President Trump", it doesn't matter whether you like him or not.

    This is winner winner chicken dinner as far as I am concerned. There is ZERO place for a one sided discussion where Admin gets to spew political drivel while the users can only be pinged for having a different opinion or attempting to discuss anything outside that narrow view.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    ex_bubblehead said:
    I'll keep it simple. Drop all political content and disable comments on anything that may even hint at politics. This is a tech site, not a political commentary site. In addition, when referencing the president do not refer to him as simply "Trump". He is to be addressed as "President Trump", it doesn't matter whether you like him or not.
    Don't talk about politics. Only recommendation? Politically based, with nothing to do with tech. Brilliant.

    I don't know where you are from, but here in America, no one says President in front of their name when talking about them in regular conversation. Everyone knows who they are.
    Reply
  • Jeremy Kaplan
    ex_bubblehead said:
    I'll keep it simple. Drop all political content and disable comments on anything that may even hint at politics. This is a tech site, not a political commentary site. In addition, when referencing the president do not refer to him as simply "Trump". He is to be addressed as "President Trump", it doesn't matter whether you like him or not.

    Government regulations and policies have an undeniable impact on the market, so we absolutely cover them. The CHIPS Act, export controls, tariffs, and more impact the stuff you buy and what it costs you, and so we report on it fairly and honestly, I hope.

    But there's nothing political on TH, afaik. Please let me know if you have seen otherwise. And we always refer to the president as "President Trump" or "President Donald Trump" on first reference. Again, if you've seen otherwise do let me know.
    Reply
  • evdjj3j
    Couldn't finish your survey. When I got to the part about buying a premium membership it wouldn't accept 0 as an answer to the questions.


    Spoiler alert the survey is just trying to feel out how receptive we would be to a premium subscription.
    Reply
  • evdjj3j
    punkncat said:
    This is winner winner chicken dinner as far as I am concerned. There is ZERO place for a one sided discussion where Admin gets to spew political drivel while the users can only be pinged for having a different opinion or attempting to discuss anything outside that narrow view.
    The person you quoted is the one who does that.
    Reply