For a long, long time, shopping was very easy. Go to the store, look at the product, look at the price tag, maybe try the item, and then purchase it if you saw it fit. Often times, you would be able to demo the product for several days before making a decision to buy it. Take, for instance, a car. Once you’re at the dealership, you could (and still can) test drive the vehicle before pulling the trigger on the deal.
While this procedure is still largely in use and is practiced today, the quick diffusion of the Internet into our everyday lives has brought upon Internet shopping. With each impending purchase, instead of thinking of a shop you might go to, you might use Google, or Yahoo! instead to find the product. Or then again, you might go directly to a specified website (Newegg, Amazon, etc.) to find a product. You look around for the lowest price, but also the reputation of the reseller. But now that products are a two-dimensional picture on a screen, how do you know how the product is? For instance, if you were purchasing a car online, how would you know what condition the product was in, whether or not the facts written by the product were indeed true, and that it is ultimately worth the money you might pay for it? Well, you wouldn’t, at least for certain. And so you trade in peace of mind for convenience.
Researching Products: Review Websites
Chances are, in order to gain more knowledge about the products that you want, you’ve visited product review websites. While there are literally thousands out there, the some of the more well-known ones are CNet, HardOCP, as well as Tom’s Hardware. By visiting these review websites, you’ve probably garnered a greater amount of knowledge about the product. But in reality, you are relying on others to rate and review the products that you are considering. Reviews, though, are generally accurate on reputable websites, since they need be truthful and fairly accurate to account for their reputation.
As a case and point; when my older 802.11b Netgear wireless router was dying after several years of use, I decided to jump to an 802.11g wireless router to replace it. I did a thorough search of wireless routers and I eventually came upon Linksys’ WRT54G and WRT54GL. From research, I found out that apparently, the WRT54G has a chronic restart problem that results from lower amounts of memory and a recently implemented firmware. While power cycling a router is needed from time to time, I wanted to avoid that. The Linksys WRT54GL, which they offered with the older, larger bank of memory along with a flexible firmware, garnered better reviews than its counterpart. The reviews also went into how the “L” version could be flashed to a different firmware — “L” hinting at Linux, that is.
To that end, product review sites offer generally trustable advice. Keep in mind that certain sites may have subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) biases towards certain brands and products.
Peer Reviews: Customer Surveys
Customer satisfaction reviews and surveys are something you have to watch out for. When you buy a product, you actually have the product in your hands which may lead you to review it for other folks like you. Because it’s no longer just an image on a monitor, you may have that certain “leg up” on the situation — that your first-hand experience may be valuable to others.
As with any other personal and unlimited review, you must be careful when reading it. The person who may have written the review may have a motivation for writing it, or, more likely, a pre-determined impression of the product. You also cannot judge whether or not the reviewer is simply ignorant, or didn’t know better. There are a number of facts that you must weigh when using user reviews as a gauge for product quality. To that end, customer reviews should be taken with a grain of salt.
My Take: Evaluating Products
First and foremost, since products are no longer “tangible” as they always used to be, you must rely on someone’s review in order to find out information about the product. That said, you must know where to look for honest feedback about a product. While I do consider product customer reviews when looking at a product, you must know what to trust and what not to. There is rarely no motive for someone to post a review — rather, they do it for a purpose. In addition, you cannot trust that the user is necessarily knowledgeable enough in the field to make certain products. The anonymity of the Internet allows people to post without their “pride on the line.” They do not necessarily have to be honest.
All in all, I generally trust large reviewers’ publications. Usually, those people are very knowledgeable about the products they review and can provide the insight that consumers can appreciate. However, when researching a product, just keep digging. To some products, like a processor or software, there are tangible tests done about it that can be analyzed for the consumers. With all the tools available today, it’s just up to you to research the product thoroughly.
The PCMech.com weekly newsletter has been running strong for over 8 years. Sign up to get tech news, updates and exclusive content - right in your inbox. Also get (several) free gifts.
