Sometimes when you’re doing product evaluations, you get lucky. There’s one product that stands clearly above the others. Or there’s only one solution, and you don’t have to worry about competitive products.
Things are rarely that easy however. Usually there are two or three products that all meet similar specifications, fall in the same price range, and for all practical purpose are interchangeable. You need to be able to make a choice, and it’s hard to justify a decision based on a simple coin toss.
Outside influencers
At that point, that’s when it’s helpful to get the opinion of others. There’s always tons of people willing to give you their opinion. Some of your choices include:
Web site or magazine reviews
End-user reviews
Vendor information
Coworkers / Personal experience
Vendor Web sites, salesmen, and marketing material are obviously the most biased and often offer little additional information that helps make the case. Sometimes they offer comparisons against competitive products, but these are naturally skewed to favor their products. Anything you use from the vendor has to be viewed in that light.
I don’t know how other publishers work, but there’s a wall here at TR between sales and editorial. There may be personal bias, but there’s no institutional bias going on. However, I understand the perception. I’ve read plenty of articles in magazines where a product gets a five-star review, and you wonder what the reviewer was thinking because the product is utter… well…. not that good. And then you look to the right and see a full-page color ad for it. Convenient coincidence.
I like to check out reviews made on sites by end users. The most helpful ones I find are the negative reviews. Maybe it’s just cynicism, but most of the time I assume that positive reviews are potentially just vendor plants. Negative ones help you see what potential problems you’ll face if you purchase the product.
Finally, there’s personal experience or coworker experience with a vendor. If two products are close in the objective specs and I have positive (or negative) experience with a vendor, that can make all the difference.
