For example, http://www.slant.co/topics/103/viewpoints/4/~what-is-the-best-laptop-for-programmers~lenovo-thinkpad
should that be a specific thinkpad model?
For example, http://www.slant.co/topics/103/viewpoints/4/~what-is-the-best-laptop-for-programmers~lenovo-thinkpad
should that be a specific thinkpad model?
No, something can be generally suitable for the question at hand. You could say that all Thinkpads are the best Developer machine and that would be a perfectly acceptable answer.
The problem is then you’re being very generic/vague with the pros/cons. What if one particular model has a defect? Or one has brilliant battery life?
In the context of that question you’d have to be specific at least to the degree of model; a manufacturer’s likely to have low spec netbooks through to high performance gaming machines - too vast a range to be appropriate. Were the question Who makes the most reliable / performant / best value machines?
manufacturer alone would be acceptable.
Some form of pooling / tagging may be useful? e.g. For each option given tag the manufacturer, then you can see that 4 of the top 5 were Lenovos; so though Dell took the top spot that option was an anomaly for that manufacturer.
Another way would be to have reusable viewpoints or template-viewpoints (i.e. viewpoint categories / metrics); then there’s less admin to having multiple models and you can more easily compare the available options (e.g. when viewing filter options for just those machines which have Large Monitor
, Lightweight
, Multiple Cores
and Large Memory
). This starts to approach an Amazon/Ebay like meta-data filter though (for which there’s already specialist sites: e.g. Laptops / Portables Reviews & Buying Guide | Engadget).
Those options add complexity / cognitive overhead though.