why you shouldnt trust newegg reviews

[drummerdude]

(off topic)

i was reading some newegg reviews one day and came across these two for the ZALMAN Notebook Cooler:

Pros: Long discriptions in the specs sections.

Cons: The discriptions offer no useful information ie: what size laptop is it designed for?

Other Thoughts: I am currently shopping for a cooler for 15.4 Asus G1 which is 353 x 284mm. Will those "679 high capacity vent holes" support my laptop. It's nice to see they took the time to count the holes but forgot to measure the length and width of the darn thing.

and the following one:

Pros: Don't rate a product without having it and with out doing research. Here are the specs off of zalman's website. - Weight : 1,195 g - Dimensions : 308(L) X 330(W) X 40(H) mm - Noise : 18.0 - 25.5 dBA ¡¾ 10 % - Input Voltage : 5V (Connects with Notebook USB Port) Fan - Type : Dual Centrifugal Fan - Quantity : Two - Bearing Type : Hypro Bearing - RPM : 1,100 - 1,500 rpm ¡¾ 10 %

Cons: Price is relatively high compared to the rest of the NB coolers.

Other Thoughts: Worth the money tho.

i know not all of them are this bad, but come on...link

 

[drummerdude]

lol...found another: HIS Hightech Radeon X1650XT

anyone know what PSU it requires???

Pros: need to know the psu this card requires

Cons: dont have any yet havent bought the card

Other Thoughts: can someone tell me what PSU this card requires before i buy this card thank you

link

 

[08nwsula]

you are bound to get a few nutty reviews no matter where you go, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't trust any from that site. Just look for the reviews that agree with each other, those ones are probably accurate.

 

[celewign]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814133125

Read the last entry. Lol, I love how five people clearly say its not for gaming, repeating themselves over and over. Then theres the one idiot who say "quadro4500 pwns hard @ css i pwn evry day with awp w/ dis card lol it roxors!"
-Ace

 

[celewign]

Sorry to double post, and get off topic, and not relate to newegg, but this comes to mind:
http://www.amazon.com/House-Number-CP2-3095-625/dp/B000H5VJSK/
You can even find one of my reviews in there!
-Ace

 

[jsc]

A lot of the positive reviews ARE fluff. The negative reviews, however, can be useful.

 

[drummerdude]

i guess all of them arent bad. but they mess up the overall ratings, so things can be deceptive. but there's always tom's to save the day.

 

[dj_taboo]

The number 9 will never be the same to me again...

 

[PCKid777]

Hey, I hate those cruddy Newegg reviews too. The other day, I ran across reviews in regards to the AMD Brisbane core Athlon X2 3600+

Pros: Cheap price

Cons: Ran hot! I could start my computer and immediately go into bios hardware monitor screen and temps would be at 60c already! That's maybe 10 seconds with a cold start! Reset heatsink and tried the nice Opteron one, not much better. Easily hit 70c with any kind of load.

Other Thoughts: Seems some are having same trouble, bad batch maybe? RMA'd mine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16819103046&SortField=0&SummaryType=ALL&Pagesize=100&Page=

Note: This guy said his "Tech level" was "High"; high in the sky if you ask me.... Its pathetic when people don't realize that a BIOS update was needed; some people didn't even touch the heatsink to see if the CPU was that hot!

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

In those public review forums, everyone is a tech expert. Like the previous poster said, expect fluff and expect idiocy. The overall can be a good hint as to the product quality, but thats it.

 

[Fulmar]

I read through most reviews (unless like 500 on one product) on everything on Newegg. You have to make the judgement of how well you think the person reviewed it is. Is there english and grammar good? If so, they probably actually did a 'real' review for the product.

I'm amazed at how many people RMA their stuff after little troubleshooting. Like the power supply I own, I was reviewing it again the other day and some guy RMA'd it twice because he couldn't figure out the 'server' connector split in two to be used as the P4 connector - even after 3 people including myself reviewed it saying the connector split in two and it was confusing. But the guy that gave it a bad review swore that it was at fault of the company and RMA'd it twice.

It got me thinking about how much money is lost in business because the customer improperly RMA's and warranties products without proper troubleshooting.

 

[DavidB]

I only look at the negative reviews. I look for people who give reasoning. I love the ones where people will say it is bad because they didn't receive sata cables with an OEM hard drive though... those people are awesome.

 

[quantumsheep]

best reviews to look for are the negative ones, for sure. Unless they say something like "OMGZZZZ AMD SUXX0RZ INTEL RULEEEEEZZZZ" or "ATI PRAWNSSSS NVIDIA!" etc etc.

Also look for ones without grammatical/spelling errors.

 

[crazypyro]

i like to read the lowest reviews, then google the product and see a pro review... then i cross reference the bad with the bad

 

[Ninjaz7]

Take it with a grain of salt read alot and draw your own conclusions...and yes the egg is not the guardian to all products...I think I have 2 # 9's in the shed....I'm comfortably well off 8O

 

[daverimer]

When I use newegg reviews it helps to 'sort by helpfulness'. It's like a review of the reviews. This typically works better with more popular components that have a higher quantity of reviews.

 

[utaka95]

I usually look for stuff with LOTS of reviews - quality by quantity, if you will.
And I usually ignore the motherboard reviews unless there is a lot of bad reviews. I've noticed some people will post several times if they have to rma a product, nearly identical bad reviews, 3 in a row? It's one Pi$$ed off kid.

 

[rdhood]

I look for 1) high numbers of reviews and 2) consensus.

This is the fracking internet! EVERYTHING on the internet is structured just like Newegg's reviews.... even Tom's forumz. You will always get opposite opinions on just about every topic. But if newegg has 200 reviews and 90% are good, you get believe that the item is good. If newegg has 5 reviews .... you really can't trust the concensus as the sample is just not big enough to turn the bogus reviews into noise.

I can tell you that every single item that I have purchased at Newegg with more than 40 or 50 reviews has pretty much matched the consensus of the reviews.

What you can't trust is a guy who says that you cant trust them. (S)he is a sampling of 1 that throws out a sampling of 2 to make his case for 100s of thousands of reviews on a website. What he needed to do is to find one product with 100 reviews that falsely represented the item in question. THEN, he could make the blanket statement not to trust the reviews. I could pick ANY item with a lot of reviews... no matter how good... and find one lame idiot review in the bunch. Do I believe the one lame idiot review... or the 85% other more reasonable reviews? So the reader weighs all opinions and makes a choice.

 

[dsidious]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814133125

Read the last entry. Lol, I love how five people clearly say its not for gaming, repeating themselves over and over. Then theres the one idiot who say "quadro4500 pwns hard @ css i pwn evry day with awp w/ dis card lol it roxors!"
-Ace

I don't even understand what he's trying to say there. Help! 8O

 

[hergieburbur]

Well, considering there are a ton of morons on newegg that consider themselves "reasonably technical" or better, then write a review that shows that they don't know D!k about computers, what do you really expect?

I just look at a few positives and negatives to see what people say, discard the idiotic ones, then go to a reputable site to find better reviews of the products I want.

 

[mphelps]

I ran across my favorite type of post on newegg a while back when I was doing a build and needed a floppy drive for raid drivers.

This is a prime example, though only one of many.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16821103116&SortField=0&SummaryType=ALL&Pagesize=10&Page=15

Roland's two reviews are the ones to look for. He bought a floppy drive, plugged it in backwards, and then called the drive a piece of ****. He then reviewed a second time to retract his first review after he figured out his mistake.

I feel old when I read the number of reviews from people that don't know how to plug in a floppy drive. I suspect that the majority of the RMA's and poor reviews of floppy drives are caused by this same mistake.

 

[Hyggelik]

I read through... Is there english and grammar good? ...

So, knowledge of the english grammar and vocabulary is directly connected to being a computer hardware expert and the ability to write good reviews? Look at yourself: It is "their english" not "THERE english"...!

I am a foreigner myself and find this kind of comments pretty ignorant. But then again, what do you expect...

:x :x

 

[pseudopeon]

I used to work at a major UK component supplier, and I can tell you, most people who RMA something are cockmongers.
So many stories... the one that probably best springs to mind is someone who bought an 8800GTX for a Shuttle system, realised it wouldn't fit, and sawed about 4" off the back of it. Obviously thought the card wouldn't be needing all that silicon - nVidia were just "playing safe" :lol:

 

[nobly]

You shouldn't trust any reviews...
But hey, they make for a really good laugh sometimes!

(from cnet when I was researching cameras):

Something is wrong with the flash. You get a lot of photos with eyes shut, using red eye reduction or not.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Canon_PowerShot_A80/4864-6501_7-30520381.html?ctype=msgid&messageSiteID=7&messageID=887075&cval=887075&tag=uolst

Never knew the flash was supposed to make eyes stay open...

 

[hergieburbur]

There are a LOT of idiots in the world