Disparity between Surface tech site reviews and user reviews

Posted by notoriousyid on November 13, 2012 05:44 pm 74

So, I was just wandering around gdgt.com today, looking at the average scores of different products from tech sites. I looked at the 920 (the average on the website is wrong... should be 8.0 but it's 7.8 for some reason), the 8X, and the Surface. I also looked at their competition just to see how they fared compared to the MS products in terms of average scores. I also stumbled upon some articles about the Surface, talking about how absolutely horrible it is (from a bunch of sites that are not at all tech sites).

Anyway, one thing I really noticed was how critical so many "professional" reviewers were of the Surface (often with very legitimate complaints), and how much better the user reviews were.

On gdgt.com, the average tech site review score is 7.4 (with gdgt itself giving the device a 70/100). Yet, the user reviews' (of which there are more than either of newest iPads) average rating is a 9.0, putting it within a few decimal points of any iPad.

http://gdgt.com/microsoft/surface/with-windows-rt/

Similarly, Cnet gave the Surface a 3.5/5 (or a 7/10), yet the user reviews average out to about a 4.5/5 (or 9/10).

http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/microsoft-surface-rt/4505-3126_7-35332494.html

There weren't any other sites I could find with user reviews since the only online places I could find the Surface were the MS store and eBay (if you know of others, post them please).

Anyway, I'm curious: why do you guys think this is the case?

I have some ideas, but I'd definitely like to hear others' opinions.