How much trust do you put into product reviews and ratings?

2manyrocks · Mar 1, 2023

I tend to think many of the reviewers are cutting a few limbs off their trees in their yard on a limited basis and aren't subjecting them to my level of use. It took all day yesterday to cut 7 or 8 cedar trees that had blown over and the limbs had gotten tangled with each other. I mostly used a gas trimmer powerhead with a pole saw attachment. Ran through two tanks of gas. I suspect a gas pole saw is still my best option for speed of cutting and for being able to work without having to wait to recharge a battery.

Still, it struck me as odd that 84% recommend the m18 while 94% recommend the Echo, but the M18 is what I saw first when searching top rated products?

JasperFrank · Mar 1, 2023

Zero. All online reviews are crap. ALL ONLINE REVIEWS ARE CRAP.
Well BOLTR isn't.... but he just gets demonetized with every post. Cause he is true to his opinions.

Find people in the field, and what they use and work with. This is how I buy new tools.

I was so lucky in when I started out building my house, that a 20 year contractor went with me to the tool store. I had a munch of money to spend, and he said you need this and you need that. And you don't need these other things. He was right, and everything purchased 30 years ago, I still use. Even the Makita contractor site table saw, the 2708. Which I have abused in many ways, still works.

ponytug · Mar 1, 2023

JasperFrank said:
Zero. All online reviews are crap. ALL ONLINE REVIEWS ARE CRAP.
Well Boltz isn't.... but he just gets demonetized with every post.
Find people in the field, and what they use and work with. This is how I buy new tools.

I was so lucky in when I started out building my house, that a 20 year contractor went with me to the tool store. I had a munch of money to spend, and he said you need this and you need that. And you don't need these other things. He was right, and everything purchased 30 years ago, I still use. Even the Makita contractor site table saw, the 2708. Which I have abused in many ways, still works.

Lucky you! That sounds like an awesome experience.

2manyrocks · Mar 1, 2023

True, awesome experience.

Having an experience contractor that you personally know say this is good and that you don't need is radically better than taking some enthusiast's opinion as complete gospel when that enthusiast may have only used a tool a couple of times and hasn't used any similar tools to be able to compare them.

Cutting a few small limbs here and there isn't the same experience as clearing a very grown up fence row.

kenmbz · Mar 1, 2023

That is why I responded. I put a lot of hours on the M18 PS and have worn one chain already.
Most people take it and trim one tree and then write the review.

Living with a tool for a year shows the shortcomings.

I have a lot of M12 and M18 and the power head is nice for the weedwacker.
Since I got the head/ww and saw on a deal I just kept the PS and use it.
But sometimes I just use the manual pole saw.

Now my echo gas chainsaws and long hedge trimmer impress me and always start.

I don't think a battery HT would get through the ornamental grasses or be able to handle hundreds of feet of honeysuckle and bushes I need to get done. Like to not spend extra hours on that if I can help it.

2manyrocks · Mar 1, 2023

And I value your opinion a great deal.

alexpops · Mar 1, 2023

I tend to start at the 1 star reviews and see why. If it's delivery time/packaging/or obvious lack of sense in usage, that's one thing ... whole different thing if it's someone that sounds like they know how to use a tool. The 5 star tend to be the least helpful IMO and anything with "I got this free in return for a review" I ignore as pure shills. the 3-4 star reviews I find to be the least biased & actually might teach me (or warn me about) something about the tool that I don't know. I've basically come to the conclusion that most reviews are more concerned with "likes" than actually reviewing the item, so a LOT less useful than maybe 5 years ago.

ZTMAN · Mar 1, 2023

2manyrocks said:
When the M18 arrived today, it struck me as heavy compared to the gas saw I am using now. I was leaning towards returning the M18 and now I'm for sure returning it.

Thanks very, very much.

I saw that deal the other day and was going to order on line because I had a 10% off coupon plus and extra $25 off. A little voice in my head told me I better go to the store to see one in person.
Picked it up, and even without the battery, it was a lot heavier than my current two stroke model so I decided to pass.
I will stick with my current gas set up

ning · Mar 1, 2023

Thinks to look at with ratings: rating vs how many ratings.
I don't trust a 4.5 with 18 ratings, but I may trust a 4.2 with 2000 ratings.

Reviews matter a lot more. Scan a few of them, but pay attention mostly to the 4*, 3*, 2* reviews.
Ignore reviews that clearly show that the product hasn't had much use (I just got it, delivered on time! 5*).
Ignore reviews that sound like someone has an axe to grind with the seller (mostly 1* reviews) - unless there's a large proportion of such reviews.
5* reviews may be legitimate (I leave 5* reviews when I'm really happy with a product), but they are often shill-ish.
So don't completely disregard 5* but they require more careful reading to see if they're real.

So that leaves the 2,3,4 * reviews; IMO rarely is a shill going to leave a 4* review as that typically brings down the average, so 4* should be a real person.
Still though you can't just look at the 4.3* average and say "ok" because some of those 4* are like last night I'm reading HF reviews for a winch and a few 4* reviews were "I installed it but haven't pulled my truck yet so I'm just leaving a 4* review" well that's f'n helpful.

The most believable reviews are like "this seems like a great product but I can see that this thing here is going to eventually break. but at $20 compared to the $80 I could've spent, it's good enough and a good buy"
or something like "I can see what they were trying to do with this product but they really didn't get there. It works... kinda. It's obviously going to be in pieces the fourth time I use it, and I do need to use it 4 times. The fact that it's working so far is worth 2* but I really can't recommend it unless you only need to use it once"
see there's content there, and the guy isn't super happy about the product but he's not trying to burn it down with lies either.