Pogue and the Bogusness of Advanced Gadget Reviews

Jordan Golson writes "New York Times gadget reviewer David Pogue got into an email back-and-forth with Valleywag after he was tricked into writing an article by advance misinformation on a pre-launch product. In theory, it's good for reviewers to test and write up products before release day, so consumers can make informed choices. In practice, Pogue and we wish the industry standard would change." Personally I think this is why blogs are great- if a product sells 100,000 units, it only takes a few dozen bloggers to encounter problems for the truth to come out. Of course, that doesn't help you if you want to pre-order.

Ouch.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Isn't the best solution to not write about it until it can at least be tested? Why does Pogue, or for that matter, any reviewer, have to beat the release date so badly on such an obscure product? So nobody knows about a product when it's actually released, that's not such a bad thing for everyone, except maybe for the company in question if they have predatory intent.

I think it's important to wait and not rush. I'm happy to let the early adopters try stuff out first for a few months.

It's about the sales

[Gazzonyx]

It would be ideal for them to wait, but that won't sell any magazines if their competitors are covering tech. before it comes out. Especially tech. heavy magazines expected to be on the bleeding edge.

Ridiculous

[Procasinator]

He asked a company for it's pricing and he was supplied with the wrong pricing. For what reason would the prices be wrong? A complete non-story, Pogue did nothing wrong. Releasing prices to the general public is a good thing, not something that should be discouraged. People want to know the price of products like PS3, iPhone and charges of using features of it before they are released, even if only a guideline.

Re:Early adopters get what they deserve ...

[roguetrick]

Thats why I'm still riding my horse, I knew all these cars would bite you in the ass some day.

Re:He didn't do anything special.

[Jarjarthejedi]

"Umm, dude, by admitting his mistake, he hasn't done anything special"

Actually, in our modern world, that is something special. What you should have done and what is commonly done are rarely equal and so when someone embraces their responsibility and admits to being wrong they should be praised in order that more people realize that truth is what we want, not looking infallible.

Re:Ouch.

[dgatwood]

No, Pogue and his publication should sue the company for fraud. That would stop crap like this.

Re:Read with caution

[moosesocks]

It's the Apple paradox.

Their machines are built better, and last longer. But whenever they have a problem that affects a small fraction of a percent of their customers, there's suddenly a huge controversy.

Ask any IT manager, and they'll be able to identify a certain series of machines that were extremely prone to failure (motherboards and power supplies being the usual culprits). You NEVER hear about this sort of thing in the PC world, even though it happens all the time. Maybe it's just because Dell and HP have rather diverse product lines, but anyone who's managed large numbers of machines knows that you occasionally get a bad batch. (The trend also usually doesn't become apparent until at least a year in, unless you've got a truly dismal series of machines).

That's not to say that Apple hasn't done this -- many of the original colored iMacs had a tendency to fail after 3 or 4 years, and weren't worth repairing. On the flipside, their more expensive machines tend to keep chugging right on to the end of their lifecycle (which is typically a lot longer than for PCs -- plenty of 450mhz G4s from 1999 are still being used today for everyday tasks. However, you rarely see a Pentium II sitting on someone's desk anymore)