Modern Tech Product Reviews Are Flawed

Thom Holwerda, on OSNews:

Nobody forced The Verge or whomever else to publish a review within 24 hours. The initial embargo rush is important for the bottom-line, I get that, but it still feels rather suspicious. What can you really learn about a product in just 24 hours? Can you really declare something “the best damn product Apple ever made” after using it for less than a day? At what point does writing most of the review in advance before you even receive the product in the first place, peppering it with a few paragraphs inspired by the 24 hours, cross into utter dishonesty?

I usually write my initial impressions within a day or two, but my full reviews are after at least two weeks of using a device, otherwise I never label them as such and make it abundantly clear for how long I used a device.

Seeing “hands-on reviews” after 5 minutes with an iPhone angers me to no end. This “trend” seems to get worse and worse every year. Ultimately it’s the readers job to point this out to the author, which is pretty easy today, with all the Twitters and internets at our disposal.