Product Reviews
From time to time I’ve done product reviews on this site and I’m getting ready to do a first impression review on something else. I’d like to take a step back though and give you my thoughts on product reviews in general and their value (or lack thereoff…) I usually take product reviews in a magazine with a grain of salt for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is who pays their advertising bills, maybe the editorial board of a publication is fond of a certain product for financial reasons…. also, they usually get the sample for free, so there’s a disconnect in the VALUE assessment of a product…
I generally put a lot more stock in product reviews by real customers. Much like what Amazon has. For each product, there is the opportunity for you to log in and review a product. The one thing that I DON’T like about real consumer product reviews is that most of them are written 1) immediately after receiving the product or 2) after a long period of frustration with a product. Very few people take the time, 15 months after they’ve bought something to go and say… “this has been worth buying.” Of course, in the arena of consumer electronics, 15 months might be enough time for the product to be discontinued and replaced by several iterations, but…. I think long term use reviews are valuable.
I always find myself wondering if those “little annoyances” someone found with a product in their initial review 10 minutes after opening the box, are major headaches 6 months on. For those reasons, you’ll see that for my reviews I will usually review the product on receipt and then follow up (usually in the same post) with updates as I continue to use it.
The only other thing worth saying I suppose is this… there are many people out there that have horrible experiences with products that other people rave about. Whether it’s poor design that some people don’t mind, or poor quality control that only bites some consumers, there are a lot of products that it seems like people either have lousy experience with, or fantastic experience. Any of the opinions expressed in these reviews are my own and my own experience. That may or may not reflect the experience you will have with any given product.