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Review Unofficial Nothing Review by IceStorm
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Sorry guys, i will post more pics when my camera starts working. also, i will add bb code anchors for a table of contents
Don't center things and excessively bump your post. Feedback will come in due time.
That's kind of presumptuous and rather accusatory, man. The two look nothing alike, dude. His is also a first impression, with the REAL meat coming in later. You are also forgetting that Another World is a very accomplished reviewer, with a hell of a lot more reviews under his belt. He has been writing a lot longer than me, even.
Another World
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Please. 2 letters; N and O.
AW is an accomplished reviewer with more than a few product evaluations "under the belt", so to speak.
Not trying to be a dick, but the reason you see similarities is because it's the same product being written about (and AW's is essentially a quick recap of the first impressions of the Zero, not an actual review per-say). The sameness stop there. I'm not saying yours is bad,
but there's a repetitiveness that makes your overview difficult to read (for me).
My advise is to try to choose some different wording as you go along so it doesn't sound like a class assignment report.
edit: only a small batch of prototype/SE Zero's with 256MB of RAM were dubbed unofficially as the 'Frankenzero' to distinguish any difference from the SE (32gig internal) and Kickstarter(16gig internal) units, both with 512MB of RAM. Production consoles (such as thinkgeek) contain a 16gig of internal storage.
edit too: dont be discouraged, the critiques here are meant are meant to help out with your final product =p
Much of the review also has font and spacing inconsistencies, and centered text which just does not look as formal. I would highly recommend a deep crawl through the review and fixing the overall aesthetics of the article. By the way, colored text is not the best to use. I would suggest highlighting the review and hitting the eraser button in post editor to just completely restart the formatting.
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are you fucking high? don't you ever accuse me of plagiarism. i worked with gcw's ceo for over 2 years to secure my review sample. i'm a respected member of this community and a respected reviewer. i don't appreciate your slander or your PMs accusing me of such.
as for feedback:
"A special edition GCW Zero box (Not my picture)" -- that is the KS box. same as the unit I was sent. it contains the same contents as the thinkgeek box.
the black font is very difficult to read on the dark theme. the centered TOC is hard to read, left justification would look much more professional. images should be be the same size, shape, and format all the way through the review, otherwise it just looks unprofessional.
i personally wouldn't make so many comparisons to the a320. the zero is not made by dingoo technologies. it is only a spiritual successor. the point of the zero was to make the handheld that the dingoo community wished the a320/a330 had been. comparing it is like apples to oranges. sure they both play games and run a form of dingux, but beyond that they are completely different machines by completely different manufacturers. by continually comparing it to the a320 you are setting yourself up for criticism and arguments.
this mixed justifications (center/left) make the review difficult to follow. you may wish to adjust this or rethink the layout in order to make it flow better.
the FrankenZero was the term devs gave to the prototype units made before the SE units. calling the production unit that in your review is going to confuse users.
"When you pull out the styrofoam" -- i haven't seen a production unit with styrofoam. the zero is encased in a cardboard tray that sits above the cables and extras. if your unit does indeed have styrofoam then leave that sentence in there, but be sure to include images. if it is actually cardboard then please change it. when future readers find your review in 6 months they may jump to conclusions and assume something "fake" or "clone" about their system because their unit shipped in a cardboard tray and not styrofoam.
"If you backed the Zero on kickstarter before it was released, you get a special edition" -- the SE units were made prior to KS. they were a limited run and did have a few issues. most did not see the light of day and few actually go their hands on them. so if you backed the unit on KS you got a KS unit. the units that followed were the retail units from thinkgeek with the new wifi chip.
"It feels similar to the Nintendo DS lite or DSi, but a little better." -- this statement makes it seem like you have never used a ds/dsi. i would never compare them to the zero. i own a few chinese/clone/fake/open source handhelds and the only dpad i find on par with the zero is the gemei a330.
it would be respectable to thank surkow and the quick start guide for all the info you copy/pasted.
-another world
[GBATemp]~IceStorm: I am going to give you some real feedback on this review now. You want real advice, you look above a few posts and read Another World's post. My tips are more generalized, but as he actually WORKED with the thing, his tips are far more specific. I took some time to analyze the nitty gritty aspects of your review, and there are a couple things I have noticed and others have pointed out. Bear with me, and know that I'm trying to help you out.
- Your Table of Contents should be in the "Left" orientation instead of center.
- Your text is in black, which is unreadable to some on the Dark Theme. Best way to revise it is to highlight the entire review text and hit the eraser in the top left corner next to "Font Family."
- Image captions should stick under the pictures, which you should resize to be the same size. Some of your captions are in the left orientation and others are centered.
- Learn consistency! Not to be offensive, you seem very unsure as to what you want to have in terms of formatting, as it seems very messy! Some of your items are centered and then others are thrown to the left. Like your whole bottom section of where to buy is centered, but shops are on the left. That's a no no.
- If it was a sample, you're going to want to thank your sponsor, preferably at the end.
- Your score seemed rather obscured, you should at least highlight it somewhere. At the end of your conclusion, give the score a separate line. How did your score break down? What lost points?
- I noticed that you're doing a lot of comparisons to the Dingoo product line. If you want to do so, at least have photos of the Dingoo in comparison to it, so that it at least has some brevity. For me, it still feels unclear as to why the Dingoo just doesn't work in comparison to the Zero.
- Add more photos of the product! Two differently sized photos are not going to cut it, and you're also going to want to find a preferably flat surface to take photos on, like a wood floor. Holding the console in your hand just looks sloppy.
- Instead of relying on a lot of images that the supplier gave to you, why not use some of your own? Grab a decent camera that's not a mobile device, and take some photos of it! Most reviewers have a dedicated camera that is not a mobile device! You'll love your work a lot more too.
- I personally don't feel that your score matches the overall text in the review. This is more of a personal quirk, but you should look into it a bit.
- You should also talk to your readers about how or why a purchase is necessary or not. Explain to us why this device is worth our money instead of comparing it to the Dingoo, a device readers may not be familiarized with!
Also, this text is almost 100% lifted from http://www.gcw-zero.com/specifications and http://wiki.gcw-zero.com/Quick_Start_Guide - including the plethora of images (and the ensuing almost complete lack of actual text) and the application descriptions, which come with verbatim formatting from the Quick Start Guide.
Ouch.
Saw this coming from a mile away when you dissed Another World.
The guy is like the Pope of homebrew around here -- you couldn't have picked a more undeserving leg to pee on.
Saw this coming from a mile away when you dissed Another World.
The guy is like the Pope of homebrew around here -- you couldn't have picked a more undeserving leg to pee on.
Ouch.
Saw this coming from a mile away when you dissed Another World.
The guy is like the Pope of homebrew around here -- you couldn't have picked a more undeserving leg to pee on.
He took it surprisingly well too.
thanks for the tips[GBATemp]~IceStorm: I am going to give you some real feedback on this review now. I took some time to analyze the nitty gritty aspects of your review, and there are a couple things I have noticed and others have pointed out. Bear with me, and know that I'm trying to help you out.
I wrote a very long and wordy guide as to how reviews are done or can be improved. That link is in my signature. Even if it's a couple months old, it should have a thing or two that you might find useful! I hope you know that we're not trying to make you feel like a shitty reviewer, rather we want to see it be the best it can be!
- Your Table of Contents should be in the "Left" orientation instead of center.
- Your text is in black, which is unreadable to some on the Dark Theme. Best way to revise it is to highlight the entire review text and hit the eraser in the top left corner next to "Font Family."
- Image captions should stick under the pictures, which you should resize to be the same size. Some of your captions are in the left orientation and others are centered.
- Learn consistency! Not to be offensive, you seem very unsure as to what you want to have in terms of formatting, as it seems very messy! Some of your items are centered and then others are thrown to the left. Like your whole bottom section of where to buy is centered, but shops are on the left. That's a no no.
- If it was a sample, you're going to want to thank your sponsor, preferably at the end.
- Your score seemed rather obscured, you should at least highlight it somewhere. At the end of your conclusion, give the score a separate line. How did your score break down? What lost points?
- I noticed that you're doing a lot of comparisons to the Dingoo product line. If you want to do so, at least have photos of the Dingoo in comparison to it, so that it at least has some brevity. For me, it still feels unclear as to why the Dingoo just doesn't work in comparison to the Zero.
- Add more photos of the product! Two differently sized photos are not going to cut it, and you're also going to want to find a preferably flat surface to take photos on, like a wood floor. Holding the console in your hand just looks sloppy.
- Instead of relying on a lot of images that the supplier gave to you, why not use some of your own? Grab a decent camera that's not a mobile device, and take some photos of it! Most reviewers have a dedicated camera that is not a mobile device! You'll love your work a lot more too.
- I personally don't feel that your score matches the overall text in the review. This is more of a personal quirk, but you should look into it a bit.
- You should also talk to your readers about how or why a purchase is necessary or not. Explain to us why this device is worth our money instead of comparing it to the Dingoo, a device readers may not be familiarized with!
thanks for the tips
No worries. You want real tips you read Another World's post as he brings up a lot of valid points.
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he clearly is not open to actual criticism. the review is still a mismatch of incorrect information, copy/pasted facts, bad opinions, and poor formatting. in its current state it doesn't even qualify as an outline for a review. i'm unsure why it was published or how someone would want this body of work to represent them. when good criticism is said, the response is "thanks" without any actual changes. disregarding the writing, the formatting issues are a half hour fix at best, if you consider the issue or re-sizing and re-hosting images. those cosmetic changes alone would speak volumes for the body of work, and make it much easier to focus on the required edits.
-another world
-another world
All he really needs to do to even start on the formatting is to just highlight the entire thing, click the eraser, and start formatting from scratch. The writing is a whole different beast that needs to be tackled to say the least.
Seriously though. If you get time, you should honestly just start from scratch.
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