I mean, hopefully it holds up well still. I’m gonna be an early adopter though, and I accept those risk. There’s a lot of curious and neat things I want to check out with it.
Mostly anymore I just watch youtube reviews for entertainment. I like Aurora Tech because those videos, while they mainly are more or less commercials for the printers, they are consistent and not dripping in drama/opinion/click baiting.
I think if FauxHammer did a review, I’d be curious to see that. He’s a bit more my speed these days. Where printing isn’t my hobby, my hobby is the things I print.
The next Layer - cant stand that guy. Total shill and tried to sell bambu early access info to his patreons before and got caught during the a1 mini release. No principals.
Thomas sandaler(?) Between layers? For his ridiculous pro prusa but anti bambu labs takes on everything. The bambu labs prints in 15 minutes, gets bashed, who wants fast anyways… The prusa prints in 25, its amazing speed. If you watch his x1c review its ridiculous what he argued against and then praised in this prusa core one review 2 years later.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion and based on your feedback I went back and looked at the channel again and only come away with more conviction that its a channel devoid of meat. When I choose YouTubers to invest my time in watching, I look for professionals who provide critical insights from first-hand experience, not someone simply reading a data sheet. I can do that myself.
I watched a couple of Aurora-Tech’s reviews before blocking the channel, and it was obvious then that she doesn’t write her own copy. Before she was mentioned in this thread, I had just assumed it was another Chinese shill channel pushing products. Their thumbnails strongly feel like an Ali Express ad. She doesn’t seem to understand what she’s reading, and after revisiting her channel page upon reading this thread, it looks more like her brother Helios is the one actually running the show. There’s strong evidence she has zero insights and is just reading a script. Nothing in her videos makes me think, “Huh, that’s interesting,” or “I didn’t know that.” If her brother is the one writing the scripts, he doesn’t seem to understand the tech either—just regurgitating marketing blurbs.
I don’t need a YouTuber to read a spec sheet to me while standing in front of the product. I can go to MicroCenter and see it myself or watch someone who actually does a teardown and provides real analysis.
Honestly, she just seems like the public face of someone who needed a host to read lines into the camera(her brother Helios?). The production quality is amateurish—like someone new to YouTube—not inherently bad, as Teaching Tech proves you don’t need a high-end setup to produce quality content.
But hey, if she’s making money and making her parents proud of their “YouTube influencer” daughter, good for her—if they even know what that is.
I want someone who does a serious in-depth review of the non-3D printing features (laser, cutter, pen, etc.). Mainly because I believe most of the reviewers will do extensive print testing.
But the non-printing features have intrigued me the most, personally.
I disagree about the “more or less commercials for printers”.
She puts every printer through the same standardized tests and compares results. She tests retraction, dimensional accuracy, tolerances, surface quality, first layer calibration, engineering materials, print speed, layer consistency, sound levels, overhangs, etc. etc. etc.
The fact that she directly compares printers against competitors, including unfavorable comparisons, should on its own make it obvious that she’s not just producing 3D printer commercials.
I agree with this that race shouldn’t be a part of the discussion, but to be fair Olias did say:
I’m not sure what he meant by this but on the surface it does seem like he already brought race into the discussion. Unless they care to clarify why they would have assumed Aurora (who appears to be an Asian person and could possibly Chinese American) would be a “Chinese Shill Channel”.
EDIT: I think that is could be why user_3133763279 mentioned her nationality to Olias.
You are reading to much into this. If you spend as much time on YouTube as I do(I haven’t had cable in 7 years) you have to develop strategies to weed out shill channels. There’s a number of Ali Express and TEMU sponsored YouTube channels that have some obvious tells that you can spot real easily after some time surfing.
Perhaps a grid view showing thumbnails might make it seem more obvious. This is not isolated to Chinese websites. There are plenty of Harbor Freight, Cosco, and Amazon Shills too but the Asian ones seem to follow a similar theme and are easier to spot. I believe this is just them emulating what “looks familiar” to them.
Nothing you have said nor the screenshots of Aurora’s YouTube thumbnails suggests that she is a Chinese shill Channel.
Further, your wording with this quote is a bit off-putting:
“…but the Asian ones seem to follow a similar theme and are easier to spot. I believe this is just them emulating what “looks familiar” to them.”
Wow. This is interesting. So since Aurora is Asian (not confirmed in her YouTube bio but it’s obvious that she is), that means that Chinese advertising trends that you have observed are “familiar” to her. That’s such a weird and concerning take. Not to mention, Aurora is literally American from California.
Regarding her thumbnails in particular, they seem to simply show:
An image of her with the product.
The price of the product.
Some specs of the product
Images of prints
So just like her videos, her thumbnails have a lot of information. This has nothing to do with being a shill, Chinese or otherwise. (It’s also 1000 times better than garbage clickbait thumbnails, but that is besides the point.)
I took it as the way those in China are restricted in what and how they say things, due in large part to very distinct laws that prohibit such things.
We all remember what happened to the once-famous Naomi Wu.
Wu’s activity on social media has significantly reduced since June 2023, reportedly after receiving a police visit due to her public criticisms of Signal and Chinese keyboard apps.
You have to live within the laws of the country you reside, no matter how others feel about them.
