I recently shared a car ride with an influencer, and they express disappointment at how tool reviews on social media tend to be overwhelmingly positive.
This influencer said they strive to discuss all aspects of a tool, warts and all, but aren’t seeing the same commitment to objectivity in others’ content.
They suggested that tool brands are to blame for this, and that’s something I don’t agree with.
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If you ask me, every tool reviewer and influencer has to decide for themselves how they’re going to operate.
Just like I don’t want a tool brand telling me to be positive, I don’t want them to say something like “be sure to add some minor complaints to balance things out.”
Why are some reviewers and influencers overly positive? Some might be worried that they’d be cut off from test samples if they’re negative about a tool or brand.
Others sell hype, because that can be more successful in landing lucrative sponsorship and endorsement deals.
It is rumored that some tool reviewers sell their product samples. If a reviewer is selling a tool sample for cash, are they ever going to say anything negative, or are they going to say whatever it takes to ensure a steady influx of high-value review samples they can continue to sell for big cash? I see this as a huge ethics compromise and conflict of interest, and it’s something we have strict policies against.
Maybe there are other reasons as well, such as how positive posts perform better with views, likes, or comment engagement.
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Speaking for myself, I can usually tell immediately when there’s a tool I won’t get along with, and it goes to the bottom of the queue. For example, I bought an industrial supplier’s house brand of pliers. I tested them a little, tossed them in a “I should use these more” pile, and then tested them once more. While they’re not junk, there’s not much to say about them. “Hey, these are meh, I didn’t have high expectations and aren’t very disappointed, and don’t see why anyone would buy them” doesn’t make for a very interesting post.
Regardless of whatever reason or justifications, it comes down to the reviewer or influencer.
As an aside, there seems to be the misconception that every piece of content is a review. On social media especially, a lot of content shows or discusses the capability of a tool or related product. If an influencer shows off a framing nailer sinking a 3″ nail, that’s not necessarily a “review.” I see the same confusion here sometimes. A review is a “formal assessment or examination of something.” Just because I express an opinion about a product, that’s not a “review,” especially if I haven’t tested it hands-on yet.
In regard to tool samples, there is no unwritten rule where a reviewer can’t have a negative opinion or point out a tool’s faults.
Sometimes a brand might say “let me know if there’s a problem,” which is a fair request. That, to me, is a professional courtesy.
For example, let’s say I am sent a new hammer for review consideration, and on the second swing the hammer head flies off the handle. That would necessitate a call to the PR contact, product manager, social media marketing person, or whomever facilitated that sample.
A hammer head flying off a handle during testing would be a big problem that a brand should know about, and they shouldn’t first hear about it in a review. The review would still include mention of this happening, and also the brand’s response and remedy. But in a case like that, I’d likely post about the problem sooner.
“Here’s the problem, and here’s what the brand said” is helpful.
If there’s something I personally don’t like about a tool, and it’s a matter of opinion? There’s no need to bring that up, it can go straight into the review.
Let’s say a brand sent over a pack of cobalt drill bits. If I’m breaking them left and right, a chat with the tool brand might reveal that I’m using them in the wrong tool and on the wrong materials.
In all my years that I’ve been testing and reviewing tools, negativity has rarely been a problem. If a reviewer is sugarcoating a review, that’s on them, regardless as to their motivations.
In my experience, negativity might ruffle some feathers, but it’s nothing to be afraid of – as long as you’re fair.
After nearly 16 years, I like to think I have a good idea about what’s fair.
For example, if a tool brand sends over a product sample, and there’s a major problem with it, one can bring up to the issue and work the brand’s response into a post or review. Or they can proceed with a sensationalist post that exaggerates things for views. Which contributes to the audience’s best interests, understanding a flaw or complaint, or exploiting it for “shocking, 99% won’t like this!” types of content?
This brings to mind something that happened a little more than 14 years ago, where a product manager objected to how I said I would be testing a drill.
It’s not typical, but I will sometimes be asked how I plan to test a particular product. Here’s what I said regarding how the cordless drill would be tested:
Drill: will use for a general purpose DIY level project that is TBD, and will evaluate quality of construction at first impression and then will evaluate its performance. The drill will be compared to current Hitachi and Dewalt 18V drills. Various bit styles will be used – spade, hole saw, jobbers twist, as well as screwdriver bits and nut setters/sockets for driving lag bolts. The drill will be used to bore into wood, alum, and sheet steel.
The PR rep’s response:
I forwarded your request to the [brand] product manager and he came back to me with a few questions. He was worried about your general purpose DIY level applications, most notably using the drill to bore into sheet steel as that is not the right application of this kind of drill. Do you mind passing on that test?
What’s the “right application” for a cordless drill?
Following are excerpts from my very lengthy reply. This all took place in 2010. While I was still very new to reviewing free tool samples, I strived to operate in the same manner as a magazine, and brand input or interference seemed completely unacceptable.
At ToolGuyd, our reviews are conducted and presented in a manner that we hope serves the best interest of our readers and consumers in general. As such, I can make no guarantees or promises regarding the test scenarios a review sample will ultimately be put through. This is a policy that we strictly adhere to in order to ensure that we can provide as objective, fair, and trustworthy a review as possible.
I can tell you right now, the reviews probably won’t be gushingly positive. I have seen the 18V tools in person, and while there are features and specs that I think are great, there are definitely some aspects and components that I am not thrilled with. In writing a review, our intention is to provide an objective analysis, followed by opinions and fair recommendations, to best inform and educate the ToolGuyd audience. We try to remain as objective as possible, but if there is still something we feel strongly unhappy about, the position is conveyed in a tactful manner.
I followed up with another email, here are excerpts from that one:
To avoid straining the relationship between you and your client, or between ourselves, I can rescind or defer my request for a few sample. If this becomes necessary and I still have a strong personal interest to review the [brand] 18V combo set, I could always order a retail set for review.
My interest in the 18V lineup stems from seeing consumer interest and confusion about the tools. If your client is not comfortable with allowing a completely independent and unrestricted review, then I will abandon my interest in reviewing that product line on ToolGuyd. There are definitely many other [brand] products that we would be willing to review, some of which your client may feel more confident about.
The first reply I received:
Thanks for your explanations. I totally see where you are coming from and I agree, I want to avoid straining our relationship. Our conversation will be kept between us. This simply may be a miss understanding with the product manager. Let me round back with him on the sheet metal application and I’ll be in touch. Hopefully we can work it out. You’re a valued blogger here at our agency and I’d like to keep working with you in the future. Thanks for the push back.
And then the follow-up:
Good news. We’ll be sending you a combo kit to test and review. I just got word from the product manager that we are a go. The unit should ship out this week.
Basically, I pushed back against a request I felt would taint the objectivity and thoroughness of my review. I wanted to do things my way, and the tool brand yielded.
I have had many experiences since then, reinforcing one very important lesson – I do not need to compromise my ideals for any tool brand.
The tool review industry is very different today. There are no shortage of tool reviewers, especially on social media or YouTube. Lose the favor of a tool brand, and there are countless other channels or influencers who would eagerly accept a tool sample in your place.
A brand once told me they were only looking for hype. There are other brands wildly believed to reward sycophancy. Years ago, there was one YouTuber who was extremely positive about a particular brand’s tools, but they would say terrible things about the tools and brand when in private company.
But for the most part, fair and warranted negativity isn’t going to lead to unfavorable treatment.
The content creation industry is complex and even messy. There are no checks and balances, except for the ones reviewers and content creators impose on themselves. That’s one of the reasons I committed to transparency 16 years ago – it just seems necessary.
Being negative about a tool in a fair and honest matter is not going to land me in the dog house with most tool brands. There are of course some exceptions, which is why I say “most” tool brands.
Every reviewer, influencer, or content creator that works with product brands will learn the same over time, if they want to.
Plus, if a brand considers a reviewer’s negativity to be impactful enough to warrant cutting them off from test samples, wouldn’t the potential for positivity be reason not to?
Whether positive or critical, fairness and honesty is what matters. Readers expect this too, don’t you?
Is this a topic that we should be talking more about?
MM
Transparency is important, and that’s one of the reasons I keep coming back to Toolguyd. But I think one of the other important things you mentioned is the difference between a review and simply demonstrating a tool or using one in a video.
Overly positive tool reviews are an annoyance, but even when it’s obvious that a tool review has an overly positive bias you can often learn a lot by paying attention to what the reviewers do with the tool instead of what they say. One Youtube channel I follow does automotive work and was sponsored by Milwaukee a while back. For a while every video heavily featured Milwaukee tools with plenty of praise being thrown around. That, in my opinion, was not very trustworthy. But watching which of those tools they are still using regularly a year later? That is a lot more instructive than the flowery praise that all the tools received during the big unboxing.
Robert
Stuart, I think it’s worth you bringing up every so often. Most of all to shine a light on what less scrupulous influencers may be doing, and place in context. Not that valuable for long time readers, but rather for young adults just starting to purchase tools and need a dose of reality about social media tool coverage.
Stuart
Reality: Don’t take anything at face value until you can trust someone for yourself. But isn’t that just as true in real life as on social media?
Some people, including the influencer I rode with, seem inclined to believe tool brands are behind the positivity, but they’re not.
There are a lot of reasons behind positivity or the seeming scarcity of criticisms.
I wanted to convey – for whoever needs to hear it – that most brands won’t abandon a PR, review, or influencer relationship just because the reviewer is honest with their audience about things that don’t work well for them.
Eric
Remember a while back, a Milwaukee cordless tool had a design flaw, and an influencer pointed it out after thorough testing? Milwaukee acknowledged it, and redesigned the tool and it had a different SKU number. I think the educated tool user would see through the B.S. on a glowing tool review. Real world testing is where its at.
Stuart
Which tool?
Lots of tools from many brands are imperfect at launch. I’ve caught initial production problems, and occasionally I’ll receive notification about an issue another reviewer caught. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and they’re usually caught before products ship to stores.
Ben
Possibly the Milwaukee M18 2767 impact wrench?
https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/milwaukees-m18-fuel-2767-impact-wrench-probems%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Stuart
That wasn’t redesigned under a new model number.
MM
It sounds like this is just semantics. They didn’t change the “model number” or the sku but they did change the serial number prefix. The models with “A” in the serial number were the original design. The failed redesign had a “B” in the serial no, and after that fiasco they switched back to producing the “A” version.
Jared
Assuming this was the Milwaukee impact wrench (2767), there were several reports of the tool breaking because the gear pins weren’t secured at both ends. Toolguyd covered it too – e.g. https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/milwaukees-m18-fuel-2767-impact-wrench-probems/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
If the fixed was prompted by one “influencer” (which I’m not sure about), it was probably Torque Test Channel, which conducted extensive testing and tear downs.
I used scare quotes because TTC usually (or maybe always), just buys their tools for testing. That seems different from the problem Stuart is describing.
Al
Unboxing videos with zero experience except the idiot cards supplied by the manufacturer are useless…but far outnumber honest reviews.
I had a corwrker who got free samples every week from Amazon sellers who wanted the 100% effusive and max-star reviews. Some offered money.
The YouTubers have bigger dollars coming in. We should always talk about this type of propaganda. They manipulate multiple influencers at the same time to get a bigger exposure, making people think that they are popular by real consumers.
It works.
I can’t tell you how many times I almost pulled the trigger on a Bosch/Rigid/Delta gliding miter saw, even though I did half the DIY work with a handsaw, and the rest with a Harbor Freight special.
Would love to hear more stories about the influencer pressure.
CMF
Any video that is an “unboxing” video, I never watch. My time is too important too watch someone take a tool out of a box and make comments about…whatever.
It’s an unboxing, to me personally, total waste of time.
Christian Reed (REEKON)
Well written article and lot’s of great points about maintaining trust of audience. This certainly sticks out (speaking from the tool company side) when we look for partners to work with, send samples too, and collaborate with.
To add some additional perspective to this theme, something we have seen at REEKON Tools is influencers reaching out to us and basically saying “if you dont pay to sponsor this video, it’s going to be a negative review.”
We have refused this offer (more than once) and had a recent overwhelmingly negative reviews get posted on YouTube from a sizable creator working to show our products in a negative light. While constructive criticism is always appreciated and helps make better products, intentionally trying to make something not work or misrepresent experiences is doing a disservice to viewers of the channel.
Alexk
……“ if you don’t pay to sponsor this video, it’s going to be a negative review”.
Wow! That reminds me of being in a guitar shop in New Yawk and seeing the owner hand an envelope to a “large gentleman” and the owner saying to someone, “if I don’t pay, they’ll burn my store down”.
MM
Many years ago when my company was selling products on Ebay and Amazon we’d sometimes encounter a customer who would demand freebies and would threaten negative feedback if they weren’t provided.
Terry
Stuart, I appreciate the insight in how you operate. I considered the reviews that I’ve read to be fair and objective to both the mfgs and your readers. Perhaps an occasional reminder would be nice but it’s not necessary to fair-minded readers. The popularity of your blog is a testimony of your honesty and knowledge of the tools and the industry. Keep up the good work.
Ed
It’s definitely worth talking about. This is a widespread issue in the influencer/journalism space.
I would suggest looking into how Jack Baruth has exposed the grift that is auto journalism and how you can draw parallels to tools.
Long story short, the issue lies in that a lot of these influencers rely upon free goods to create contact. It eventually reaches a point where they are writing to serve their PR contact and not the writer.
You have what has always appeared to be an impartial and honest site here. How you’ve handled issues topics like Sawstop, Toughbuilt, and Flex are a breath of fresh air. This is in comparison to someone like VCG or The Tool Show who like anything from a major company or The Den of Tools who only seems to throw shade at brands that he know won’t upset his apple cart.
Stuart
Let’s pretend for a moment that Makita USA is launching a cordless snowblower, a 2-stage machine that can be powered by their 18V or XGT batteries, with a metal impeller, electronic ejection controls, and built-in hot cocoa machine.
Would it be great if I could test that out? Absolutely. Would it be great for Makita to answer my media questions about it? Yep.
Would I need free goods or open and friendly communications to create content about it? Nope, nor would I kowtow to get it. I tried to accommodate their… sensitivities about my approach to tool content, but doing so felt like nails across a chalkboard. We’ll sit down at a table again one day, or not.
Every content creator has their own approach. Although many share audiences, every channel, reviewer, influencer, etc knows what their core readers, viewers, or followers like.
I’ve talked with Vince from VCG, Rob and Sarah from The Tool Show, and The Den of Tools. They’re all good people trying their best to meet the needs and interests of their audiences. I enjoy their content more often than not, and they all have my respect, which is something I cannot say for everyone.
You didn’t say anything wrong. No content creator is perfect, and I definitely receive enough criticism of my own, but I like those 4 people enough to feel compelled to defend them, lest others dogpile with their own complaints and feedback.
Goodie
Good on you for defending the folks you know. That’s a valuable thing in this world. I don’t always care for the approaches, but have felt that these folks do have integrity in their work. I’ve seen some work from each of them that has really impressed me over the years.
Tom
Feeding YouTube is different than what you do here. I am guessing there is some audience crossover, but it is more than likely a different audience they are serving.
PETE
Gotta play by the rules to play the game. If you were to be “too honest” no one would send you anything. If you were too “fake” no one would read your stuff. It’s a balance you gotta deal with.
PETE
And it’s not easy. Never is. I’ve never thought toolguyd as a pushover marketing website. You’ve done a good job
Stuart
I would argue that two parties can play by different rules, as long as they have shared understanding about what’s out of bounds.
For example, one person can play kickball while the other plays catch. The rules only need to be compatible. That compatibility took time to figure out.
fred
We used to do our own reviews of tools. We’d buy something that looked promising and then pass it around. What we sometimes found was that 16 crews might have 17 opinions. Most often there was not a-unanimity of opinion. In the instances where we thought enough of a new tool to phase it into our work practice – we’d sometimes find that the second third or fourth example of the same tool were not liked as well as the first. I sort of thought of this as the “cold beer” analogy – where the first one of the day tastes better than subsequent ones. BTW – when we latched on to Knipex plier wrenches and Cobras in our plumbing business – that probably came the closest we had to an epiphany. Then too – what the guys in the remodeling business liked might not be what the plumbers thought was good. First rounds of testing also never pushed things to the limit. Finding out the plusses and minuses might take weeks or months. We also never bought enough of a batch at a time to be really statistically significant – so if an early tool failure (infant mortality) popped up that would likely sour us on buying more to really test the fleet.
With influencer reviews and ones that I might see on Amazon, Home Depot or other web sites – I try to read between the lines. Early (soon after introduction) reviews always seem suspect to me. Many reviews seem like first impressions (good or bad) – rather than thoughts after several different uses. Often, it is hard to discern the context in which the review was made or the experience and expectations of the reviewer. With regular internet personalities who may earn their living from reviews I am usually even more suspect. With most – I don’t see the sort of balance that I’ve come to expect form you (Stuart) and Toolguyd. The Toolguyd readership (with Stuart’s encouragement) also seems not shy in chiming in with additional and different perspectives. Articles like this one – also reflect the idea that this forum is a bit closer to a refereed journal than just some more flagrant advertising puff. So, I continue to some back to Toolguyd as both a source of information and entertainment.
Stuart
Part of the difficulty with reviews is that there are times when I can only provide an early assessment.
A tool brand said they’re sending over a new [bulky tool] for me to test for review consideration. I already have two tools like that. Either I’ll run through a thorough initial testing and then donate it, or I’ll have to donate my existing similar sample or owned copy, which I will then be unable to test further.
fred
That’s not so much a fault as it is a fact of life. One thing we learned from computer software development was that early testing – no matter how rigorous was never the same having hundreds of thousands of copies out there in user’s hands. It’s not quite the same with tools – but thousands of real-world users putting thousands of copies of the same tool to use under different scenarios will likely be a better test than what a single reviewer might do. Even so-called torture tests or tests to failure can miss some detail of real-life use. Then, when you consider human factors and personal preferences – the best reviews should only be taken as data points in the context of how they were conducted and who’s reporting on them. The merits of a Toolguyd review or even first impression is that you have a self-deprecating style and seem to present the facts as you see them in a balanced and fair way, and (like this post) explain the limitations. Compare that to many others on the Internet who gush poetic about almost everything they speak to – and that’s why I prefer to read Toolguyd.
Ben
I work for a small tool company – not going to say which for the sake of anonymity. We currently don’t work with influencers at all, for this exact reason. We don’t want people acting like shills, or just badmouthing our stuff, for any reason aside from them having gotten a good tool or a bad tool. If someone gets a bad tool, we’ll do our best to work with them to resolve it, but ultimately, if a tool is bad, that’s our fault. If a tool is good, that’s also our fault.
We did work with one influencer in the past in a rather niche woodworking community, as a one-off thing, and had a good experience with that particular influencer, but it seems like there are just way too many people out there that act as you described.
BigTimeTommy
I stopped paying attention to social media reviewers almost as soon as I noticed them. It’s insane how many social media reviewers have clearly never worked in the trades or construction a second in their lives, obvious paid shills. The only reviewer I care about or trust at this point is the Project Farm guy.
Jared
None? Where do you get your information?
I like pocket knives for example. Stuart covers some occasionally (which I appreciate!) but not so often that when new model comes out I can be sure to find his opinion on it.
Instead I search the model I’m interested in on Youtube and typically watch two or three videos about it from Metal_Complex, Neeves Knives, Gideon’s tactical… I would unabashedly label them “influencers”. All of them receive free knives to review (though that isn’t their only source).
I don’t have time to drive to the store and feel the knives for myself every time. Seeing the videos with size comparisons, impressions about the action, fit and finish, ergonomics and peculiarities often gets me 90% of the information I’m looking for.
It’s important context that influencers might be swayed by their relationships with brands.
MM
I think you can learn a lot from influencers and their videos, even when the reviews are obvious shilling. Even if you ignore 100% of what they are saying, you can still observe how a tool functions by watching it perform, listening to whether or not the motor bogs down, paying attention to the cut quality, surface finish, and features like guards, dust collection (or lack thereof), illumination, etc. You can get an idea of the size or ergonomics of a tool by watching people display it side-by-side with other tools you might be more familiar with. You can get an idea of how easy the tool is to operate by watching if they struggle with operating the lock on a knife, changing blades in a saw, and so on. It’s very important to keep in mind that influencers opinions might be swayed by their brand relationships, but there’s a lot more to learn from a video beyond the opinions it expresses. I couldn’t care less about some strangers opinion of a tool. I want to learn facts about the tool and then I’ll form my own opinion.
BigTimeTommy
I don’t disagree with your thinking but keep in mind there’s no way to know if reviewers received a “juiced up” tool (more powerful motor, higher quality components etc.) Compared to the SKU that actually hits the shelves.
CMF
“juiced up” tool, sounds like a lot of time, money and effort for a brand to do. I doubt this would happen, or make sense to do with all the negative implications it can have.
fred
Not that it is impossible to cherry-pick (perhaps via some QA inspection and refurbishment) a tool for testing – but it’s probably more likely that tested tools just get picked out of inventory. So, however the test works out it may not truly represent the whole production run. The products of even the best design, manufacturing and QA/QC may have some outliers that suffer “infant mortality” because of hidden defects.
BigTimeTommy
Project Farm covers a wide variety of tools and consumables and seems to be honest and trustworthy, totally transparent about testing and they don’t accept money or tools from manufacturers. I used to watch AvE when he just disassembled tools and showed you what’s inside, but that’s not what he does anymore.
Aside from that I ask people who I know personally, know what they do for a living, and trust to be honest and reliable in their opinions. Quite frankly in the current era of late stage capitalism and aggressive viral marketing any opinion I see online from a stranger is an opinion that may as well have been bought and paid for.
Jared
I enjoy Project Farm too.
There’s two things I could raise as “criticisms” – but I don’t mean that negatively since it’s more about how people interpret his results than anything wrong with his process:
1. He substitutes failure testing for durability testing.
Failure tests tell you something about how well a product is made, but may not translate directly into end-user durability. E.g. if he uses side cutters to chop a hex key in half, that only kind of translates into the type of thing I’ll be doing.
Also consider that when he shows you the close up of the damaged jaw blades after – how is that a fair comparison when one plier might have failed at significantly higher load, but still been completely undamaged when a lesser competitor snapped in half.
Or as shown in a recent TTC episode, sometimes it’s misleading – like measuring linear torque failure of impact socket adapters when that isn’t how torque is applied by an impact driver.
2. In his quest for objectivity, he ignores some subjective elements that might really matter to the end user.
E.g. consider his ratchet tests. He has a clever rig for measuring how many swings it takes to complete a circle when there’s restricted space. However, he tested ratchets of various lengths and some with thick comfort grips. That effects how wide the handle is between his stop pins and therefore how much arc swing some ratchets could physically achieve.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that test – it’s just that it might not match up with the situation an end-user might experience, or why you might choose a comfort grip in the first place (it would be like comparing a Civic and F150 hauling capacity – maybe the Civic actually has good capacity for its class, but not if you compare across categories).
That said – I like his videos and subscribe to the channel. I just think you have to consider what his results are actually showing.
BigTimeTommy
Totally agree with both points. For example his linesman pliers review left a lot to be desired as far as testing them in “real life” scenarios and that ended with some lame pliers scoring pretty highly in my opinion. But I can’t think of another reviewer coming up with all these different tests and putting the results out there without much editorializing.
PW
I love PF and find his reviews to be unbiased and useful. But I also agree with your caveats.
There’s some thing that just can’t always be objectively determined. Ergonomics and personal preferences are one of those things. Sometimes PF includes subjective assessments of aspects of a tool, and I wish he’d do that more often TBH.
Bonnie
I don’t agree that someone has to have worked the trades to cover tools. Especially for a DIY/homeowner audience. The things a tradie or construction worker prioritizes in a tool is often quite different to what a weekend warrior is going to care about or need. As long as the person reviewing the tool is clear about their use-case and audience.
BigTimeTommy
I don’t disagree, and your last sentence is key there. But as someone working in a trade I value the opinions of other people working in the field more than I do a diyer/person who likes collecting tools or whatever. Totally different use cases and I think at this point in time even most “bad” tools are good enough for DIY projects.
Badger12345
+1 to Project Farm. Todd is totally transparent about his testing methodology. He also avoids saying something is “best” for everything and instead provides what might be best for particular uses cases or features.
Bonnie
I think the big element often missing from arguments about influences is the influence of the audience. Being an influencer is in many ways a marketing position first. Even if you’re not hawking tools or reviews, the core competency of any successful influencer is marketing themselves, and the audience has a massive influence on that. A lot of YouTube creators have talked at length about how the audience they find influences how they present everything they do, and how it can be business-ending to try and shift away from what your audience expects.
I posit this is a much bigger factor in the extremism of social media reviews than manufacturer pressure. Whether it’s overly positive or overly negative, those headlines and thumbnails clearly show a strong resonance with viewers. Clickbait works, and when putting food on your table relies on clicks and ad revenue it’s hard to blame them for leaning into hyperbole and overly skewed reviews. It’s not just tools either, you see this with movie reviews, TV, video games, etc.
Doresoom
The crazy thing is, I’ve had multiple people comment on some of my YouTube tool reviews telling me that I was too critical of a product.
And that’s not even for a product I was overly critical of! I said maybe 1-2 things I didn’t like about it, and for some reason that upset them. The only thing I can figure out is brand fanboys just can’t stomach that their favorite color of tool isn’t perfect.
MM
I’ve noticed for a long time now that the internet tends towards extremes. If you make even the smallest criticism of Option A then people are quick to label you a “hater” and an extremist fanboy of Option B. This is especially true if the discussion is about political issues. I’m no psychologist, I have no idea what the root cause of this is, but it is very strange.
No brand or model of tool is “perfect” and no tool will ever be perfect, if for no other reason than different people have different requirements, and many factors like ergonomics are at least partially subjective. I think the best one can do is explain the reasons for one’s criticisms. There’s no getting around the fact that there will be some triggered fanboys, but intelligent viewers are capable of determining on their own if those criticisms are relevant to their situation or not.
glenn
I have watched quite a few of your videos over the years and I have to say that your reviews are to the point, well balanced, fair. and give the information that a potential user of that tool needs.
I just don’t understand how people can get wound up over a criticism of a tool that they own. I know not every cordless tool I own is perfect and I am fine with that, as long as it gets the job done.
I find the same with Stuart here. Fair, balanced and good info.
eddiesky
Influencers? Ha!! I asked CoPilot (MS AI) to write me a positive review on a Dewalt tool. Sorry for the length but WHO needs an influencer?
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Gyroscopic Control: The DCF682N1 uses gyroscopic technology for precise control. Simply twist your hand to adjust the direction and speed of the screwdriver. It’s like magic for your DIY projects!
Compact and Lightweight: Weighing in at just 1.1 pounds, this screwdriver won’t strain your arm during extended use. It’s perfect for overhead tasks or tight spaces.
15-Position Clutch: The 15-position clutch allows you to fine-tune the torque for different applications. Whether you’re assembling furniture or working on electronics, this feature ensures optimal performance.
Variable Speed: Adjust the speed to match the task. Slow and steady for delicate work, or crank it up for faster driving.
Ergonomic Design: The DCF682N1 feels comfortable in hand, making long projects less tiring. Plus, it’s great for both right-handed and left-handed users.
LED Work Light: Illuminate your work area with the built-in LED light. No more squinting in dim corners!
User Reviews:
One user mentioned that it’s much lighter than their older power screwdrivers and found it especially helpful for ceilings.
Another reviewer praised its ergonomics and overall feel.
Where to Get It: You can find the DeWalt DCF682N1 on Amazon. And hey, if you’re feeling lucky, check out the giveaway in this video—they’re giving one away to a subscriber!
In summary, the DeWalt DCF682N1 is a versatile, user-friendly cordless screwdriver that combines innovation with practicality. Whether you’re a seasoned DIY enthusiast or a beginner, this tool will make your projects smoother and more enjoyable. Happy screwdriving! 🔩🔧
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jeff robbins
I find myself reading a bit about tools here, and then using Torque Test Channel, Project Farm, and Concord Carpenter to help guide my buying decisions. I am VERY dubious of single tool reviews and rely on multiple tool comparisons to see of 6-8 tools which rises to the top and why. I was convinced a long time ago (I bought it at Force Machinery in NJ on rte 22) that one brand of jig saw was so much better than my Bosch that I had to have it. It was not, and it definitely shaped my opionion of the brand, and I do think that brand does make some excellent other power tools. Many of the websites and youtube channels depend on a stream of tools, and by extension, no one ever gets a one star review, even though the product is one star. It also tends to have a chilling effect on real, meaningful product improvement, because the feedback to make improvements is “too hurtful” for the relationship. Sawstop’s dust collection on their smaller saws is awful, and they should be doing better. There, I said it. and I guess sawstop will not be sending me a saw anytime soon. It is important for reviewers to have integrity, and far too often they are shills playing the role of reviewer, and it can be often hard to see the difference.