That is hard to "bite the hand that feeds you". You'd need a magazine
like Consumer Reports that does not accept advertising in order to get
truly objective opinions on products. Then you also need experts to
evaluate it.

There's some product review info on some message forums like Top Yaker
and Kayak Fishing Stuff. But the info is a bit scattered.

Hey maybe we should start our own E-zine for objective reveiws! ;P

Ulli wrote:

Well,

I think that's the tricky thing for most magazines reviewing gear. You need
companies to provide material for testing and reviewing, and you want/need
their advertising to stay alive. If you trash them, you will get neither in the
future, but legal action is likely.
Boat reviews in magazines like seakayaker, paddler, etc. are always somehow
kind of positive. One needs to read between the lines to get the picture. They
will never write that a given boat is poor or bad, the art is to find the good
aspects and write about those.

ULli


arachedeux wrote:


Well mannered & polite. Maybe that's why their reviews lacked substance
when I had a subscription.

Well they're quite young and I imagine that the big dealers intimidate them
with promises of advertising. Their travelogues are untainted by this.
cheers,



--
Matt Langenfeld
JEM Watercraft
http://jem.e-boat.net/

"Matt Langenfeld" wrote in message
k.net...
That is hard to "bite the hand that feeds you". You'd need a magazine
like Consumer Reports that does not accept advertising in order to get
truly objective opinions on products. Then you also need experts to
evaluate it.

Experts are something that Consumer Reports lacks - at least when evaluating
computers, cameras & things like that. They do well at autos & appliances
though.

Ok, as I gave an example of a good canoe review, here's one that I didn't
think passed the test. It was a C&K review of solo tripping canoes. They
tripped over themselves saying something nice & nothing nasty about every
canoe. When they got to one particular boat, they emphasized it's fine
workmanship but didn't say much about it's paddling characteristics. I
thought that was rather strange as this particular canoe design & it's
designer are well respected. Then I noticed that the photo showed a wood
bow handle mounted well off square. So much for good workmanship.

So I wonder - did they emphasize the workmanship simply to discredit it? If
so, was this because the manufacturer didn't advertized in C&K?