Complaints...the essence of human nature? Chrome Experiment sidebar

As part of my Chrome Experiment I've been trying to read as much as I can about the Chromebook and Chrome OS. Aside from tech-writer blog posts and online magazine articles, I've found that there's a wealth of information available from the people who have purchased Chromebooks. You can find many of their stories as product reviews on Amazon.com and BestBuy.com as well as on Chromebook Central, the official google groups Chromebook forum. But, there's a problem...human nature.

I've pointed this out to friends in the past: You have to read user product reviews very carefully and consider the source of the information. It's in our nature as human beings to complain when something doesn't work the way it should, and unfortunately there are many of our fellow humans that will write up a complaint without thinking things through logically. Examples:

• The member on Chromebook Central who rated his initial experience as negative because when he got his new Chromebook home he couldn't set it up...because he doesn't have wi-fi at his house. The specs clearly state the device has no ethernet port, and if you need ethernet connectivity you will need an adapter.
• The poster on Amazon.com that proclaimed the Samsung Chromebook to be trash even though it was evident he doesn't own one or hasn't used one.
• The poster on Amazon.com that tried to warn us all to stay away from Chromebooks because when he got his home he couldn't connect to his wi-fi network. He didn't mention if he tried to take his new machine to another location and connect to a different network, and he didn't acknowledge the fact that it could be his wireless router.

There's another problem with product reviews: Fanboys (or girls). Fanboys often are so dedicated to one manufacturer or one product that they will fail to accept any problems or shortcomings a product might have. Examples:

• The poster on Chromebook Central that said he wasn't impressed with the performance of the Chromebook because it wasn't any faster than his MacBook. (News flash, Google never said it would run circles around Mac hardware)
• The poster on Amazon.com who stated the hardware felt pretty solid, but would be better if the case was all aluminum (a la Apple laptops).
• That same poster, along with countless others, who have stated they felt the device was overpriced for what you get. I keep seeing $200 to $250 thrown around as a desired price point. Many of these reviewers complained that they could buy a similarly sized Windows laptop for the same money with more capabilities.

The thing is, if you look at just the star rating on any given site for any given item, you are not getting the whole picture most of the time. Amazon.com's site has a great feature that shows you in a product review whether or not the poster is a verified purchaser...a great way to judge the credibility of the review. But if you look at the Chromebook rating on Amazon you'll see it has 4 out of five stars overall, with most rating it 5 stars (63 out of 136 were 5 stars). If you read all the one star reviews, that's when you will see who's objective and who is not. You also must consider this: You'll never see a product review that says "Eh...it's ok." For every product review you read, there are more than likely hundreds of other people happily using the product who didn't feel the need to write about it. To be fair, there may also be others who didn't care for the product but not to the point to write a formal complaint.

That being said, I'm feeling more and more inclined to buy the Chromebook because of the positive reviews I've read. When I'm reading the reviews, I want to read the 1 star reviews and I want to know about legitimate complaints, such as hardware failure or bad customer service experiences. However, I'm more interested in objective reviews, people who state if the device works as designed. I also like to read about people who use the Chromebook so much more than they expected that they have all but forgotten their main computers (notice that I said main computers, because the smart shopper realizes that at this time most of us will not be able to completely replace a full featured computer with this device). As for the complaints, I just find most of them laughable. It won't run circles around your Mac? It's never going to, it has an Atom processor. Browser tabs crash when you try to watch high definition video with 25 other tabs open? Close some tabs. You wish it cost $200, yet you also wish it had a solid aluminum case like a Mac? You can't have both. You can buy a Windows laptop for the same price? Fine, go right ahead...Norton will send you a thank you note. You think that $350 to $500 is too expensive for these devices? Have you priced (full price mind you) an Android phone or iPhone lately? Sure, I wish I could get a Ferrari for the price of a Toyota, but I'm not going to get on a Ferrari forum page and complain about price.

My advice is to always read the description and specs on any product...know what you're buying before you buy! Find the user's or owners forum (there's one for almost anything), talk to people who use the product on a daily basis. Somewhere between the chronic complainers and the always faithful fanboys you'll find the information you need: objective, logical, and fair.