For those that don’t understand Consumer Reports
My father has a Consumer Reports subscription that I borrow from time to time for product research. Here are some quotes from their website on what scores and recommendations mean, and my interpretation of how the iPhone could be the highest-rated smartphone, while still not being recommended.
On Overall Score:
“Overall score is based mainly on Display, Navigation, Voice quality, Phoning, Messaging, Web browsing, Multimedia, and Battery life, and also considers document editing as well as the phone’s size and weight. The displayed score is out of a total of 100 points. Phones are listed in performance order, within categories. Due to test upgrades, results may vary from past Ratings.”
Reports from average consumers are not factored in, as best I can tell. There is a separate user reviews section where users can rate on a 5-star scale. No user reviews have yet been lodged for the iPhone 4.
On Recommendations:
“Recommended models are those that, based on our expert evaluation, deserve special consideration. We highlight high-scoring models that combine performance, features and value, so that you can choose the product that best suits your budget and lifestyle.”
It’s common in all categories of products that CR reviews for a particular product that doesn’t earn a recommendation to score higher than models that have, in fact, earned recommendations, and even “best buys”. Rarely does it happen, though, that the highest rated product in a category would not be recommended.
My interpretation is that the retracted recommendation is less about the overall quality phone, which is great for users that live and work in strong coverage areas, and more about Apple’s poor handling of the problem, which is unquestionably widespread.
