If you want to search for a flashlight, and you have a list of 100 reviews, which type of sorting would be the most convenient for you?
Or if your wife/girlfriend is begging you to read reviews with her, which type of sorting would be the most universal?
I understand that type of sorting is dependent on your needs, e.g. if you want to buy the newest shoes you sort by date, if money is your priority you sort by price. But if you could choose only one type of sorting, which one would be the most convenient in flashlight reviews topic? You can choose max 2 options.
See my post below for better understanding
Sort from newest to oldest
Sort from A to Z (the same as sort by brand, bc all Convoys will be clumped together)
Looking at the most recent makes sense as its most indicative of what you will be getting. Looking at bad reviews also makes sense as you want to learn about the problems a product has.
Many companies show you positive reviews no matter the age. This is misleading.
Also, many companies including Amazon play games with reviews. I have seen too many products with 5000 five star reviews. When I click to read them most are negative, one and two star.
My bad, it seems like I didnāt describe my question very well.
Itās not about reviews on Amazon, where you have 1 product and read feedback about it.
My question was about website like rtings.com where you have one review per product.
And imagine you are a fan of headphones, and you just found this website. You want to have basic knowledge about all reviewed headphones (they have 700+ reviews) and you have a goal to read all reviews, just briefly, to know everything about headphones.
So your main goal is not to buy specific headphones, but to learn about headphones in general.
And you can choose one sorting. Which one would it be?
From newest, to see a pattern if recent headphones are better than old ones?
From A to Z to easily learn which brand makes the best headphones?
Or sort by type, to see generally if running headphones are good, if big headphones are comfortable etc.
I think I would sort by type to see which type sounds the best, which type has the best microphone, so I will know: open headphones sound the best, but generally have bad microphone, small cable headphones generally have good microphone.
I use no type of sorting in my reviews. In addition not all my reviews are positive. Right now Iām struggling to do a review for an advanced type of battery that is causing undesired effects in the test light.
Last year I had a company offer me a $50 Amazon gift card for a 5-star review of a seriously flawed product (that I bought partly because it had tons of 5-star reviews.)
If Iām looking for a product itās for something to fulfill a specific role. Using lights as an analogy, thereās no point in looking at reviews for soda can lights if all I want is a AAA Keychain light.
If I want a high-level overview, Iāll go and look for āwidget buying guideā as itās quicker than reading loads of reviews and deducing what trade offs there are for each design/category.
Often Iāll read a couple of buying guides as there is a lot of garbage written by people who donāt actually know that much but are trying to make ācontentā.
Iāll shortlist max 4-5 items based on utility, price and aesthetics etc, then choose one from the list.
With lots of gear, I have difficulty deciding between cheap āgood enoughā and moderately expensive āreally goodā items. āBuy once, cry onceā isnāt universal, nor do I have the money for expensive stuff all the time.
Iām also a YouTube video review hater. So much waffle and āuhhā and the camera angle/shots of the product are inferior to photos. Iāll seek out good written reviews with photos, then confirm Iāve made right choice with a video review, often played at 2x and skipped to bits of interest.
"The seller included an offer in the packaging for a $30 gift card if I gave them a 5-star review and e-mailed the link, and as much as I would love a gift card, I would rather leave an honest review to help others.
Update: I received a postcard from the seller offering me $50 PayPal if I changed to a 5-star review, then I received an email offering me $200 if I changed to a 5-star review. I reported this to Amazon. I will not change my review because it is true and I donāt want others to have to deal with leaks and returns."
