Reviews

[Miles]

Hi Guys,

Well its obvious that we publish a lot of reviews, and because we have always wanted to give our readers the best possible taste of the product we're presenting some are pretty long. Well that's both good and bad! The longer reviews don't always get a full read from everyone, thus some of the story goes untold.

We'd like your opinions, as we're currently rethinking our review strategy and format; and strongly considering going to a shorter, "more meat and less potatoes" approach.

Nothing hurts a writer more than to have a review from another site posted and discussed fully in the "member news" section when we have released our take on the same product either before or at the same time as the other site. So we want to improve for you guys as well!

Be brutally honest in what you like and dislike about reviews, not just BJ3D, but in general, as your thoughts may well shape our future plans. We want to be a trend setter and not a follower when it comes to reviews and articles and feel that as many opinions as possible will help us achieve that goal.

I have personally always subscribed to the thought of giving my readers all those subtle little product nuiances that most writers on other sites fail to take the time to share. The downside of this is that it makes the finished product in some cases a few pages longer... Emails from some readers really appreciate this effort, but if most don't care, why bother? That answer is simple because we want BJ3D to be the best, not only for our outside readers but for our members as well!

Thanks in advance!

[XJnine]

Believe it or not the lack of a "Next" button caused me to shorten my viewing on some of the reviews. When I'd click on the drop down list to go to the next page I'd often just skip to the couple pages that looked like they'dd interest me then I'd go to the end to get the final opinion. If it was a product that really interested me I would read the whold thing but if I was just casually looking at what was reviewed I would often skip some pages.

Now that the "Next Page" link is there I will click on the drop down list less often which means I'll probably read the reviews more thoroughly.

It really just came down to me being lazy and there was an easy excuse to skip through things by having to use the drop down list for navigation.


BTW, I think the reviews are for the most part excellent and my lack of full reading is in no way the fault of the length or content of the reviews.

[Das Capitolin]

Believe it or not the lack of a "Next" button caused me to shorten my viewing on some of the reviews. When I'd click on the drop down list to go to the next page I'd often just skip to the couple pages that looked like they'dd interest me then I'd go to the end to get the final opinion. If it was a product that really interested me I would read the whold thing but if I was just casually looking at what was reviewed I would often skip some pages.

Now that the "Next Page" link is there I will click on the drop down list less often which means I'll probably read the reviews more thoroughly.

It really just came down to me being lazy and there was an easy excuse to skip through things by having to use the drop down list for navigation.


BTW, I think the reviews are for the most part excellent and my lack of full reading is in no way the fault of the length or content of the reviews.

This would be representative of my feeling, and could nearly be my same words. I will read the very long reviews if it is a product I am going to buy/sell/use, otherwise I speed read through it and get the highlights.

I really enjoy the 110% reviews, but sometimes a review can be filled with too much opinion and data, and the reader loses interest. If this were a short review or long review poll, I would vote for the long review. It's better have information I don't need then to need the information and not have it.

[werty316]

I find the reviews give me all the information I need in a product like specs and shots of the product at different angles and a comparision of current competitors when its applies. The only thing that is annoying is not every review has the "Next Page" link as XJnine stated.

[SwedBear]

I find the reviews give me all the information I need in a product like specs and shots of the product at different angles and a comparision of current competitors when its applies. The only thing that is annoying is not every review has the "Next Page" link as XJnine stated.

Um, These days every page is supposed to have next/prev page links unless they are the first or last page. Have you seen other pages or reviews which lack the links?

/B

[Kougar]

Well, first off I'll apologize to you and also those at Bjorn3d that publish those reviews. I know I've pretty often posted links to reviews all over the net and then some, to come back after I make the post and find the review with the info already in the Bjorn3d archive. Such as the x1900GT performance review compared to the older x1800 linup, to name the latest example that a forum member was looking for.

However, I was under the impression from a posting back sometime around May or early June that we shouldn’t post News links to new Bjorn3d reviews because it would be duplicative to do so, and I kind of agreed with that??


I would say that I personally prefer having those little details added in reviews, because often they can make the world of difference to the person who is considering using whatever is under review. I would like to think that if "a few extra pages" turned someone off from reading the article, then the article really wasn't intended for them in the first place. If I am personally reading the article I'm either curious about the product, interested in buying it, or looking up info for someone. In the first two instances I’ll try to read the whole article completely through, and in the third instance I will simply skim it for the “meat” before crosslinking to it.

When I’m looking for reviews to crosslink that I am not personally interested in I'd just google up a few, and check out the first several that turn up from sites I recognize. I shall endeavor to be a little more considerate and look on Bjorn3d first for such an article before doing this next time though. After a little thought, I can see how frustrating that probably gets considering how much effort and time and spent on doing these reviews here.

Again though I’ll reiterate… in my opinion, if someone was a potential buyer for the item being reviewed and had actually decided to go find a review of it, then I think it is unlikely they will simply skim it. I’d personally want to know everything, and would read the complete article then find another one or two even to compare notes between… ;)

I would second that at first the navigation arrangement for the articles was annoying, however at some point Opera was able to start correctly "guessing" the next/back pages to an article. So once I started using the built in next/previous page shortcuts on my mouse it wasn't a real annoyance anymore.

After looking over the recent x1900GT review, y'all have included all the info I prefer to see, such as the table comparing the nitty gritty hardware of all the cards used to each other such as pixel pipelines, shaders and various clock speeds for easy referencing. I've already read a few other recent articles andI can't really think of anything to really suggest as an improvement, but if I do I'll add it here. :)

(Err, how does a X1900GT beat a X1900XT though? That was something I couldn't figure out...)

[Victor]

it's nice to hear specific part on review that you like, kougar.
Guys, don't be afraid to be as cricial as you can (of course, constructive ones:). Maybe even pinpoint which review/reviews/ and which parts that you guys like to see more often. Having more specific would be much helpful for us to plan out our review formats.

Thanks for all the great inputs.