I can’t believe some of the points Linus made against the Fairphone, especially given he’s onboard with the same compromises for the Framework laptop. 🤭
I can’t believe some of the points Linus made against the Fairphone, especially given he’s onboard with the same compromises for the Framework laptop. 🤭
I seem to recall something to the effect of “theft of a prototype:” like a custom water block or something like that he was supposed to review, and then gave a rushed, improper review, and then misplaced or in some way failed to return the prototype. IIRC.
They were sent some form of prototype cooler from a startup for a specific GPU, I believe it was LTT used a different GPU that the cooler wasn’t meant for
LTT complained the cooler was shit and didn’t work up to standard, which is to be expected when using it on something it wasn’t meant for.
And then sold the cooler at some kind of expo or show when the startup specifically asked for it.
This is mostly right, I remember this part clearly:
The water block was a custom block for both a CPU and GPU combined into one mass. It was supposed to sandwich a specific CPU series chip and a specific GPU. They used the right CPU series with it, but used the next GPU up in the series… I think it was built for a 3080 or something and they put a 4000 series on it.
They realized their mistake, even during the shoot, but Linus didn’t want to spend the time, effort and money into retesting it with the proper components, and just steamrolled ahead with the video.
After all that, their team neglected to return the prototype promptly, and took months to even properly communicate with the manufacturer. During those months they held some kind of gathering, either LTX or one of their LANs, and during the event someone suggested the prototype water block for the silent auction, and Linus agreed, so they auctioned it off and gave the money to charity.
There was some drama about it, and Linus did his usual thing of speaking before thinking and digging his grave even further, then eventually made a public apology. They committed to paying the full price for the prototype, well above $20k, if I recall, so that the company could have a new one created.