Scaled to Fit

I am a long-time reader of MaximumPC, and love the magazine. However, I’ve noticed a reluctance to use most of your theoretical 11- point scale (1–10, plus 9 Kick Ass) for reviewing products. Out of curiosity, I counted the 2017 occurrences of each rating, and found the following (rating/no. of occurrences): 1/ 0, 2/ 0, 3/ 0, 4/ 0, 5/ 0, 6/ 7, 7/ 34, 8/ 51, 9/ 30, 9KA/17, 10/ 0. Thus, you’re using only a five- point rating scale. While I am sure it appeases potential advertisers to never get lower than a midscale rating, your readers would benefit from more differentiation.

– Scott Gaboury

ALAN DEXTER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, RESPONDS: The key factor when it comes to our reviews is that we don’t review just anything. We focus on hardware that is cutting- edge, exemplary, or just downright interesting. The exemplary stuff obviously gets high scores, and even most cutting- edge gear is pretty good these days, which leaves the catch- all of “interesting” to bring up the rear. The problem is, while some hardware is clearly better than others, the general quality level of hardware is incredibly high— it’s been a while since we’ve seen a truly awful piece of kit. For example, take a look at the review of the Lenovo Explorer on page 76, it’s not perfect by any means, but it does the job that it was designed to do well, and it makes several improvements over the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.