It’s fascinating how loyal we can be to certain websites because when you honestly think about it, who cares?
But we do, don’t we.
I was looking up reviews for a handset I’m looking to buy my father for his birthday and I was trying to find reviews for the Samsung Vibrant and I instantly thought to check one of the “big guns” of device reviews: Engadget and Gizmodo.
As I was on the phone with my brother I asked him which one he preferred and without hesitation he said:
I don’t check anything but Engadget.
My response:
But it’s an AOL property!
To which he brought up a good point of how they still have great editorial writers and coverage. Sure, sure.
In any case, how loyal are you to your websites of choice? And who wins: Engadget or Gizmodo?
I tend to try CNET first. Then amazon. Then look at others.
Head to head, I tend to prefer Engadget, although I check Gizmodo just as often during the day….
Both of them seem to struggle with bias — Engadget tends to be a big Apple fanboy while Gizmodo, after the last iPhone incident with an editor, flipped the other way and seemed to be anti-Apple for a little while. Giz also sometimes gets downright risqué in their posts.
At the end of the day, when shopping for a product, I go off of user reviews in forums (if the item is released) and see what actual users are saying and what kinds of problems people are running into with a device.
I removed Giz from my feed a while back because some of the post we a little too “adult” for my eyes.
I’ve been reading Engadget for about four years now. It was one of the first blogs I subscribed to when I started using Google Reader. I happen to be an Apple product user, so the fanboy bent doesn’t bother me. Plus I’m completely turned off by the oftentimes crass posts found on Gizmodo.
Now that you mention it, I am loyal to my websites of choice. Lifehacker is probably the best example for me personally. I’ve been known to defend it over other GTD and how-to websites.
The writers at Gizmodo are hilarious. It’s hard not to have fun reading what they write.
However, I prefer Engadget who seems to be more along the same line of philosophy as I have concerning electronics, and a little more…well…professional.
After I bought a few items based on Gizmodo’s recommendations that turned out bunk, I’ve been more likely to take their reviews with a grain of salt.