Listen up, people. Consumer Reports is a great publication if you’re in the market for a toaster or AA batteries. In the interest of self-disclosure, I plan to read the hell out of their reviews when I’m shopping around for my next steam iron.
But like anything else, you have to know which opinions to trust and which to discard. I’d never ask my grandmother for her thoughts on international trade relations or Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger for his top ten albums of the year. Similarly, I wouldn’t ask Consumer Reports for help picking out my next mobile phone.
Case in point: CR recently gave WinMo an excellent rating for its ease of use. For those of you keeping score, that’s higher than both the iPhone and the G1. Having used all three in varying capacities, I’m pretty sure that this just isn’t the case. Say what you will about the iPhone and its faults, but Apple definitely polished the OS to be one of the most user-friendly interfaces in the game today.