All of my full reviews are of lights provided by manufacturers or dealers free of charge for review purposes. I am not kind to review units that have issues. I think itâs also pretty clear in my writing when discussing a light that doesnât have any major problems but didnât do it for me. I thought my unenthusiastic review might keep Fenix from sending me more lights, but I have a new headlamp on the way for review already.
Iâm publishing three reviews probably tomorrow, and one of them will warn users that the light in question might burn their house down and unequivocally recommend a competing product (incidentally, one of the other three reviews).
There are a lot of good reviewers in the community who donât pay for what they review. If somebody has a history, you can usually figure out if theyâre fair by looking at the negative things they have to say about lights. One thing to be aware of though is that reviewers often request specific lights and usually pick things they expect to like. Iâm usually not wrong when I expect to like something.
Iâm not saying that reviewers of free products are dishonest, at all. I do think they are being âplayedâ by the Vendors.
I AM saying that Vendors intentionally offer multiple reviewers free samples in order to get multiple âreviewsâ to appear on the board. That is why we see what is essentially SPAM (Marketing Blitz), when more than one review appears, often at the same time, for the same product.
I think reviews of free samples should go into the Commercial Forum, to stop the Vendors from gaming the system to bypass the Commercial Forum. I always use the ânot commercialâ link at the top of the BLF page. It does not work to eliminate multiple âreviewsâ.
I put âreviewâ in quotes because I consider them Commercial SPAM, when there is more than one âreviewâ due to multiple free samples.
A good example I think is Sofirn. Iâm not against Sofirn, but it was very noticeable the last couple of days that there are a lot of (objective) reviews of Sofirn lights. Obviously, this will increase brand exposure thus sales; hence this can be seen as a form of advertising. And this seems to be a legit construction to advertise outside the commercial section. I think this is what jon_slider is referring to. This is just an observation from my side.
It is the Vendor, not the âreviewerâ, that is causing multiple posts (SPAM) about the same light. I think âreviewersâ of free lights should post to the SAME thread, IF there is already a âreviewâ.
That way we wonât have to see all the same MFG info and photos, over and over, and the âreviewersâ can focus on posting their own ORIGINAL material based on their own tests. I DO value Original material from âreviewersâ of free samples.
I have always wondered how do people get all these lights for free, are there lists to sign up to, do they ask directly or get asked?
I have offered a couple of times and never heard back, I think they fear what I would do to their product :laughing:
ask the vendor
Vendor will ask you for a link to one of your reviews, so they can judge the quality of your work for their advertising purposes.
One of the easiest ways to create a âreviewâ to promote yourself to a Vendor, is to use a YouTube Video. Some âreviewersâ just post a link to their Video, which forces you to watch the whole thing to find any original material. Often Video âreviewsâ have even less original material than written âreviewsâ.
Yeah, watched a lot, mostly clueless people turning the light on and off and yappin although some do a really good job even stripping the light down etc but theyâre rare.
I never watch video reviews. Iâd far rather have a well-written article with photos and runtime graphs that I can read through at my own pace. I really donât understand why vendors are so fixated on videos.
Wellp, as one who just posted a long-overdue review of a free(ish) Sofirn light, I can both understand where youse are coming from, but something you donât see is the behind-the-scenes PMing that goes on. Lots of it is advice or suggestions at what BLFers would like, and in the other direction hints as to whatâs coming down the âpike.
Most of the lights I repeatedly recommend (RJ02, DV-S9) like a broken record, I paid full price for. Others, same, but for use as hosts (â502B, F13). Freebies, I give honest reviews, including shortcomings and things that just bug me. But how else to improve next iterations of a light, without directed feedback?
One light, I pointed out how I thought (and still think) it was hands-down the best thought-out light Iâve ever come across, yet the horrible green-tinted beam was hideous. No idea if Iâll ever get a for-review freebie from that brand, but I told it like it was.
Me personally, I like reading reviews. Doesnât matter to me if it was paid for or supplied for free, as long as the reviewâs honest. Most of the reviews Iâve seen here, of freebies, have been just that.
So? I donât mind. Especially if I can answer âyesâ to the question âWould I want to know this before Iâd buy that light?â.
My first was after seriously grexing about a horrible green beam, I got asked if Iâd want to try a different CT and see if itâs any better.
Another, a mfr posted a thread here looking for volunteers to review lights. I said âSure!â. And kinda like giving a loaded gun to a drunk monkey, they sent me a light to review.
A vendor contacted me to do a couple reviews after I wrote a popular rant on reddit about how you probably want an 18650-powered light even though you think you donât. Another vendor followed suit, and at that point I had written enough reviews to have credibility when asking for lights to review.
I still get ignored though. Nitecore and Acebeam have never replied to me even when they were actively asking for reviewers. Thrunite replied, but never sent me the Neutron I asked for nor said they werenât going to.
Of course, free review samples do get publicity for the manufacturer, but I donât see anything wrong with that because good reviews are also useful to the community. So often, I see questions (mostly on reddit, where Iâm more active) about lights that require an independent test by someone with a modicum of expertise to answer. Yes, too many reviews on one light can get a bit stale, but I have yet to see clutter on a level that makes finding things Iâm interested in on the forum harder.
Of course, Iâm not a neutral observer here. I like writing reviews, and I mostly like the free stuff (Iâm still not sure what Iâm going to do with that Wuben T102, which has about the worst firmware possible).