Open letter to Consumer Reports

[mark_herring]

A open letter to Consumer Reports

Mark Herring, 11 April, 2004

 

Sirs;

 

After reading accounts in various forums, I read with some interest

your recent articles (May 2004) on inkjet printers and third-party

ink. I must tell you that I find your work superficial and

amateurish---with the conclusions misleading at best and�in the limit�

downright erroneous. Inkjet printing for both consumers and

professionals has been maturing for many years, and is a complex and

highly-developed technology. You have covered it only at the grade-

school level.

 

1. In your printer article, you state: �Eventually all photos fade,

and inkjet photos have a reputation for fading faster than other

types.� While this may be true for a typical dye-based printer

using normal glossy paper, there are many more variations extant.

First�for dye printing�there are the so-called �swellable polymer�

papers that absorb and encapsulate the ink. Epson Colorlife is only

one example. These papers offer lifetime on the order of 25 years

with dye ink. All of us have seen 1-hour photolab products fade more

quickly.

More seriously, you omit ANY discussion of pigment printers. The

first of these in the consumer market was the Epson 2000. Widely

criticized for its color rendition, it nonetheless offered 200-year

print life on selected papers. More recently, Epson has introduced

several pigment-based printers with trademarks such as �Durabright�

and �Ultrachrome�. You would have to have been marooned on a desert

island to have missed their advertising, and yet you make no mention

of any of these products�some of which are the MOST POPULAR printers

in use.

 

2. Your sampling of printers for test is totally skewed, omitting�as

mentioned above�some of the most popular and widely-used models.

Your article is slanted towards photo printing, and yet you list

several HP models that are never considered photo printers (they are

4-color systems), and you OMIT the most widely used Epson models�

including ALL of their 6 and 7-color �Photo� printers.

 

3. Finally, your article about third party ink has serious problems.

First, consider some basic logic: Inkjet printing has been around a

long time. Why would anyone believe that a particular manufacturer

had some magic formula for ink such that nothing else would work in

their printers? This is simply not plausible. While it IS credible

to believe that the typical printer manufacturer has taken the time

to test an ink formula that works well in their printers, it does not

follow that noone else can make compatible ink.

If you sample the various forums relating to photo printing with

inkjets, you will see mention of many sources of 3rd party ink,

refill kits, and continuous-feed systems. You will also see

testimonials from both advanced amateurs and professionals who use

these products. It is wholly consistent with the amateurish nature

of your article that you mention NONE of the most often recommended

sources, including for example: MIS Associates, Mediastreet, Lyson,

ColorBat, Weink. Read the forums---you will find many others.

In summary, your articles have serious errors of omission and are

unbalanced in that widely-used products and technologies receive no

mention. Your blanket statements about third-party ink cannot be

reconciled with the large user community successfully using these

products.

 

To maintain your integrity and credibility, I believe that it is

incumbent on you to publish something more complete and competent.

 

I am sure that all participants in these forums join me in urging you

to respond.

[catchlight]

Thanks for taking the time to point out to CR the inadequacy of their "tests" of inkjet printers.

 

Reading that article proved to me that CR is not up to the task of reviewing cameras, computers, and peripherals. Compare, for example, the thoroughness, impartiality, and expertise exhibited in Phil Askey's camera reviews (www.dpreview.com) with their, as you aptly put it, amateurish work.

 

After years of trusting CR, I have decided not to look to them for advice on anything except, perhaps, cars--and those ratings are largely the compilation of readers' opinions.

[awahlster]

Mark I wish I had read your letter BEFORE I plopped down my 39.00 for a subsciption to the online version, Which after reading the articles on inkjets printers (what I was after) I learned nothing and realised I had wasted my money. I didn't bother even looking when I started to chose a new Monitor to go with the new imaging processing computer I am building. I just came to places like this forum and the B&W print group on Yahoo. While I got a bunch of different answers and even some that were quite conflicting. It lead me directly to the Monitor that fit my budget and had the very best spec's I could afford. After the forums and groups narrowed my choices down I went to online review sites and learned about reliablity issues and real world experiances with the various monitors. THIS was very important for me as I live in the Salem Oregon area there are only very limited comsumer outlets to allow any type of hands on look at something like a monitor suitable to photo work.

 

NOTHING will replace the hands on experiance of the online forums and review site where real people let you know what you are looking at when it comes to the new digital imaging world. IMHO

 

Mark W.

[maureen_m]

I quit paying attention to CR years ago, when I bought a GE dishwasher that rated at (or near) the very bottom of their list. It has been the longest lasting, best dishwasher I ever had.<p>They are apparently <i>trying</i> to be objective by not accepting donations from the manufacturers, but they often seem very uninformed about the products they test and rate.

[bill_schmidt]

They test most of their items as if they were appliances with little regard to appearance, uniqueness and other aspects which are less measurable than things like weight, length, power consumption, etc. I think they still rank audio components just by measuring outputs - not by actually LISTENING!

 

They also have no emotional feel for cars - how a BMW "feels" different from a Nissan or Buick.

 

But for pure appliances the magazine is a good place to start, if you are not a real afficianado of refrigerators...

[marshall]

Tragically, I don't think we're learning anything new about CR here. But it's worth a shot.

[Ed_Ingold]

I'm not a CR fan, but I want to come to their defence to a certain extent. CR is reasonably objective in describing the features they consider important, and which allow comparision between models. Where they "fail" is on the weight they place on these features when ranking the results, and the omission of attributes the Photo.Net community considers important. Again, CR is reasonably open on this ranking process.

 

CR provides a service to first-time purchasers of consumer-grade equipment. I don't think the Photo.Net community falls in that domain, but then we have other resources.

[leonard_evens]

Let me put in a good word for Consumer Reports.

 

For a typical user, their ratings are very useful, particularly if you read the articles and note what they say specifically about features. I've used their ratings to help me pick out anything from appliances to cars, and I've always found them a good starting point.

 

By the way, their ratings of (new) cars are not based on readers' opinions, but on their own testing. They are particularly helpful about safety information.

 

However, for serious amateurs or professionals in photography, what they say is not too useful. Such people, and I consider myself one of them, have other criteria for what is important than the general public. CU purposely doesn't use people like us to do the ratings because they want their information to be usable by ordinary, relatively naive users. I never found their ratings of cameras, for example, to be particularly helpful for me. The same is true for printers and related digital equipment. They spend a lot of time on rather obvious--to me--things, which are probably not so obvious beginners, and they don't discuss some things I would like to know.

 

Getting to the article itself, I found most of what they said fairly accurate. But their article on digital photography a year ago was better.

 

In May 2003, they did rate the Epson 2200 quite highly, and discussed pigment based inks, but they left it out this time. Few people who would go to CR for such information would consider buying such a high priced printer, in any case, and those that did would also consult other sources of information. I disagree with their ratings of print quality for some of the printers, but what they say may be reasonable for people who don't know too much and can't get the best quality from their equipment. Similarly about their article on off-brand inks. the great majority of their readers are probably well advised to avoid them.

 

Whenever CR publishes an article on something I am really into, I look at it and on occasion I actually learn something. But I know they aren't directing the article to someone like me, so I use other sources to make my choices.

 

Note that if you go to some other sources in which advertisers influence the recommendations, you get much less reliable information. For example, some magazine rated the new Epson 4870 scanner as providing much higher resolution than some relatively good film scanners. Those of us in the know realize that is not true. Kennedy McKewen, for example, suggested that the reviewers probably didn't actually do any testing but based their review on the manufacturer's hype. I am less cynical and assume the tester was just incompetent.

[scott_eaton]

If Consumer Reports made claims in that article that a specific brand of ink-jet printer was prone to rapid fading, either Epson or HP has a potential lawsuit on their hands.

 

CR has proven they can rate kitchen appliances, air filters, flash light batteries, and brands of kleenex, but nothing more complex. Beyond that their staff is basically a bunch of statistically minded technical flunkies that work at CR because they coulnd't find jobs in the private sector.

 

These are the same people that rated Packard Bell computers near the top of their list along with Bose Acoustimass speakers.

[brian_m2]

Anyone who is looking for the best quality or in-depth knowledge about any particular consumer product is looking in the wrong place if he is looking at CR. This is not a slam on CR; in fact it is in its defense. It is a broad consumer publication that is meant as a "one-stop shop" for those who just want quick and dirty reports on a product. Your criticisms are like slamming Motophoto for not giving you back gallery-quality prints. I.e., what did you expect.

[mark_herring]

I have no problem with CR supplying "quick and dirty" info at the "Joe six-pack" level. I just object when they give an inaccurate or misleading picture.

 

BTW...

My original post contains an error:

 

CR lists the R300 Epson which is in fact a 6-color printer. What I meant to convey is that Epson's established and popular photo printer models (eg the 1280 and 2200) were never mentioned, whereas NON-photo HP business printers were.

 

Sorry for any confusion.

[jamiew]

I think I need to defend Consumer Reports (CR) here. CR exists for ONE reason. It exists so someone with absolutly no knowledge about a product market can know which products, for a reasonalble ammount of money, are less likely to screw them over and break.

 

If you do know about the product market you are buying from dont look at CR, but don't put it down either. I love me my cameras stuff, but CR is welcome to tell me what dish washer to buy.

[bill_tuthill]

Go Mark! In their defense, CR probably hires kids fresh out of college, maybe the same type that volunteers for Ralph Nader (cough).

You can't really fault them for knowing little, which is what your

points 1 and 3 boil down to. But faulty product selection, point 2,

is endemic to their testing. For example, they dismiss Miele vacuums

because they cost too much, but fail to buy the least expensive model

that is readily available where I live. Or they actually thought APS

cameras were worth testing. Seems like, at the very least, CR could

query newsgroups and web boards to improve their purchase selections.

Their current product buying is so skewed that I wonder if payola

(in this case from HP) might be involved.

[alexdi]

I agree, Bill. What could a kid fresh out college possibly know? Indeed, it takes years of industry experience to make valid commentary on anything at all. I think YOU should join CR, Bill. I would certainly trust your opinions.

 

DI

[Matthew Currie]

I agree with Bill Tuthill on the problem of product selection. I dropped my subscription to CR many years ago when they did a test of radial tires in which the name "Michelin" did not appear at all. Of course aficionados and experts in any field will find fault with reviews of their stuff - audio, bicycles, cameras etc. are always a joke - but their lack of forthrightness about their own limitations makes all of their testing suspect.

[joseph_wisniewski]

I lost my faith back in 1977, with their review of headphones.

 

The Koss HV10 came in as number 1 (in a field of about 40). It also came in dead last with a Radio Shack LV10 liable on it, number 20 or 21 with a Sears liable on it, etc.

 

Turned out that about 8 of the 40 headphones tested were the identical Koss model, and they were scattered all over the list from top to bottom.

[kodus]

I have read Consumer Reports camera issues dating back to the 1970s. I think their ratings are geared towards the casual snapshot type users. <p> As far as the May 2004 issue, I too bought one over the newsstand expecting ratings of photo printers. What I found instead was rating of inkjet printers and multi-function machines. Again, ratings are for the snapshoot users. What I would like to see are 1)ratings of 13 x 19 printers such as the Canon i9900 against the Epson 2200, 2) ratings of pictures at 13 x 19 inches. Oh well, hopefully, they will include those for the next "photo printers" issue.

[barmijo]

This is a classic problem with CR. We, who care deeply about the craft, are NOT their target audience. I gave up on CR more than twenty years ago when they did a review of 35mm SLR cameras and rated the a Nikon model poorly because you could see more in the viewfinder than ended up on the 1-hour photo lab prints. Clearly displaying their lack of understanding. Someone said it earlier, they're writing for Joe six-pack.