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Most carriers, such as Verizon, offer a website with detailed customer reviews for every product they sell. Most importantly, they only let device owners write a review. On Verizon’s site, they even show how long someone has owned the device. If your carrier doesn’t offer this, try to get this information from a website that does, even if you aren’t planning to use that carrier. The most important thing is to get reviews from people who actually own the device. It is far too common for trolls to claim they had horrible problems with a device they never even owned.
It is also a good idea to read reliable reviews from major and trusted publications. The two I would recommend are Consumer Reports and Popular Mechanics. Some of the other “trusted” publications have bias and are funded by technology corporations. Even worse, it is common for major online publications to brew up controversy in order to bait users into reading articles and posting comments. They simply want page views and aren’t concerned about the truth. In fact, the more contentious and untrue an article is, the more attention it will garner.
Even Consumer Reports is not infallible. They fell for antenna-gate and blamed Apple for a problem that is common to all phones. They did not, however, fall for Mapple-gate and felt that iOS Maps was a competent product. I use Maps all the time, and it’s just as good as the major GPS navigation units, such as Garmin, Magellan, TomTom and built-in car navigation systems. The bulk of the data come from NAVTEQ. It is not as good as Google Maps, but it won’t get you lost.
The Bigger Than Bigger Picture
It is never a good idea to throw the baby out with the bath water. When the dust settles, it is unlikely that we will find the iPhone 6 Plus to be inferior to any device of its class. In fact, I expect we will see it stand up to more stress and pressure than any other phablet. Apple has gone to great lengths testing the durability of this device during development. I do think bendghazi is par for the course. It is yet another attempt to take the steam out of an Apple launch.
I already see fan boys and Apple haters predicting that this will be a deciding factor in customer purchases. Even if Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus proves to be slightly more fragile than other devices, is that the only consideration when purchasing a smartphone? Fan boys love to abstract away the details and focus on just a few issues where their favorite product is supposedly superior. Most consumers are not fan boys and don’t listen to these people. At best, fan boys can only influence people in their vicinity. Fan boys tend to lack social skills, and therefore don’t have much sway.
In the end, if the device proves to have lesser durability than the competition, many people will just buy a case. It’s not because they are sheep. There’s a good reason for people to prefer Apple devices. iOS still has many apps that other mobile operating systems are missing. iOS still offers top-notch performance when it comes to gaming and multimedia. These are the reasons I prefer the iPhone. I might just get a case this time, but when the dust settles, most people will find the iPhone 6 Plus isn’t fragile. It was just the victim of the typical smear campaign that comes with every Apple product launch.