When Reading Product Reviews, Do You Sometimes Just Go Straight To The Conclusion?

[Brian]

I find myself doing this all the time now. I simply don't have the time to spend reading 7 or 8 webpages of commentary and screenshots and usually find everything I need to know about the given product being reviewed on the very last page where everything is summed up and the final score is given.

I'm not sure if this is a sign I am getting lazy or just more efficient with my time.

Anyone else do this?

[ctal]

Yes, I'm a pretty thorough kind of person with most things, but I do that nearly all the time. I'll only read the entire story if the product is something I'm seriously considering buying.

Regards,

-- Al

[TQ]

Originally Posted by Brian

I find myself doing this all the time now. I simply don't have the time to spend reading 7 or 8 webpages of commentary and screenshots and usually find everything I need to know about the given product being reviewed on the very last page where everything is summed up and the final score is given.

I'm not sure if this is a sign I am getting lazy or just more efficient with my time.

Anyone else do this?

Heh...yes. Although I generally find that if the last page is intriguing enough I'll go back and at least scan some of the previous pages.
I just did it this morning with a Vista 32 bit to Vista 64 bit performance comparison.

I get really annoyed at certain sites **cough**GuruOf3D**cough** that don't offer a titled page drop down menu.

[klc314]

I skip to the end in almost every review except cases. I like to see the pix of interior design, and various schemes to hold things in place with no screws. Video cards particularly, all the pages of benchmarks, I would rather just know if it will do what I want and I can afford it.

[ctal]

Originally Posted by TQ

I get really annoyed at certain sites **cough**GuruOf3D**cough** that don't offer a titled page drop down menu.

Yeah, that really annoys me too. I assume they do that to increase their page view count, to help their advertising revenue. But the next time you come across that, take a look at the address bar, containing the url for page 1, and see if it contains something like "page1" in it. If so, take a guess as to the number of pages and replace the "1" with a number a little less than that, hit "enter," and see what happens!

Regards,

-- Al

[k0NG0]

Of course. Since a lot of sites tend to read way too much into a 2% benchmark win, and they all tend to use huge graphs with little information and everything's summed up nicely in the conclusion anyway.

I'm pretty fed up with benchmarks, so few actually talk about the platform for example. It's all top-of-the-line masturbation and very seldom any sort of nuance.

I like sites that have solid testing models (SilentPCReview's heatsink and PSU tests, for example) and those who talk about what matters (TechReport for example). Smaller sites often seem to be so happy they actually get the latest and greatest product they forget to say something that hasn't been said better somewhere else.

[TQ]

Originally Posted by ctal

Yeah, that really annoys me too. I assume they do that to increase their page view count, to help their advertising revenue. But the next time you come across that, take a look at the address bar, containing the url for page 1, and see if it contains something like "page1" in it. If so, take a guess as to the number of pages and replace the "1" with a number a little less than that, hit "enter," and see what happens!

Regards,

-- Al

Oh, sure but it doesn't show me the title of the page. I'd like to skip to "specifications" or "test setup" or some such rather than page by the numbers.

[traveler]

Conclusion, page one to see "what's in the box", then my favorite benchies, anything else of interest.

[Underwater Mike]

All the time. Especially because a majority of the reviews I see are written by semi-literate goobers who don't seem to proof before they post.

[El Wiseguy]

Originally Posted by Brian

I find myself doing this all the time now. I simply don't have the time to spend reading 7 or 8 webpages of commentary and screenshots and usually find everything I need to know about the given product being reviewed on the very last page where everything is summed up and the final score is given.

I'm not sure if this is a sign I am getting lazy or just more efficient with my time.

Anyone else do this?

Anyone else do what?

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by El Wiseguy

Anyone else do what?

When Reading Product Reviews, Do You Sometimes Just Go Straight To The Conclusion !

[PeterT]

Been doing this for years. Skim through most/all of the pages for anything that stands out and then read the conclusion.

[Cogar]

It depends. As kONGO mentioned, data for 8 games and 6 synthetic benchmarks spread over a dozen or more pages has little real value, and I tend to skip those pages. Also, like ctal, if I am interested in a particular product I will invest more time in reading. If I am only curious, I tend to go to the conclusions and will then only read the full article if it looks like it might be worth the time investment.