Which Reviewers do you really trust .....if any.

[RichJB]

Rip enraged the community by claiming that vaping gave him dry knuckles and caused him to get achy-breaky forearms. And that if only people bought his jungle juice, now available in the handy 2 gallon size for just $123.99 (links are down below), they would be saved from a fate worse than popcorn lung. Feet were stamped, breaths held until faces turned blue, toys tossed out of cots. Some even got out the whiteboard and the coloured markers, putting up a PowerPoint slide called "Parts of the body NOT affected by vaping" with a big red arrow pointing to the forearms. It was high drama that not even Donald Trump and North Korea could match. There wasn't enough free stuff, though.

 

[joshthecarver]

Interesting thread, @Puff the Magic Dragon

Personally I love watching reviews before I buy something. I find it oddly calming, don't ask me why haha. I am a student and I need to be sure what I spend my money on will last and be worthwhile (which is why I'm leaning towards mechs recently), and reviews help by giving a second, perhaps more experienced, opinion.

A lot of reviewers have received flack recently for getting "sponsored" by certain companies, and because they are given the products they review for free. Personally I don't have a problem with this, since if they are taking the time out of their day to put in effort to make and edit content. Why shouldn't they be rewarded? However, there are certain reviewers I trust more than others, and I feel like if they are given products for free they will be less inclined to try and justify the money they spent on the products.

My favourite and most trusted reviewers, in order, are:

@KZOR
Jaihaze
Vaping with Vic
Todd's Reviews
Grimmgreen
The Vaping Biker
DMOvapes
Geekay Vapes

 

[veecee]

Awesome topic. I'm new to vape, but not new to YouTube, reviews and DIY of many different mostly. And surfing videos.

I've watched a number of the reviewers mentioned, and I've missed a few too. (Zophie vapes was one of the first I came across. No pun intended)

I quickly realised that there was bias in many of the more popular reviews, and apart from taking it with a pinch of salt, I also look for numerous reviews on a device that I am interested in.

Looking for strong lists of both pros and cons will give you a fairly good idea if the product is for you or not.

Lastly, I'm biased towards local reviews like that of @KZOR. Something about knowing the person is from South Africa allows a level of identification and connectedness that I don't get with international reviewers.

So if there are any other local reviewers I'm missing out on, please share!

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[SmokeyJoe]

I've seen somewhere on the forum that many people don't like him.

Any particular reason why? I personally don't mind his reviews, though I don't base purchases on his reviews. I prefer Mike Vapes or Grimm Green

Personally he irritates the living crap out of me. Having said that there are rumours that he gave good reviews for kickbacks. Also he irritates the living crap out of me. He also irritates me

 

[veecee]

Personally he irritates the living crap out of me. Having said that there are rumours that he gived good reviews for kickbacks. Also he irritates the living crap out of me. He also irritates me

Lolling. Also, lol. And lolling. Hahahaha

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[Mr. B]

Personally he irritates the living crap out of me. Having said that there are rumours that he gave good reviews for kickbacks. Also he irritates the living crap out of me. He also irritates me

Sorry I am not sure if I am understanding you clearly. Does he irritate you?

 

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Thanks for reminding me about Morton Oen @AlphaDog . Found him recently. His "scientific" approach to airflow and the experiments he conducts are intriguing He really managed to "prove" many experts wrong. Well worth a look.

His excitement about the disco laser XOMO GT 255 was so convincing I am considering buying one against my better judgement.

 

[Spyro]

What I've seen from watching a few live reviews is that these guys get all of these products but most of them wont even review them unless you pay to bump the queue. VapingWithTwisted420 charges $1000 to bump that queue. I can only imagine RIPs fee being 5 times that.

• How much influence did the reviewer actually have? I recently watched an athlete on TV proudly say that he spent a whole day at XXXXX manufacturer "designing" the shoes which would bear his name.
  
  Depends on the reviewer and who the manufacturer is, I think. Jai Haze won't stop going on about how much effort he puts into his 502 every day.
  
  
• Were they shown the atty and merely asked their opinion?
  
  In some cases, I'm sure.
  
  
• Were they paid a flat rate, or are they being paid a percentage of the sales?
  
  You'll probably find various remuneration contracts.
  
  
• Is there an unwritten rule that reviewers go easy on fellow reviewers? Like doctors in malpractice cases!
  
  Yes and no. I've seen Mike Vapes rave about the Vandy Vape Triple while every other reviewer was like "HUH WHAT WHY??" Mike and Twisted, as mentioned earlier in this thread are in the same "click" of friends. Naturally, you wouldn't want to take a toilet on your friends product and post it publicly. Then go look at Jai Haze, he gave all hell (2 rage videos on the same product) to RIP trippers Pharoah Mini but raved about the original.
• Would a reviewer be biased out of jealousy?
  
  I could definitely see that happening.
  
  
• Would the reviewer with his/her name on a product give slightly harsher reviews to products coming out at the same time as hers/his?
  
  Good question.

I enjoy Jai Haze solely for criticism. I don't like flaws - which he actively searches for.

I enjoy DJlsbvapes but I always skip to the tear-down and charts.

I enjoy KZOR because no one on the planet does a better Cape Town Boet impression.

Rip owes me a few grand I think.

 

[SinnerG]

Rip enraged the community by claiming that vaping gave him dry knuckles and caused him to get achy-breaky forearms. And that if only people bought his jungle juice, now available in the handy 2 gallon size for just $123.99 (links are down below), they would be saved from a fate worse than popcorn lung. Feet were stamped, breaths held until faces turned blue, toys tossed out of cots. Some even got out the whiteboard and the coloured markers, putting up a PowerPoint slide called "Parts of the body NOT affected by vaping" with a big red arrow pointing to the forearms. It was high drama that not even Donald Trump and North Korea could match. There wasn't enough free stuff, though.

Forearms surely are affected by vaping.
Like in the following scenario:

 

[Tai]

Only 1 man has the balls to say it as it is, JaiHaze (the swearing adds atmosphere)

I lost all respect for Jai Haze when he could'nt coil the dot rda. Honestly, not rocket science

 

[AlphaDog]

Thanks for reminding me about Morton Oen @AlphaDog . Found him recently. His "scientific" approach to airflow and the experiments he conducts are intriguing He really managed to "prove" many experts wrong. Well worth a look.
View attachment 116053
His excitement about the disco laser XOMO GT 255 was so convincing I am considering buying one against my better judgement.

That mod reminds me of the Smoant Rabox

 

[Evil_Toast]

Honestly, I don't pay any attention to reviews for vape gear.

I give it 6 months. Then I search and see what products don't bomb out for stupid reasons at an above average rate.

 

[CMMACKEM]

After seeing a comment about a reviewer in one of the threads on the forum I was prompted to ask myself which reviewers I trust, and which ones are merely advertisers of certain products?
This is really difficult to determine because we don't know what goes on behind the scenes wrt payment for positive reviews (tons of free products, cash, overseas trips etc).
In the early days (three plus years ago) I didn't like reviewers who accepted free products for review because I thought that this might influence them. How things have changed. Pretty much all reviewers now receive all items for free.
All of you who regularly watch Youtube ecig related reviews will have noticed that there is no small amount of competition/friction/love/hate/cooperation/collaboration between reviewers. Apart from the Europe/USA divide, there are cliques and divides which one can pick up.
One of the biggest "problems" arose when reviewers started bringing out their own hardware in collaboration with one or other vape company. This started as a trickle but it has gained momentum. Apparently, there are about 20 reviewer related attys to be released in the next few months. The problems I have with this are :

• How much influence did the reviewer actually have? I recently watched an athlete on TV proudly say that he spent a whole day at XXXXX manufacturer "designing" the shoes which would bear his name.
• Were they shown the atty and merely asked their opinion?
• Were they paid a flat rate, or are they being paid a percentage of the sales?
• Is there an unwritten rule that reviewers go easy on fellow reviewers? Like doctors in malpractice cases!
• Would a reviewer be biased out of jealousy?
• Would the reviewer with his/her name on a product give slightly harsher reviews to products coming out at the same time as hers/his?

Another issue is the necessity for reviewers to chase the numbers of subscribers/views. There is nothing that can be done about this as all reviewers want more and more followers. The question is how far will you go to get more followers?
Some reviewers are anti-clone. Others aren't. Some anti-clone reviewers say nothing about parts of hardware copied by other non-clone manufacturers (velocity/goon decks, top airflow, domed caps etc).
At the end of the day, for whatever reason/s, I think that we all have our favourite reviewers who we trust more than others. In my case, I get really pi***d off when one of my preferred reviewers says or does something I strongly disagree with. I even stopped watching one reviewer because of this.
To prevent this thread from becoming a reviewer bashing exercise, I suggest that we essentially provide a list of around five or so reviewers we follow. Perhaps we could give reasons why we like the reviewers.
These are my top reviewers/channel in no particular order :

• The Vaping Biker
• Vaping with Vic
• Geekay Vapes
• Todds Reviews
• Pegasus Vaping Academy (Richard Ng)
• Mike Vapes
• Vapor trail Channel (Tony B)
• Kzor

I am not sure about him to be honest

 

[CMMACKEM]

Jai Haze(Hardware), OBS threatened him and his family and he still gave their tank a good review...bad mouthed the company of course.

Ambitionz Vapor(Hardware)


Northern Cali Vapers (Juice) The most honest juice reviews I have ever come across.

DJlsbvapes

 

[OnePowerfulCorsa]

1. Geekay Vapes
2. The Vaping Biker
3. Mike Vapes (not for honesty but generally has the review out before devices are out so can get an early look)

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[AndreP80]

Jai Haze finds faults, which is good to know before you spend money on a device, and he is entertaining(K1000 review, lol)
Ambitionz for his honest opinions, althought not too technical
Mike vapes for the early reviews
Heathen because he's Irish
Indoorsmokers for the odd chance of winning a giveaway
Rip Trippers, because I saw his reviews first while I was still trying to get off stinkies, and got a good idea of what to go for vape wise
Suck my mod, calm level headed decent presentation of products, and his videos taught me how to build and wick.

 

[GerritVisagie]

i basically only watch about 2-3 reviewers.
Grimm Green - he and I kinda think alike. Oh Great, ANOTHER Chinese dual 18650 box... WHOO HOO!
Mike vapes - probably the best build tutorials for any Atty..

The local guys i watch, coz they're local, and they're honest. (local is lekker)

Jay Haze is cool, but is he way too critical?? are all the products really as bad as he makes them out to be? #dropRDA
Tripp Ripper is a total tool, and i am convinced he sold out years ago. the only thing he said the last two years that i trusted, is that he lost weight due to a bet.

the rest, i have no real need to watch regularly, as i get a good lot of info from my "Regular Channels". only if I'm unsure about something will i extend my searches to the rest of the reviewers.

My biggest concern nowadays is that everything being released is so evenly matched, that every review is subjective, there is no more "this is total garbage, stay away" reviews anymore, so is it worth watching reviews, for the reviews? or should you just watch reviews to see up-close, and make up your own mind as to a product?

but, this is all subjective and you should make up your own mind

 

[Resistance]

I didn't do all of those things and I don't think I would.I get my reviews right here on this forum from people that still use their products and that goes along with tips and tricks.
I am going to miss a few names if I start mentioning,but I must say that @Timwis did a review here last week on a squonk mod.and I asked him a few questions and he answered all of them even the questions I didn't ask. so ecigssa rocks

 

[Waine]

I find Jay Haze a hyper critical, egotistical moron.


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[NickT]

Grimm Green
Twisted 420 (I know there’s a lot of hate for him, but his clumsy building helped teach me a lot seeing as I am as clumsy)
Suck My Mod
Vaping Bogan.

RIP Trippers makes me want to buy a ticket to the States and assassinate him.

 

[Christos]

Only one I trust is Mooch.

 

[BubiSparks]

I take them all with a pinch of salt but the two I do trust most are Kzor, Phil Busardo and Mark Todd.

LOL @Rob Fisher - Though I agree with you, it seems you mentioned 3 (THREE) reviewers here. I'm about your age and the brain is also getting a little slow these days, but at least I can still count

 

[Rob Fisher]

LOL @Rob Fisher - Though I agree with you, it seems you mentioned 3 (THREE) reviewers here. I'm about your age and the brain is also getting a little slow these days, but at least I can still count

I'm very old!

 

[zadiac]

I only trust Rip Trippers. His reviews are always accurate and unbiased. Best reviewer out there.

 

[jm10]

I only trust Rip Trippers. His reviews are always accurate and unbiased. Best reviewer out there.

Not sure if sarcasm???


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