Josh Topolsky replies to his unfavorable review on The Verge

[jd914]

I personally think he's a pompous jerk but thats my opinion.

Fast forward to 34 minutes

The Vergecast - April 5th, 2012 - YouTube

 

[Gaiking]

Yeah....Josh is an arrogant buffoon. After using the 900 for a few hours I can say this deserves at the absolute least ..an 8.5/10.....I myself give it a 9.

 

[theefman]

Far better people to listen to who have given balanced reviews, no need to listen to biased people like Josh and Uncle Walt.

 

[cwmont13]

One thing he's right about ... he IS dry! I can hardly stand to watch him for even 30 seconds. Just take a look at all the Apple hardware sitting around him. You'll never get a fair review from this guy. just my opinion YMMV

 

[threed61]

As I said in another post, he's in love with the sound of his own voice.

 

[gtbuzz]

Meh, if he doesn't like it, whatever. Its his opinion and he's entitled to it. The rest of us can be happy ith our 900's. Still feel like their quality of news is still far better than Engadget, et al.

I think that the negative points that he brought up in the review are valid ones, but the things that irked me about the review is that he spent zero time on the positive aspects of the platform ( for instance search for live tile in the review - you won't find it). Seems to be based on how the review was written, it was written from the perspective of the ultra techy user (I mean, IRC??, cmon!), and from that standpoint, I can see where he's coming from. That user is probably happier with an Android phone. For the vast majority of users though, I don't think his criticisms hold as much water and would have weighed down the score as much. For the average user, I can easly say this is an 8-9 phone.

Before Mango, I was hesitant to recommend WP to anyone yet, because honestly it felt unpolished. Mango helped to clean a lot of that up, but there's still a ways to go (my two biggest gripes? No notification center (not everyone who does push notifications has a good live tile, such as ebay) and why on earth can I only multitask with back? Why not when I hit the program from the list again????). At this point though, I have no reservations trying to talk people into Windows Phone, especially a lot of my old WiMo friends that went to Android.

 

[Bkr11]

He is so freaking full of himself it's not even funny.

 

[tekhna]

One thing he's right about ... he IS dry! I can hardly stand to watch him for even 30 seconds. Just take a look at all the Apple hardware sitting around him. You'll never get a fair review from this guy. just my opinion YMMV

But that's the WHOLE point--you're not going to get a fair review from an iphone user, even as casual one. By and large, they're happy with their phones, with the hardware, the software, and the Apple image. This is the uphill battle Microsoft is fighting--how are you supposed to get a word in edgewise when 96% of users are happy with what they've got? Why would they bother?

 

[Thuoudo]

The takeaway:

-You don't know me
-I know more about tech than you
-My review is perfect because Microsoft on the whole doesn't have anything going for it
-I don't have any biases because I know things you don't
-Me me me me me

That should save you some time.

 

[Adiliyo]

The takeaway:



That should save you some time.

my thoughts exactly.

while i do enjoy the verge and feel their newsreporting is better than engadget, i am not a fan of josh as i feel he is a pompous tool.

also, am i the only person who really doesn't like the layout of the verge? it's so cluttered, it's like they took the idea of metro and then threw up all over it.

 

[fogel35]

Wow he is a narcissist with a heavy dose of self importance.

 

[Mikes2nd]

not worth the time...

He is just hating on MS... Hah 5 years in tech... and he knows everything.

Is the 900 perfect? nope. Oh but the iphone and galaxy is...

900 is a great phone and its only going to get better, design the phone is incredible.

 

[scottcraft]

I certainly feel that Josh could have spent some time focusing on the positives of the 900, but I agree with the negative points.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[mismo]

I'm not sure why people are so harsh on this guy for his review. The htc one x only got an 8.4. Personally I think reviewers throw around 8/9s way too easily and it shows by how offended we are to see a phone rated 7/10. The lumia isn't a perfect phone, and we shouldn't pretend like it is. As much as I like it personally, there's a lot of areas where both the phone and the OS are limited and can be improved upon. Maybe 7 is on the low end but honestly 7.5 is just about right imo

 

[threed61]

I'm not sure why people are so harsh on this guy for his review. The htc one x only got an 8.4. Personally I think reviewers throw around 8/9s way too easily and it shows by how offended we are to see a phone rated 7/10. The lumia isn't a perfect phone, and we shouldn't pretend like it is. As much as I like it personally, there's a lot of areas where both the phone and the OS are limited and can be improved upon. Maybe 7 is on the low end but honestly 7.5 is just about right imo

I don't have any great problem with the review, its his look at me, I'm so funny and witty and clever attitude. I can't stand to listen to him talk about any subject. I can't believe anyone will do a show with him either, always butting in trying to be the life of party.

 

[Adiliyo]

I'm not sure why people are so harsh on this guy for his review. The htc one x only got an 8.4. Personally I think reviewers throw around 8/9s way too easily and it shows by how offended we are to see a phone rated 7/10. The lumia isn't a perfect phone, and we shouldn't pretend like it is. As much as I like it personally, there's a lot of areas where both the phone and the OS are limited and can be improved upon. Maybe 7 is on the low end but honestly 7.5 is just about right imo

i didn't have a problem with the score, but it's the general tone of the review and its one sided bashing of the OS without showing ANY of the good things that it can do. giving a one sided "review" of anything is just bad journalism and he should be bashed for it.

plus i just don't like his personality in general, but that's a whole different topic.

 

[Darth Lumia]

He could have given the Lumia a -10 and i would still buy it. However dwelling on the negative and not pointing any of the positives about the phone that's where i REALLY have an isssue.
It shows how far up Apple's rectum he is in , and for those who will defend him and point out that he's an Android user... come on is he needs to cater to the Android fan base otherwise his blog would get no clicks... my two cents

 

[Ochowie84]

Watching his Vergecast comments has really soured me on the whole site. I don't understand where his attitude of superiority comes from. Just because he gets free stuff to review doesn't mean he "knows more about technology than us". The guy is a journalist (using the term loosely) but claims to have some kind of secret insight into technology and I don't understand where that comes from. Listening to the way he talked down to his readership makes me really hesitant to keep reading the site. I didn't really get to upset about the review but the way he has handled it has been really poor.

 

[tekhna]

Watching his Vergecast comments has really soured me on the whole site. I don't understand where his attitude of superiority comes from. Just because he gets free stuff to review doesn't mean he "knows more about technology than us". The guy is a journalist (using the term loosely) but claims to have some kind of secret insight into technology and I don't understand where that comes from. Listening to the way he talked down to his readership makes me really hesitant to keep reading the site. I didn't really get to upset about the review but the way he has handled it has been really poor.

Uhh, well, that's the point of being a professional anything--to know more about something than normal people.
Does my doctor know more than me about medicine? Yep. Does my lawyer know more than me about the law? Yep. Does the baseball scout know more than me about baseball? Yep. Does the political journalist know more about what's happening inside Washington than me? Best believe it. Does a tech journalist know more about tech than me? Yep, of course. Because it's their job to.

 

[Ochowie84]

Uhh, well, that's the point of being a professional anything--to know more about something than normal people.
Does my doctor know more than me about medicine? Yep. Does my lawyer know more than me about the law? Yep. Does the baseball scout know more than me about baseball? Yep. Does the political journalist know more about what's happening inside Washington than me? Best believe it. Does a tech journalist know more about tech than me? Yep, of course. Because it's their job to.

I think a doctor or lawyer don't really qualify as there is really specific training that goes into being a member of those fields. I guess my issue is with what he means by knowing more than us. If he means that maybe he knows certain things coming down the pipeline that haven't leaked yet then yes he knows more than us. However, that's not what I think he meant in the comments he made in that video. I think he meant that he knows more about "technology" (not just future products or releases), and that to me is patently absurd. To use your example of a political journalist, a political journalist might know more about the backroom dealings or gossip in the area that he covers, but I wouldn't say he knows more about politics as a theoretical field then most people.

I don't want to go into what makes or doesn't make him a professional as the lines of journalism are being blurred in the era of blogs and such, but I don't buy him as a professional akin to a doctor or a lawyer. He's more like the guy who runs WebMD (except they are most likely doctors too). Has he even worked at a tech company aside from "building his own computers" and running tech websites?