Is it still worth reading the review now that Wang Ziru has apologized?

After the fierce battle between Luo Yonghao and Wang Ziru, the industry did not gain peace, but more discussions. All kinds of conspiracies and plots were put on paper, and everyone was fighting fiercely. The problems also expanded from whether it could withstand falls and whether it could dissipate heat to trust, morality, original sin and other topics, becoming more and more serious. The battle between Luo Yonghao and Wang Ziru finally ended with Wang Ziru's apology statement this morning.

After the excitement, what we need to reflect on is: Is the review still worth reading?

Reviews should not sway your stance

In foreign countries, or in the most ideal situation, evaluation agencies or evaluation media should avoid accepting investment from mobile phone manufacturers, or even advertisements from mobile phone manufacturers, or even mobile phones sent by mobile phone manufacturers for testing. They should directly purchase from the market, conduct evaluations on their own, and sell to netizens at low prices after evaluations to recover part of the cost.

So how do review agencies or review media make a living? They can put up advertisements, as long as they don’t put up advertisements from mobile phone manufacturers. They can also accept investment from others, as long as it’s not from mobile phone manufacturers, or accept tips from netizens. This may be difficult, but it is what mobile phone media and review agencies must maintain. The Chinese idiom “under the melon field and plum trees” is well known to everyone.

DxOMARK, launched by DxOLabs in Europe, evaluates and scores all SLRs and popular cameras. It is quite authoritative, and its income comes from selling image processing software. This software may attract more attention because of this rating, and this software and the laboratory also gain their own place through this mutually dependent business.

It is actually quite reasonable if domestic evaluation agencies promote their own apps or system UIs while evaluating mobile phones, and users will also understand their professionalism in the user experience of hardware and software.

Either brainwashed or misled

As we all know, the current battle among mobile phone manufacturers has entered a fierce stage, which is much more intense than the color TV war and PC war in the past. Not only do the bosses have to practice their eloquence and show their talents on stage, but the employees also have to act as fans, or ask relatives and friends to act as fans, and act naive and fanatical. In a word, it is not easy!

In this tragic living environment, Motorola and Nokia, unable to hold back their pride, have withered, while domestic brands have emerged one after another, competing for eyeballs on Weibo. Survival or death, under this premise, it seems that there is a reason for what manufacturers do, not to mention some marketing.

The biggest marketing lies in its press conference. In fact, I feel that if you don’t attend the manufacturer’s press conference, you will have a clearer understanding of the product, because the brainwashing of product press conferences is too serious. The artificial atmosphere and carefully arranged product introductions only show the gorgeous side to users and constantly strengthen it.

If you do not choose brainwashing, but completely trust a media, you may be misled. Because an objective fact is that every mobile phone has many bugs, either in design, manufacturing, or software. Maybe there are 500 bugs when it is first shipped, and when it is finally delisted, it has been improved to only 80 bugs, but these bugs still exist, but they will not cause a big impact on the user experience.

Every mobile phone has problems. If you only focus on the problems and fail to judge the mobile phone as a whole, it will mislead users. But who has the right to give a comprehensive evaluation of the mobile phone? In fact, mobile phone manufacturers cannot do so, because even if they can objectively evaluate their own products, they do not know enough about the products of their competitors. Therefore, recommending which product is worth buying is purely a subjective conclusion.

Hearing both sides leads to enlightenment, but hearing only one side leads to ignorance

This is another old Chinese saying, but it makes sense. Whether the review is worth reading is obviously worth reading, but a single review can only reflect a certain aspect of the phone's characteristics, and cannot draw a conclusion on whether to recommend or not to netizens. It may take 3-5 years to recognize a friend, and it is even more impossible to make a final conclusion about a phone with just one or two reviews.

In fact, analysis has some value, but it is more entertaining. Although the comparison of mobile phone parameters is dull, it can provide first-hand data reference, but even with first-hand data, we still cannot draw conclusions. For example, there are two mobile phones, one with high running points and the other with low running points, but the low-end mobile phone is also cheaper, and the battery life is also hard to say. It is really hard to say which one is more worth buying. Maybe we can only say which one is more suitable.

Through single product evaluation, horizontal comparison, data evaluation, sensory analysis, multi-dimensional evaluation, and evaluation by multiple evaluation subjects, we can get a comprehensive impression and decide on our own purchases. It’s as simple as that.

I am for everyone and everyone is for me

If a netizen is careful, he can go to Jingdong to look at the negative reviews of the phone. There are more or less negative reviews, and more negative reviews are found in the user group that bought the phone, that is, in the forum of the phone. In the forum, you can also see the same problems faced by many users, and provide a basis for your own decision.

At the same time, we cannot just ask for information from the media. After all, the media also has its own limitations and oversights when writing. The actual data from the majority of users is the closest to the truth. If we contribute more reviews and provide references for others, we will naturally get more references from other users of other products. I am for everyone, and everyone is for me.

Zealer issued an apology statement on Guanwang today, apologizing for the previous review of the Hammer T1 mobile phone. The full text is as follows:

Hello everyone, today's video has nothing to do with the review. Before ZEALER enters the next stage, I hope to give a serious and honest explanation to all friends who care about us. The live debate on August 27th was an unprecedented challenge for both ZEALER and me. The original purpose of the video debate was to openly and transparently discuss the problems of the T1 product and ZEALER's testing methods, and to give the audience the truth. But unfortunately, I didn't have too many opportunities to fully express our views.

In the reflection afterwards, we found that we had fallen into a huge thinking trap - we had been trying to avoid reflecting on ourselves by proving other people's problems. We actually forgot our original intention and the value and mission of ZEALER. Until we suddenly realized that changing and improving ourselves is actually the most important thing.

First of all, we would like to apologize for the technical errors and language errors in the T1 review video. For example, the descriptions of the internal switches, LOGO craftsmanship, and electrostatic protection will cause serious deviations in people’s understanding of this product. For a team whose profession is review, such mistakes should not occur.

Secondly, we would like to apologize for the inaccuracy in the filming of the video material and the misleading information that may have been caused by it. The conclusion about the viewing angle in the video is based on the test results in the darkroom. When shooting the material, the aesthetics of the lens shooting was given priority, and the rigor was ignored. As a more serious commentary content, ZEALER's evaluation video should maximize the rigor of expression rather than visual beauty in the way the video material is shot.

Third, I want to apologize to all the friends who have always supported ZEALER. You have always given us the greatest tolerance and support on ZEALER's road to growth, but we failed to keep our mission in mind throughout the whole process and failed to meet everyone's expectations of us.

Finally, as the head of the team, I would like to apologize to every member of ZEALER. They have put in a tremendous amount of effort both in the production of the review and in the preparation for the debate. However, my poor performance failed to fully reflect everyone's efforts, causing ZEALER to suffer a huge loss.

But what hurts me most in the whole incident is the loss of ZEALER's "credibility", which is the foundation of our existence. To sum up, everyone's discussions revolve around several aspects.

First: "Objective, independent, third party"

Since the birth of ZEALER, these three labels have been closely following us. After we accepted financing from mobile phone manufacturers, everyone felt that we were no longer worthy of carrying these three labels, so today we decided to take them off.

What we can guarantee is that in future evaluations, we will measure objective and real data, and the evaluation will definitely be from the perspective of ZEALER. At the same time, we will add a "stakeholder" statement in a prominent position on the website to explain the situation of ZEALER's investors, and the same content will be included in the video. I firmly believe that as long as we continue to move forward in the direction we have identified, one day, objectivity, independence, and third-party will return to ZEALER again.

Second: About consultation

In 2013, ZEALER started providing consulting services with the original intention of helping manufacturers identify deficiencies in their products before they are launched on the market from the user’s perspective. At the same time, we also hoped that our suggestions on products would be substantive.

However, as of today, everyone's voices have proven that our past decisions were ill-considered, so we have decided to stop all consulting services from today. Whether to continue to provide free services or not to start them will be decided later.

Third, about FIX

For the FIX business, we will continue to purchase the best quality accessories on the market through legal channels, because our goal is very simple, which is to provide users with reliable and high-quality services.

The above are the changes that ZEALER will make after experiencing all this, but ZEALER's goal of restoring the essence of technology will not change! Whether it is FIX, ASK or the upcoming ZEALER LAB, they will all be closely centered around this long-term goal.

The reputation of a brand is definitely not formed overnight, and the accumulation of credibility is definitely not achieved overnight. Next, we will focus most of our time on how to improve our own problems. We hope that through our efforts, ZEALER can become more open, transparent, and humble.

We lost the debate, and I accepted this the moment I walked out of the studio. Although we lost the debate, we did not lose the future. For ZEALER at this stage, the objective problems with T1 have far exceeded the scope of our attention. Originally, we planned to have a period of rest after updating a few more videos to accumulate strength for the upcoming new stage, but now it seems that we need to bring this plan forward. I hope to be with our team, summarize the lessons we have learned during this period, listen to their voices, reflect on my own character and behavioral flaws as a decision maker, and explore the room for improvement in our execution as a team.

This is the most serious trust crisis that ZEALER has experienced since its establishment. People always have the right to question and reserve their opinions, so please don’t believe what we say today, time will be the best proof.

Soon, we will start again!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.