Consumerreports.org is biased!?!?

[DreamingOfSpeed]

Consumer reports should only be used for toliet paper, never reading materal.

If you watch the news you probabley heard about thier latest travesty of a story. They claimed without any credentials that nearly all infant car seats failed their tests and that only 2 were safe. Then refused to release any testing information to the companies who's seats failed, the NHTSA (the governmental standards board who sets safety testing), and other critics of the magazine. After a court ordered review of the tests it was found they out sourced the tests to another testing body, never checked their facility, did not install the car seats properly, tested them at twice the intended speed, and reused seats from crash test to crash test (seats can only be used in 1 crash. It will not withstand a 2nd crash). Before checking their findings or thoroughly reviewing the data they send consumers into a fearful tizzy about their infant seats being dangerous. Apparently scientific method is lost on these people, in the science community tests are run several times and findings are offered to critics for review before they are ever allowed to be read by the public.

Oh and 'safety ratings 'are a joke too. They do test every seat and determine how safe they think it is but they dont release the pure findings of the test results to the public. They use a complicated formula which combines test results with ease of use, comfort, affordability, and LOOKS. Yes, looks in a 'safety rating'. So a seat that is ugly and performs well and a seat that is nicer looking and performs worse could be given the same rating.

There that's my consumer reports rant. I'm done now.

Oh and they were wrong about the Dyson. Its not a waste of money, it really is better (and if you let it get too close to a prom dress it will suck 5 feet of it into the wand. The other 3 vacuums i had never did that!)

[pavanbabut]

Originally Posted by RSVX

This is like asking if www.tomshardware.com is biased, I mean... cmon...

I never buy my computer hardware depending on that site, NEVER. On the other hand, they do have very good testing procedures and benchmarks and come up with good reviews and you sure will get lots of information from their reviews (same with anandtech too). But it seems like many americans follow consumerreports
-Pavan

[pavanbabut]

Originally Posted by DreamingOfSpeed

Consumer reports should only be used for toliet paper, never reading materal.

If you watch the news you probabley heard about thier latest travesty of a story. They claimed without any credentials that nearly all infant car seats failed their tests and that only 2 were safe. Then refused to release any testing information to the companies who's seats failed, the NHTSA (the governmental standards board who sets safety testing), and other critics of the magazine. After a court ordered review of the tests it was found they out sourced the tests to another testing body, never checked their facility, did not install the car seats properly, tested them at twice the intended speed, and reused seats from crash test to crash test (seats can only be used in 1 crash. It will not withstand a 2nd crash). Before checking their findings or thoroughly reviewing the data they send consumers into a fearful tizzy about their infant seats being dangerous. Apparently scientific method is lost on these people, in the science community tests are run several times and findings are offered to critics for review before they are ever allowed to be read by the public.

Interesting fining... never heard of this issue... hmm consumerreports

-Pavan

[RSVX]

Originally Posted by pavanbabut

(same with anandtech too). -Pavan

Thats the site I use.

[pavanbabut]

Originally Posted by RSVX

Thats the site I use.

yeh, anandtech is more clear, but till now I never saw a review on both sites coming to same conclusion on any product.. (at the most they will be close with different opinions, for example like reviews b/n asus and gigabyte boards or tyan and supermicro boards)
-Pavan