Can You Trust the Reviews?

Please Note: This is an edit of a previous posting I did when RIM Playbooks and Google Chromebooks first came out.  With the advent of Windows 8, Windows Surface and now Windows Phone 8, I thought it was timely to revisit this topic.

I drink my coffee black.  I didn't always take it this way. When I started, I was like many who would enjoy a Timmee's DD (This is a Canadian colloquialism, it has nothing to do with cup size), but then I dropped the sugar.  Then the cream.

When I first decided to drop the cream, (to preserve my lean, lithe, pantherlike figure) I hated the stuff in the cup.  This was not coffee, it was more like a mixture of motor oil and camel spit.  (Not that I was speaking from experience, but I do have a vivid imagination.)

It took weeks for me to start appreciating the rich aromatic flavour of a good cup of coffee.  It got to the point where coffee with cream tasted bland, and there is no way I would ever go back to cream in my coffee.

So what does this have to do with hardware and software reviews?

The Playbook Tablet - Rock Star or Wannabe? (BlogIdol Repost)

I play guitar.  It's about the only thing I've done longer than being (happily) married, and I've been married a long time.  If you look at my profile picture, you will soon conclude that in no way, shape, or form, do I resemble a rock star.  Ozzie has no worries about competition from me.

If I look at REAL rock stars; Clapton, Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Jimmy Page, Jim Morrison, Les Paul, [add your list here], they are defined by the innovation they brought to their music, bending the rules to create a whole new experience that was soon copied by everyone else.

Rock and Roll defined a whole generation, and the artists collectively took popular culture to a whole new level.  Almost every 12 year old that asked for a guitar wasn't thinking about Uncle Bob's old nylon string classical that's been under the bed in the guest room for years.  They wanted a Strat, or a Telecaster, or a Les Paul, or a Flying Vee, and a really, really, big, amplifier.