How much are your stars worth?
The review system for online shopping is broken.
This year, two of my siblings gave me Amazon credit for my birthday. After deliberating for several days, I decided to spend the credit — plus a little of my own money — on a new tablet.
I’d been getting frustrated by my existing Amazon Fire tablet and had wanted to go back to something with access to the Google Play store. (Yes, I know you can sideload the Google Play store onto an Amazon Fire tablet, and I did that at one point, but eventually ran into problems with it.)
I found what looked like a great deal on Amazon — an inexpensive tablet with a little bundle of accessories including a bluetooth keyboard. It was obviously from a no-name Far East company, one of those firms with an unpronounceable name that seemed to have come from from a random letter generator. But the specs seemed OK, and the reviews looked good. Several of the reviews indicated that the company reached out to them about warranty registration soon after the tablet had arrived.
I decided to take the risk and ordered the tablet. It arrived yesterday, and after setting it up I have been more or less pleased with it. It works as advertised. Time, however, is a factor in such things; it could be days or even weeks before the device’s shortcomings become apparent.
