Customer Reviews

Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2010 (Best & Worst Appliances, Cars, Electronics, and more, 1,500+ Brand-Name Product Ratings)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a member of Consumers Union and a subscriber to "Consumer Reports" (CR). As such, one of the great benefits is receiving the CR annual "Buying Guide." And just out is the 2010 guide. Page 5 lays out the purpose of this publication: "The Consumer Reports Buying Guide for 2010 is your handy one-stop source for making intelligent, informed, money-saving purchases for all your home and personal needs."

Each year, I use these guides to give me a sense of what might be my best bets for purchases when the need arises. The guidance is normally pretty useful, too.

The auto section is normally one of the most informative parts of the book. Pages 149 and following are very important to me. My son's old Honda Accord is getting long of tooth, and we may be looking for a replacement used car soon. And here is the best and worst of used cars on these pages. A valuable resource as we plan to look at an upgrade. If we wanted to spend, say $10,000 or so, a Honda Accord (2004) might fill the bill.

Randomly going to other pages. . . . We're thinking of some new flooring in our home. On page 58 starts a discussion of types of flooring, what to look for, and so on. Page 96. Printers for computers. Some guidelines and thoughts about what to look for. Also, a reference to the issue of Consumer Reports that goes over printers in detail (i.e., December, 2008), a nice feature indeed. Page 238: GPS navigators. A ranking of different brands and models. Page 261: refrigerators. A ranking on a number of different dimensions (including temperature performance, energy efficiency, noise, ease of use, and the like).

So, another handy reference tool from CR. And a welcome addition to our home library.

So I saw this handy little book in line @ bestbuy and thought I'd take a look. I've been thinking of getting a CR subscription so I thought this would be a trial run. I flipped through most of the book in 10 minutes (it was a huge line) not finding anything terribly interesting... then I got to the computer electronics section. It was pathetic. Absolutely laughable! The information was probably 1 to 5 years out of date on average, let alone looking forward into 2010. I'm a computer hobbyist, not even a professional electronics writer, and I know I could write a better, more helpful, and more relevant piece on PCs and laptops for 2009-2010. The PC section read like what I would imagine a book entitled "PC buying for dummies 2006 edition" might read. Here's an example: under the operating system section they say something like "if you're getting a PC, windows vista is the best option and is offered with most new PCs" So if you're not laughing at a statement like that you may need this outdated book... but I'll educate you anyway. Windows 7 is the best option and is offered with most new PCs. It's considered better than Vista in basically every way and It's been on sale since October (and available on a trial basis for FREE for about a year before that! Special priced programs for students & academics, etc). They make no mention of 32bit vs. 64bit windows (there are real advantages to both), no mention of the value of the various tiers of windows that Microsoft is peddling. Don't even get me started on their BRIEF and misinformed section on video cards, a component that is probably the most important part of a modern PC. No mention about consumers saving money on upgrading just the video card ($50+ upgrade) or the ram ($50+ upgrade) instead of buying a whole PC ($400+ upgrade).

Also I've been suspicious about consumer reports since Behr paint has been the #1house paint for like 10 years running or something ridiculous. I know a lot about paint. A LOT. I know for a fact that there are better paints out there - many of them not tested by consumer reports. When I was a kid I thought consumer reports was the holy grail for buyer's information, but now that I know a thing or two about electronics and paint I know that they know almost nothing despite their "unbiased scientific tests." I suspect that there's more to consumer reports than meets the eye.

So now I'm wondering: "if they could be so wrong on electronics AND possibly misguided about paint, what else could they be wrong on? Could they be wrong on cars too?! That's their claim to fame! Are they just guessing? Are their writers living somewhere without internet access?"

Needless to say I got a few good laughs from this book and threw it into the discount DVD bin at checkout. If this book were bigger it might be worth one star because at least the pages could be used to line an animal cage or something.

When purchasing a vehicle in our market it truly is "buyer beware" so having tools such as the Buying guide really makes the difference. I recommend this to anyone thinking about buying a vehicle whether it is new or used.

I have the 2009 Buying Guide that a friend gave me as a gift and I loved it. We purchased our Toyota Sienna Mini Van in 2009 because of this guide and we love it. If you are into buying a new or used vehicle, this is a wonderful guide to purchase a car.

It is also supposed to be good if you plan to buy appliances, cameras and electronics. They suggest the best products and ratings.

After having the 2009 Buying Guide, I decided I also wanted the 2010 guide. I could not find it anywere so I went into the Amazon website to buy it because I was into looking to buy a point and shoot digital camera since the one I have is old. I was dissapointed first of all with the price. I bought a used guide for about $13.00 when this guide should only be about $10.99 new. I do not know why Amazon sells it much more expensive even when it is used. Anyway, I decided to buy it since I really wanted to read the reviews on cameras.

If you want to purchase a point and shoot digital camera at a cheap price, this did not help me at all. They only give you a list of about 10 compact cameras and the best ones don't go below $200 or $300. You get a longer list of sub-compact cameras but the best ones are also very expensive. I even tried looking for some of those cameras in Amazon and they were more expensive than what the guide said or the ratings from people weren't as good as the guide said. Then I got all confused because the guide said this camera was one of the bests but people who had bought that same camera from Amazon did not rate that camera as a such a great camera.

I really did not want to spend a lot of money on a point and shoot digital camera. I wanted something compact, durable, with good quality pictures and inexpensive and I was sure I could get that without spending $300 on a point and shoot digital camera.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I decided to close the Buying Guide and went with the ratings people posted in Amazon about cameras and I did buy my camera using Amazon, not this guide.

Now, remember, for buying cars is wonderful and my bad experience has only been when trying to purchase the camera, about the rest of the things like appliances and electronics, I do not know but this guide was not helpful for me whent trying to buy a point and shoot digital camera.

As for the price, I think Amazon went too far with the price, I have no idea why but I was not happy buying a used guide for $13 when a new one is supposed to be $10.99.

I've been a subscriber of Consumer Reports for a number of years and receive the buying guide annually. I am not going to renew my subscription when it expires. These reviews are for items that are not current, as an example look at the Auto Reliability section in the 2010 edition, they review 2003 through 2008 only. Their vehicles to avoid section states on page 152, based on our 2008 survey, just not up to date. I have found that if you read the product reviews from sellers such as Amazon you will have a much better idea of how a product performs than you will ever get from Consumer Reports because they are written by customers who are reviewing current products that they have purchased and used.

I'm wondering why Amazon sells this book for $19.95 when the cover price is $10.99? I love the helpful information in CR and would like to own a copy but for that markup, I went to the library and just borrowed a copy.Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2010 (Best & Worst Appliances, Cars, Electronics, and more, 1,500+ Brand-Name Product Ratings)

Could not find it in the stores anywhere. So glad I found it on line. I use this book for all big purchases. The info is most helpful. I recieved this book in a good timely fashion and it was in very good shape.

The book is excellent!!! However, it was overpriced. I will think twice about buying a book from you in the near future.

Quick service. Rapid mail delivery. Exactly what I wanted after not being able to purchase the 2010 Consumer Buying Guide locally.