Despite ‘Don’t Buy’ Recommendation, iPhone 4 Is Consumer Reports’ Top-Rated Smartphone
[Via Daring Fireball]
John Paczkowski:
In short, the iPhone 4 is hands-down the best smartphone available today, but Consumer Reports advises against buying it.
Seems nutty to me to give it a “don’t buy” for this single annoyance alone.
Update: A bunch of people are giving me shit on Twitter for saying this is “nutty”. What’s the sentiment behind that, though? That the iPhone 4 antenna issue is so profound, that the problems are so severe, that the iPhone 4 is a bad product (or at least a bad phone) and people shouldn’t buy it? Then how come so many iPhone 4 users love their phones? And, to the point at hand, how come it’s still Consumer Reports’ top-rated smartphone? If the problem is that bad, shouldn’t the product be poorly rated? And if it’s not that big a problem, why give it a “don’t buy”? That’s what’s nutty.
Think of it this way: if they can’t recommend their top-rated smartphone, their buying advice must be to buy a lower-rated product. What should people buy instead? An iPhone 3GS? (That’s their second-highest rated smartphone.) Sorry, but that’s nutty, because the iPhone 4 is way better — antenna attenuation when held in certain ways or not — than the 3GS.
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Being consistent is not really a road to success in today’s media world. And, as has been discussed, actually doing properly controlled work is not something some research groups consistently do.
But doing things that will get lots of press and lots of hits… that is something that seems to be pretty consistent.
