Leveraging community involvement for Tablet PC Review

Hi all, so this is continuation of this discussion, where I suggested that the forum community could coordinate to create better tablet reviews:

Later in the thread, @Steve S explained that crowdfunding may lead to complications that could go against the forum rules.

So if crowdfunding is not recommended, then I propose an alternative:

• Let a community poll/discussion select which tablets should be reviewed by TPCR.
• Let members of the community volunteer to create an in-depth review of those tablets.

This takes care of several problems I see with the current site/review structure:

1) There is a deep disconnect between the front page reviews (which generate next to no comments or discussion) and the actual community interest, which generally lie in higher-end tablet pcs and peripherals with stylus input.

2) Meaning no disrespect to @Ed Hardy, the analysis within the official TPCR reviews is often too general to provide the community with useful purchase/comparison information; we instead find ourselves waiting for an in-depth NotebookCheck review or hoping a community member creates a detailed review post.

3) Many of our members are outside US and must wait months to years to access new devices, yet we are always at the forefront of finding and analyzing every bit of tablet pc news on the internet. This delay is very frustrating for many of us; we would simply like a way to pool our resources to obtain new devices as they release and have access to reviews that focus on our specific interests (such as often-neglected stylus performance tests).​

Overall, I feel this site could be greatly improved by bridging the gap between the two halves of TPCR in a way that leverages the enthusiasm and knowledge of the community.

Thank you to the site management and forum participants for your consideration on this matter.

- Marty

 

I've made some negative comments about the articles before. They are, to put it bluntly, very shallow. For reviews I go to notebookcheck.net who are without a doubt the most thorough reviewers on the internet.

However, I fully realize that people like me don't drive page views. For every reader who wants to know about the Adobe RGB coverage there are probably 10 or 100 that don't.

I'm comfortable staying in the forums.

 

I suppose we'll need to be in agreement on the kind of tests to be run on the device so results are even regardless of reviewer.

 

Reviewing new hardware isn't as easy as it looks. Yes there are objective measures but these require time-consuming tests. Some require specialized testing hardware. There's also the subjective aspect/reviewer experience/bias that must be considered.

And writing 1000-2000 coherent words about anything can be a major chore.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

This is a great idea. The community has so many great contributors that can offer quality reviews. Make it democratic.

No comment on the official reviews. Never read them.

 

Exactly

I have given some thought about how to do this actually...you would just need an ~$300 XY-plotter fitted with stylus holder, so not too expensive.

But generally speaking, even if reviewers could do simple ruler tests and record a high-fps video with their cellphone, that would already be leagues better than most reviews out there.

 

This is not a problem I have. Everything on PCWorld with my byline has seen significant editing to bring the word count down. They'd give me a tablet and a few days and I'd use it non-stop while writing the review on it. My first drafts generally came in around 1500 words. I'd have to make at least two trimming passes myself to be able to submit anything close to under 1000 words, which the editors greatly preferred, otherwise it takes too long to edit. And I just got the little bay trail tablets, no flagships, so my reviews had to stay bite sized. I've had entire paragraphs trying to explain the advantages of active digitizers over capacitive stylii cut completely.

Although, I suppose calling my initial rambling first drafts "coherent" might be up for debate.

And my husband just complained about my long posts before I could even click Post Reply.