Comments on: Consumer Reports vs. consumers reporting

By: jlsimons

jlsimons — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:40:56 +0000

Thanks for the comment, David. In this instance, I found a good variety of customer reviews on both Consumer Reports and the Best Buy site, which I checked out as the result of a suggestion by a customer review on CR! There’s always Amazon, (which Restie mentioned above) which pretty much invented the Customer Review and sells a wide variety of products. There’s also epinions.com, which I often find helpful but sometimes doesn’t have as many reviews as I’d like about a product. BizRate has reviews, too, but they didn’t have anything on microwaves. And, as Restie also mentioned, CNet, which is phenomenal for electronics. Hope this helps.

By: david

david — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:11:43 +0000

i also relied on CR to make a microwave purchase. boy, did i get burned. i spent around $350 for a samsung that broke down (magnetron failure) after month 15. to me that is unacceptable of any microwave, especially one that was very highly rated by CR.
so the question becomes: where does one find a good supply of consumer reviews?

By: jlsimons

jlsimons — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:33:00 +0000

Ah, Josh — you bring up another of my peeves with CR: finding the model they review in a store! But no, I haven’t asked CR about the discrepancy. Interesting idea. As a famous pointy-eared alternately bearded character once said, “I shall consider it.”

By: josh

josh — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:53:50 +0000

Have you asked CR about the discrepancy?

I still use CR, and have had no problems. I usually read the customer reviews, but don’t give them much weight. We’ve used them for a microwave, dishwasher, window AC, and portable AC. Once or twice I’ve been surprised that they didn’t have a list for whatever I was searching for.

For the microwave, we ended up going to the store and buying whatever they had in stock that was close to the CR pick. We weren’t willing to wait for delivery.

By: jlsimons

jlsimons — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:44:47 +0000

I wonder how many other people have given up on Consumer Reports for the reasons we’re discussing? BTW, I use CNet for electronics, too, but also more importantly for software. I don’t think I’ve bought a program yet I did’nt check out on CNet first. I’ve got to check out dpreview for cameras, especially since I’m looking into getting a Flip. (I need a very portable video camera.) I use Amazon for book reviews and for other reviews, but I never thought of making them a review destination, which was silly of me because they virtually invented the concept of customer reviews, have broad range of product, and a reviewer rating system that lets you know if a reviewer is useful or not. Good comment, Restie — thanks.

By: Restie

Restie — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:13:29 +0000

I have used Consumer Reports to some degree in the past. But the reason I no longer use them is that almost consistently their top picks did not match other site’s top picks or people’s reviews. I don’t know whether their reviewers are just simply using the wrong testing methods or there are some back room payolas going on. What it comes down to is I no longer trust them. What I tend to use these days is CNet for electronic gear, dpreview.com for cameras and Amazon’s consumer reviews for all other items. For Amazon I look for the items that has the most reviews and among those which has the 5 stars. You still have to wade through and read the reviews.