 Welcome to a new segment that I'm calling Honest Answers, where I take questions that you guys ask me and answer them honestly. Today's question, one that I've received many times, is how do you guys get companies to send you the samples of computer hardware that you're always showing off? Well, let's get started. The MasterCase 5 by Cooler Master gives you the freedom to truly make your mid-tower PC case your own with a variety of modular parts and accessories. Check out the link in the video description to learn more. So there are two underlying meanings to this question whenever people ask me. Some of them want to become product reviewers or vloggers, or they just want a sponsor to, you know, throw them a free video card or SSD for their new rig, while others are just idly curious about how it is that we get all these cool products to review or show off, since most people are astute enough to figure out that no one is crazy or wealthy enough to buy all of the stuff that they'd need to run a tech review channel our size. Let's start with the folks who want to know how to get review products for themselves, since that's a simpler answer. And here it is. Sorry, but basically you can't. If life worked that way, that would be super cool, but it doesn't, unfortunately, and the odds of a PR or media relations contact even replying to you, unless you're affiliated with a significant publication, is very, very low. Software sometimes works on a different set of rules, since there's no actual bill of materials for emailing someone a license key, but physical items that have a real cost, like money that had to be paid to a supplier or a factory associated with them, are not handed out without some kind of benefit in return. This is known as ROI or return on investment. Now there are exceptions. I actually had a viewer contact me once asking for advice on how to review some SSDs that he had managed to finagle out of Crucial and Intel of all people. I mean, minus Tech Tips has never gotten an SSD sample from Crucial, to which I replied, well, dude, you really should have thought of that before you requested review samples. SSDs are among the most complicated devices to properly review. Then I gave him some homework that involved reading every SSD article ever published on a Nontech, starting with the X25M review, which he either didn't do or didn't understand based on the finished video. And that is exactly why most people never will, and probably never should, get a review sample if a PR agent cares about his or her job, because they've generally given little to no thought to the ROI. I used to handle sample requests at NCIX. By the way, don't bother contacting retailers. Why would they have samples? And I'd get presentations that are like, hey, if you guys give us eight 24-port network switches, we can have a 200-person LAN party. And I'd be like, good for you. Da-delet. Instead of asking what a hardware manufacturer can do for you, instead of sending a presentation that outlines the cool games you plan to play on your free graphics card, figure out what unique and compelling value that you will provide in return, which doesn't mean that I'm saying that you should be some kind of a cheap, horrible shill. That was close. Posting misleading positive reviews in exchange for a product. Most brands, by the way, will not even be willing to engage in that kind of marketing, because A, it's deceptive to the real customers, and B, in America anyway, it is outright illegal. So find another way to justify it. I mean, maybe a really cool guide centered around that product, or prominent positioning in a build log with many posts in the threads across a bunch of forums online. Which I guess leads us pretty well into how we handle things, part two of this. How does Linus Tech Tips get access to review samples? Well, it's pretty straightforward. The company thinks that their product is awesome, so they send a unit to us and hope that we will agree with them and post a favorable review. PR really doesn't get any cheaper or more effective than that, since sending out a loner unit is just the price of a return label, and even a keeper unit is only the cost of the product itself, which is nothing compared to a decent sized ad campaign on Facebook or a TV commercial or whatever. They are taking a risk that the findings we present won't be positive, but with some exceptions, Astro never replied to me again after I posted a negative review of their A50 wireless headset. Most of the brands that we've ever worked with value our honest feedback, even if they didn't get the result they wanted, and will work with their product development team to make it better the next time around. Though, with that said, we've gotten to the point where sending us something isn't that risky, since a negative review seems to generate a bump in the sales of a given product for some reason, anyhow. So it's gotten pretty easy for us to request whatever it is that we need. Which leads us back to the first answer again before wrapping this up. Why is it easy for you, Linus, but not for me, the viewer? Brands love influencers, and they come in many forms. Influencers who are really good at something directly related to the product, so like eSports players, gaming, and preferably winning with Logitech or Razormice would be a perfect example of this. Influencers that are good at something only sort of related to the product or service being offered, so this is where the good ol' picture of the athlete on the box of Wheaties comes in. Or influencers that are just... cool. So cool that brands want their products nearby, however untalented the individuals may be. Wherever consumers are directing their eyeballs, that is where brands want to put their products, which is how content like 7Gamers1CPU came to be. So that, my friends, is what you will need if you want anyone to reply to your emails. Influencer eyeballs, which means that if your plan is to be a phone reviewer or something, and you don't see a way out of this chicken and egg box where you can't get any phones until you're an established phone reviewer and you can't be a phone reviewer until you get phones, then frankly you need to get more creative. I mean, I worked at a computer retailer, which is how I got access to computer hardware, and lots of guys start out making simple guides that are applicable to any device to establish themselves before they get into the more high-end stuff that is either expensive or you need a media contact for. You'll need to think outside the box because I can guarantee that your path to success will be different from mine or anyone else's. I hope this video clears it up. And on that subject, Tunnel Bear! Tunnel Bear is the easy-to-use VPN app for mobile and desktop. 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And when it's turned on, your connection gets encrypted with AES 256-bit encryption, and your public IP gets switched so that whatever websites and services you're accessing look at you and think, oh, gee, this guy is coming from, or gal, is coming from this other place, but actually you're from a completely different place. And they keep it simple. There's no port configuration, DNS, or any other nonsense. Tunnel Bear handles that in the background. Or the underground, as it were. They do have tunnels, these bears. The best part of Tunnel Bear is that you can actually try it for nothing. They will give you 500 megs of data for free, so you can figure out if Tunnel Bear is right for you before you've got to plunk down a few bucks a month for an unlimited plan. And, oh, by the way, you can save 10% on that by going to tunnelbear.com slash LTT, which is linked in the video description. All right, so thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon, instructions up there, by buying a cool shirt like this one, or with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next. So click that little button in the top right corner to check out the video where I open up, holy sh**, a system that can accept eight graphics cards all at once. Which, by the way, was a review sample. Oh yeah, and leave a comment if you have suggestions for future questions answered, or whatever I called this segment.