Andy Chase

I have a love/hate relationship with the reader review features offered by online retailers like Amazon.com. Reviews of media such as books, music, or movies are pretty much worthless, because they all boil down to

"This is the best book I ever read EVER! A MUST HAVE!"

or

"This CD stinks, I was expecting it to be exactly like my favorite album by this artist from 10 years ago, and it's different, therefore it's no good. Don't waste your money."

When it comes to less subjective items, like tools or appliances, you can sometimes expect somewhat more useful commentary... but not always.

While daydreaming about the workshop I'd eventually like to get set up in our small utility room, I went poking around Amazon for cheap, bench top bandsaws. I found one by Delta, a generally reputable manufacturer of power tools, and proceeded to browse the comments.

The reviews are so divided as to make you wonder whether you're reading reviews for the same item... half of the people really dislike the saw, citing problems with straight cuts and the blade bending to the left when cutting curves, despite numerous attempts at adjustment.

The other half are more typical of an Amazon review, basically saying "This is a good saw for the money. I've had mine for two years now and never had any problems with it!"

So whose opinion an I supposed to trust? The people telling tales of repeated adjustment and tinkering sound like they know what they're doing, but the fact that they adjusted the saw doesn't necessarily mean that they adjusted it correctly.

On the other hand, maybe the people with no complaints never tried to cut anything denser than 1/8" thick balsa wood.

As with most content on the internet, I think it's best to take the good and the bad reviews with a grain of salt and temper it with reasonable expectations; for $99 you're not going to get a contractor grade piece of equipment.