Consumer Reports Online: Great CR Data Without The Hassle of Paper Magazines
Written: Dec 30 '04 (Updated Dec 30 '04)
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My husband finally agrees with me. For the longest time I've been trying to convince him that our dishwasher really and truly stinks, in spite of its premium brand name. So as soon as he said, "Okay you're right, let's get a new dishwasher," I headed straight to Consumer Reports Online and began browsing their recent reviews of dishwashers. I have had a subscription to Consumer Reports online for the past four years and while I don't use it regularly, I find it invaluable for the four or five times a year that I want access to the same data that Consumer Reports Magazine readers have.
About Consumer Reports and Consumer Reports Online
I grew up in a household where Consumer Reports magazine was read monthly by my mother. I can't remember a time when we didn't have back issues of the magazine, or their annual ratings guides, somewhere around the house. My mother even relied on these people to tell her what kind of peanut butter to buy! (Though to be fair, at the time they recommended Jif and it is truly a very fine brand of peanut butter. I still use it today.)
The origin of it all began in the 1930's with the publication of Consumers Union Reports. This eventually grew into the magazine Consumer Reports. In the 1980's Consumer Reports became one of the first magazines to put their content online first featuring it on Prodigy in 1987, then later CompuServe and then America Online. Ten years later in 1997 Consumer Reports Online, www.consumerreports.org was born.
Consumer Reports Online is a paid subscription service that costs $26 annually for non CR magazine readers. If you already have a subscription to Consumer Reports magazine you can get online access for $19 annually. Alternatively if you just want monthly access for a few months, you can pay $4.95 a month.
What Does Membership Give You?
Membership to Consumer Reports Online provides you with unlimited access to all CR ratings and recommendations. They have detailed information on all of the products that they have tested for the past four years. I think that online membership is more valuable than subscribing to the magazine because I know that I would have lost half of those magazines by now, but with the online access I can just do a search at the site and the information is at my fingertips.
Membership also gives you access to the latest issue of the magazine, to their ratings and CR Best Buys and to recalls and product safety information.
Using the Site
Using Consumer Reports Online is extremely easy. When you first head to www.consumerreports.org you have to log in. From there you just search for the topic that interests you. For instance, all I need to do is type in "dishwasher" in the search box at the top of the page to find the August 2004 reviews of dishwashers. Clicking on that link takes me to the actual article as it appeared in the magazine and from there you can review the ratings for the dishwashers they reviewed. The ratings table is just as it appears in the publication but the actual dishwashers are hyperlinked so you can click on them to view specific details for each item.
If you're more interested in browsing, you can do that easily at Consumer Reports Online as well. Across the top of the page is a bar containing a number of sections: Autos, Appliances, Home & Garden, Health & Fitness - all topics you would expect to see somewhere like Epinions, except they have actual reviews and benchmark tests for products in each of these categories.
How Useful is Consumer Reports Online?
As I said earlier, I don't visit this site on a daily basis but I do visit it several times a year. Each time we consider a major new purchase such as a large appliance, an automobile, or electronics, I check out Consumer Reports Online.
Consumer Reports isn't always the best source for reviews. For instance, I found their reviews of treadmills last year to be woefully inadequate for my marathon runner husband's needs. Instead I found the recommendation for his treadmill at Runner's World, a much more specialized source. Consumer Reports does a good job on "garden variety" stuff such as appliances and cars, but I always like to verify their decisions by checking other places like Edmunds and of course Epinions. Consumer Reports bases many of their ratings on strict laboratory tests and the fact of the matter is that sometimes the best data is from the actual consumer, like what you'll find here at Epinions.
Summary
I've had my Consumer Reports Online subscription for so many years that I really don't think I'll ever stop subscribing to it. It's much easier to search for meaningful data online at the website than it is to get a magazine each month that I have to wade through. While Consumer Reports isn't always the be-all, end-all of my decision making process it is a very reliable source for starting that process. I often start with Consumer Reports and then taking what I've learned there, I'll visit sites like Epinions for actual customer data and make my decisions based on both sources. If you like reading reviews before you make a purchase, and chances are that if you're reading here at Epinions you do, you'll find Consumer Reports Online useful.
Consumer Reports, published by Consumers Union
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10703-1057
http://www.consumerreports.org
Phone: 1-800-727-8190
Recommended:
Yes
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mrs-j
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