The internet is a marvellous forum for people who might not normally be given a platform for their opinions to have one. From blogs to personal websites, social media and forums, it would seem that everyone with a keyboard now has at least one rant or declaration of love broadcast online.
With mobile phones, this open forum can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it means that consumer information from other consumers is readily available and the prospective buyer now has a better than ever chance of getting information that retailers wouldn’t give them but on the other hand, with so much opinion readily available who do you trust.
When it comes to reading Samsung Galaxy S3 reviews, there is no set right and wrong place in which to read reviews, but all should be read and digested with caution, paying attention to certain criteria before believing everything the reviewer says:
Use
Reviews are by their very nature extremely subjective. The person doing the reviewing can only make a judgement based on their own beliefs and these may be very different to yours. Therefore, it’s essential that they’ve marked the phone on the same criteria or under the same duress as you might otherwise they may not be marking it on the same criteria as you would. For example, they may be marking the phone down on its internet ability, storage or battery life when these are not elements which matter to you.
Availability
One of the most annoying things about using mobile phones is network availability. Although much has been done to improve this over the past few years, there are still many areas where one network will perform better than another and if the review in question is suggesting that their signal was not strong then it may be a fault of the network they were using rather than the phone itself.
Luckily, it’s very easy to check signal availability in your area and many networks do this prior to selling.
Length of trial
The length of a trial is very important in assessing how easy you will find the phone. Someone trying a phone for 15 minutes or having a demo from a professional is a lot different than you using the phone as your permanent choice, so you may need to give the phone more of a chance than they did before you truly get the hang of it.
Expertise
Many Samsung Galaxy S3 reviews criticise the ease with which they can work the functions or features of a phone and for the most part they might be right. A phone might be cumbersome or difficult to work. It might be slow or overly sensitive. However, if you’re about to take their word as gospel in terms of the ease of use of a particular phone, it’s well worth ensuring what their qualifications and background are. They may be making criticisms and suggesting that the phone is difficult to use but may have no experience with phones to be making such a judgement. You might find it significantly simpler.
This is a guest post from Alex Compton who lives in London, blogs on technology for Trusted Reviews.