Buzzillions Blogs

If you’ve ever read product reviews, chances are you’ve been overwhelmed by the number of four and five star reviews you’ve encountered.  On Buzzillions, the average product is rated a whopping 4.2 out of 5 stars.  Sometimes rosy reviews are helpful, but sometimes you want to know the downsides of a product before you can make a decision.  That doesn’t mean that you’re a glass-half-empty person, it simply means you’re doing your homework.

“If you wish to move your marriage a teeny bit closer to the edge of divorce, purchase this chair.” – Annoyed Father Upper Midwest

“I purchased the pull-up unit as soon as I saw it advertised. I never dreamed it would almost kill me.” - James from Bartlett, Tennessee

We know that one of the reasons people read product reviews is to find out which products to avoid. You have a product in mind & you want to make sure that there aren’t any fatal flaws before you part with your cash.

We also know that lots of Buzzillions users use our site to determine if the negative qualities of a product apply to them.  If a dishwasher is bad for pots and pans, but you wash your pots and pans by hand, maybe it’s still a great dishwasher for you.

We’re not in the business of bashing products, but we are serious about helping you find negative feedback from users. Here’s how to find what you’re looking for:

Low ranked product sort: Normally, when you get to a category or search results list, products are sorted by our Top Rated algorithm. Use the drop down menu to re-sort the results to give you the lowest rated products first.

Because we want to represent the consensus of consumer opinion, not one person’s opinion, 2 star product with 100 reviews might be ranked lower than a 1 star product with only one review.

Review sort bottom ranked: The default sort for reviews on the product detail page gives you the most helpful reviews first. Want to see the negative reviews first? Use the  drop down menu.

Review histogram: Sometimes products have mixed reviews, making it difficult to separate differing tastes from actual product flaws. Take shoes for example. A shoe might have high reviews & low reviews. Upon reading the low reviews, you find out that people rated it low because they run wide. This might be a benefit for some & a negative for others. On the product detail page, you can see at-a-glance how many people rated a product 1-star vs. 5 star.

Most helpful negative review: If you only read one review, the most-helpful negative review should be it.  Our review face-off highlights the most helpful reviews for the product: one positive and one negative.

For more negative reviews, check out our hall of shame, the “Great Rants” {link} in our Review of the Day blog.

I made a mistake this weekend.  I ignored my usual policy of heeding bad reviews and bought something anyway.  Oh I’d read the reviews, seen the complaints, noted them.  And I ignored them all.  I wanted to believe that perhaps people were wrong; maybe they got part of a bad shipment or put it together wrong.  Maybe they didn’t pay attention to the directions.

The reviews I ignored were on the Big Wheel Princess Bike and the red version of the same, the Red Big Wheel.  I had one as a child, and fondly remember spinning out around corners, the asphalt driveway just a few inches from my heels (I’m not alone in my apparent love for the toy).  And so I let nostalgia, impulse shopping and stupidity get the best of me when I turned a blind eye to comments that read:

• “The very first time they got on and began to pedal, 3 of the 4 pedals came off because the washers are too weak to keep the “blue” pedal in place.”
• “…assembly was not easy, one pedal would not stay on.”
• “I had to put rubber on the tires just so she could get some traction. The stickers have fallen off already, I wasted my money.”

While there were good reviews on the product, (in fact plenty of people had no trouble) the bad reviews were specific:  it’s made poorly.   Unlike reviews that are somewhat subjective like:  I didn’t like the color, or my son wasn’t really interested in riding it, these reviews were all around the same issue of quality.  And still I believed they were wrong.

They were right.  The red Big Wheel was missing parts right out of the box, so was never even put together.  The Pink Big Wheel, once put together, felt not only flimsy but a washer provided was not enough to keep the pedal on.  Not only that but the contruction is such that when you make a turn the pedal scrapes the ground.  Both the Big Wheels are currently around the side of the house, with their boxes, awaiting my efforts to return them.  Lesson learned.  Oh, and one more knock against it, no hand break for doing spin outs like the old one. Now, who doesn’t want to do spin outs?

It’s always interesting when manufacturers and retailers make predictions about hot holiday toys. There is likely a good deal of speculation involved. After all, who can predict the whims of children when it comes to gifting. Fisher-Price underestimated the popularity of TMX Elmo several years ago, driving eBay prices through the roof. Conversely, toys that will supposedly show up in every list to Santa come Christmas time, may flop entirely. When the annual hot toy lists were released by several retailers this year, I took a look and wondered how those toys would fare among real users. Several of the items on the list below do warrant placement on a hot toy list. For example, the Retro Diner from Step2, has a 4.5 rating out of 5 with 36 reviews. Spike the Ultra Dinosaur also deserves a spot – it’s toy #1 in the robot category on Buzzillions (based on number or reviews and star rating). The Fisher-Price Elmo Live is also reviewed well with 77 reviews and an overall rating of 4.6. Toys R Us has limited the sale to 10 per customer; the TMX Elmo several years ago was a limit of one per customer, when you could find them. Several products, while highly rated, only have a few reviews: The Circus Ring from Playmobil has just one review at this writing and the Tag Reading System from LeapFrog only has two. Review number can sometimes be an indication of popularity and with so few reviews, it’s hard to see how these belong on a hot toy list. Some toys on this list just flop in the eyes of reviewers – the Jakks Pacific Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker has a star rating of 2.3 with several reviewers saying the same thing: complete waste of money. So before you assume that the toy retailers have a pulse on the best products, do your research and find out what people are actually saying.

The List:

1. Step2 Retro Diner: Safe bet with 36 reviews and an overall 4.4 star rating as of this writing.
2. Bakugan Toys: Well reviewed and an item appearing on several hot toy lists.
3. Circus Ring from Playmobil: Just one review on this product. How popular will it actually be?
4. Classic Lights and Sounds Trike: Well reviewed.
5. Imaginext Spike the Ultra Dinosaur: #1 in our robot category with a star rating of 4.7.
6. Little Mommy Sweet as Me Baby Knows Doll: Good reviews.
7. Fisher-Price Elmo Live: 4.6 / 77 reviews, limit 10 per customer. Solid product based on reviews, and not nearly as hot as the TMX version some years ago.
8. Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Twilight from Lego: Just two reviews, but out of stock at Toys R Us already which may indicate a true hot status.
9. Wiii Fit Bundle: Toys R Us is limiting purchases to one per customer on this item; a hot item since it came out.
10. Tag Reading System from LeapFrog: Just 2 reviews, but a 4.5 star rating.
11. Laugh & Learn Shop & Learn Walker from Fisher Price:Good reviews.
12. Hasbro FurReal Friends Biscuit My Lovin Pup: Just 8 reviews, surprising given its appearance on several top toy lists.
13. EyeClops Night Vision Infrared Stealth Goggles: Mixed reviews, and again, just a small number of reviews.
14. Jakks Pacific Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker: 2.3 45 reviews Consensus says: waste of money. Probably doesn’t belong on any list, let alone a hot toy list.

As I was browsing through Buzzillions last night, I found a bunch of products made by top brands and was pretty surpised to see how poorly rated some of these were! It goes to show that even if a product is made by a brand you know and trust, they can still be huge disappointments. 

1. Black & Decker 12 Cup Coffee Maker: 2.4 stars/ 5

Although Black & Decker is a well known and trusted brand, this particular coffe maker is a definite bust! Several people said it ended up leaving “a counter top covered in hot coffee,” and that this model is terrible compared to previous models since they’ve “finally cheapened it to the point of not being usable.”

2. Kodak EasyShare M883 Digital Camera: 2.8 stars/ 5

Even Kodak doesn’t always get everything right! Although it looks pretty sleek, the “picture quality is digusting .” Also, don’t plan on taking pictures indoors since the “camera is not usable in low light areas,” and pictures turn out “grainy.”

3. Magellan Crossover GPS Unit: 3.1 stars/ 5

Reading the reviews, this Magellan GPS system has pissed a lot of people off. I mean, if you had to “spend another $150+ to add the software to make it do what it says it does.” A few people weren’t even satsified with the basic necessities of  GPS system as it “responds slowly, plans poorly, has multiple misspelled road names, including freeway names, and is grossly out of date with the maps. ”