Reviews can often be biased and based on one person’s opinion and preference. Reviews can also be influenced on a site’s affiliation with a certain company. A review site could also just be more of a fan of one brand over another. It’s like going to a Democratic blog; you can be damn sure there will be nothing good written about any Republican. So what are reviews good for and how can consumers get the most out of the reviews they do find?
First of all, reviews are useful when buying a product. They are particularly helpful when buying a refurbished or used electronic. You want to look out for any bad remarks on the longevity and quality of the things you’re buying from another person or even a well-known and respected company. Remember the BlackBerry Storm and all the troubles it debuted with? There are plenty of people who wished they would’ve read some reviews first.
The best advise about reviews is to read more than one and you can’t always rely on expert reviews only. Consumers themselves are usually the best reviewers. While the experts will give you details about the phone and how it may or may not stand out but a person who actually spent their own money on the thing will tell you if they regret it or not and why.
Now where is the best place to get reviews? There are plenty of expert sites that are ran by gadget obsessed individuals. You may already have a favorite. However, they are, I dare say, biased. Some are even influenced heavily by contributions, marketing, and affiliation of their parent company. A second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or even tenth opinion is needed before you spend your money on a gadget that can often equal a week’s pay. Google it? This is fine and dandy but Google isn’t perfect and usually one or two major sites dominate the top of the list that has millions of results. This is where revies sites that aggregate mulitple reviews do consumers, who like to be informed, a favor. What these sites do is search out reviews on a particular product so that a consumer doesn’t have to weed through all the Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Ask, or Bing results.
There are many review sites but most express their own opinion and may add a few user reviews for good measure but rarely mention what others say. Here’s a list of sites that simply give you a sort of directory of reviews about thousands of products. It’s a continuously growing list as we find them. If you know of any great review collection sites just email us so that we can add them.
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