Some of the reviews were ok. Others were simply awful. Gruber actually comes off looking the best when you'd expect fanboy.
Bajarin's was predictable. Does anyone really take him seriously as an industry analyst? His tweets are silly pro apple. I'm not sure why they gave him one.
The Verge and Bloomberg is simply engadget 2.0. The video productions make you want to puke.
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Pogue is a waste of space.
None of them are reliable. There's the fear of Apple for one. They all know how lucky they were to be given an early preview.
But you can see on videos how slow the screen is to light up. You do have to bring up the wrist to get the screen on or tap it. Siri is laggy. When you don't have on board processing on the phone, imagine that it now has to go through BT to the watch.
Fixing Siri means fixing it on the iphone. It shouldn't require wifi or LTE. I think this was my main concern. Siri is the main input other than short taps with preset replies.
I mostly agree with you. Most of the reviews had a similar theme: "We're important because Apple loaned us a Watch to review, and this is our way of telling you how important we are". I would have appreciated reviews from people who value my time more than my clicks, and put enough effort into the review to teach me something useful.
Of all the reviews I was able to wade through, Gruber's had the most information I found useful. His point that the Apple Watch isn't as good at being a watch, as a regular watch is, was about what I expected. He said he found himself glancing at the watch a lot more than he realized, and the time was either not there, or only visible after a slightly-too-long delay. I think all of us who have worn regular watches will have a similar experience. The question for me is, would I get used to the not-always-visible time display after a few weeks?
I'm looking forward to his second review, covering the UI.
Some of the other reviewers didn't seem willing to give the watch a fair try.
The Verge guy was simply too lazy to set it up. I guess it's valid to review from the viewpoint of a watch owner who will put NO effort into the device, that's not the kind of review that's useful to me. I learned very little about the watch, but I learned that the reviewer is probably an arrogant jerk. I guess the high and mighty editor-in-chief decided he was the only one entitled to do the flagship review. They'd have gotten a better review by handing it off to a lower staffer who actually cared about the Watch, and who would put a little effort into exploring it.
He did get close to some interesting territory when he mentioned the lag between the watch and the phone. I wish he had pursued the issue in more detail. I wonder if it is a widespread problem, or if some apps are much worse than others. It's easy to imagine an app trying to send way too much data to the watch and creating needless delay. I guess questions like these are too deep for the Verge. Hopefully a site like Anandtech will eventually report more details.
The Verge isn't a site I've visited much, and this review makes me much less likely to visit in the future. It didn't feel like they were trying to provide useful information to me; it felt like a bunch of spoiled people showing off. A tacky response to Apple's generosity in providing early access to the Watch.
The Wall Street Journal "review" was embarrassing. Cringe-worthy. I'm at a loss for words, so I'm plagiarizing from other posters.
I thought the Pogue review was ok. I learned a few things I didn't know before, which I guess counts for something. The snarky video format annoyed me, but I guess that sort of thing is popular nowadays. (Yes, I'm old enough to say "nowadays". Someday you will be, too.)
Doesn't Siri still require a network connection to Apple's servers? If you have a poor connection to the rest of the world, Siri will be slow. Reviews of Siri performance without details of the environment aren't very helpful. Should we blame the watch? the cellular provider? the WiFi network? Apple's Siri servers? or any of a dozen other factors?
