Does anyone read customer reviews?

[brainwave]

I often buy from Newegg and I have sometimes found the customer reviews to be helpful. However, I recently read a negative review about an LCD monitor, and then the next day the review was gone. I noticed that Newegg's printed disclaimer says that they will not print "unproven" negative reviews. In other words they only print good reviews. So what's the point. I think it's true for other on-line merchants as well, since I submitted a negative review about a bad product to Tigerdirect (dont worry, I do not buy from them) which they never printed. All their reviews sound like they were written by a salesman, and they probably were. I wonder if other members of this forum think on-line reviews are a hoax or are they useful. Any thoughts?

 

[John]

Yes, I read the reviews but they are taken with a grain of salt most of the time. Newegg does not remove all of the negative reviews because I've noticed that there is bad mixed with the good.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I've seen many negative reviews in the motherboard and video card sections.

I'd guess they mainly cut out the less credible negative reviews ("this LCD is so bad it killed my doggy!") and leave the more sane and even-tempered ones ("The ghosting bothered me").

 

[Wolfsraider]

absolutely

by reading the reviews i find things i wouldn't know otherwise

for example looking at controller, panels

This device is nice, but really makes a case cluttered. I still prefer the Vantec Nexus over this despite the LCD temperature. There are no instuctions with this, but I honestly don't see the need for them inless you are a novice. The controlling nobs work well and the temperature LCD is nice, though I wish it were blue or something visible in the dark. One note I should make, if you are trying to load the 92mm Tornado fan on this controller, here are some issues you will run into(not due to this controller, but the tornado fan itself). First of all the operating noise of the fan while at 7v(lowest setting) is not tolerable. One good thing is you can put the fan on the 4th channel and you are able to lower the voltage all the way to an off setting, so it works well, although there is some drawbacks to this, when you start up the computer with the channel any below 7v the fan will not start, untill the computer is fully started into the o/s. So for me, this is something I'm not willing to wait for/change the voltage everytime I boot up. Once you're into the o/s you can lower the voltage to a perfect level. Overall a great product with lots of features.

and

This came with my thermaltake case. I'm novice and assembling my first computer, but I were a college student. I was able to install it with little difficulty.....except. The sensor is WAY TOO big to fit under the processor as shown in the instructions. I quess the picture in the instructions is not of a P4. Anyhow, I told my son not to force anything. Then, when I wasn't looking I folded it in two. Seems to work fine soo far. No smoke.

now as i have never owned one of these,I would look elsewhere rather than deal with something without instructions etc..

mike

edit to add the link

 

[Yossarian]

newegg isn't a review site. why would they print something that could cost them a sale?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

most of the people that post are idiots with an opinion,but no knowledge of the subject. i always ignore them.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I generally only read the negative reviews and I take them with a spoon full of salt.

 

[TD77077]

I always look at the reviews on NewEgg, but it's clear a lot of the people entering reviews don't have any idea what they're talking about. But some of them are still useful when they list benchmarks and setup or specific problems encountered.

 

[blodhi74]

Originally posted by: John
Yes, I read the reviews but they are taken with a grain of salt most of the time.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I generally only read the negative reviews and I take them with a spoon full of salt.

funny. I do the same thing.

 

[clicknext]

I only read customer reviews if I'm desperate for some information when there aren't any real ones.

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
most of the people that post are idiots with an opinion,but no knowledge of the subject. i always ignore them.

Agreed.

I need to remind myself of this when reading negative reviews. All too often, someones bad review stems from their inability to RTFM or otherwise follow common sense.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

"What can I say that hasn't already been said? I had my share of problems with this mobo for sure. But If it doesn't kill ya, it makes you stronger! Installing XP onto the 36g RAPTOR was a learning process for sure. I had to spend a few hours looking thru forums to find the problem. Doh! It was right infront of me but never knew it b/c ASUS doesn't provide much in the way of documentation. Other than getting the drivers for 'SATA & RAID' installed, it was a pleasure working with this board. NOTE***I wouldn't recommend this board to a novice. She can be a little tricky."

yea, god forbid you need to press F6 and give windows some SATA drivers to actually get it to install. she can be really tricky!

the worst is when newegg allows people to post their system specs in the reviews. thats soooo annoying.

 

[Monoman]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I generally only read the negative reviews and I take them with a spoon full of salt.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
I've seen many negative reviews in the motherboard and video card sections.

I'd guess they mainly cut out the less credible negative reviews ("this LCD is so bad it killed my doggy!") and leave the more sane and even-tempered ones ("The ghosting bothered me").

Heck, check out the External Enclosures section - a good bit of the stuff there gets 3 stars or less. Most of those enclosures seem to be made of cheap plastic.

 

[brainwave]

Well, the bottom line seems to be the comments on this forum are far more useful than customer reviews on on-line stores. But I think Newegg should not edit the customer reviews (other than for obvious inappropriate remarks or language). It would be better for their business to discontinue a product that gets a lot of negative reviews, rather than filtering out those reviews. I understand they are trying to sell stuff, but if the bottom line is all that's important, why have customer reviews at all? Having said that, I still think Newegg is one of the best on-line merchants out there. Their prices, service, and RMA procedures are excellent. And it is true that customer reviews creates an image of a company that cares about what their customers think.

 

[Regs]

Yes. But I don't really take account for each individual review but the overall consensus I get from the buyers. If 8 out 10 customers say the product is a flop, I would take that highly into consideration.