Whenever I make a substantial investment in a new technology, be it hardware or software, I try to inform myself before I walk to the store as best as possible. I usually draw on lots of customer and professional reviews of the products I’m interested in that are available online.

However, over the course of the last years I’ve increasingly found that professional reviews have mostly degenerated into mass-produced, repetitive 50-liners that largely copy the content of others without actually taking the time to get to know a device or software. For me they have become practically unusable.

Newest example: my new MacBook Pro 15” (June 2009 model). After a week of testing the three most important features of the device at least for me haven’t been discussed in any of the reviews I read beforehand.

1. Noise and Heat: the new 2009er series MacBook Pro’s make virtually no noise at all. When I opened the lid for the first time I was stunned. I thought something was wrong with the ventilation. Even when I push the system to near 100% processor load the noise emanating from the cooling system is negligible compared to the volume my former 3-year old silver MacBook Pro could reach even under regular working conditions. And I considered that model to be fairly silent already. With the new model I have difficulties making out any noise at all even if the room is as silent that you could hear a needle fall. The outer casing of the new model also stays substantially cooler than the old one. I can easily carry it on my lap and I don’t get that tingling feeling in the palms of my hands after hours of work.

2. Sound quality: even though I am having the impression that the sound quality of the speakers has suffered a bit possibly due to the tiny size of the holes cut into the aluminium shell that are much smaller than those in my old silver MacBook Pro the quality of the headphone jack has improved considerably. I have never heard anything quite like it combined with my double-driver Ultimate Ears in-ear pieces I once purchased to get the best possible sound out of a mobile device. The improvement in reproduction quality of 256bit MP4 music is, at least to my ears, very noticeable. The sound is warmer, more well-rounded and full without being too dark while the tunes remain clear and sharp with instruments being clearly distinguishable particularly on the upper frequency bands. Its both classical and pop/rock music that benefits from these improvements.

3. The Black Display Frame: while you might say that the old silver MacBook Pro’s looked a bit more posh or stylish with their silver display frames and silver keys for a professional writer like me who spends 8-10 hours every day in front of this thing the new black display frame makes all the (unexpected) difference. Particularly in combination with the full-screen writing mode of Pages that puts the text in white letters on an entirely black background the new frame that is also broader than the old one gives the impression as if you text was floating on a huge pitch-black virtual desktop. Result: total avoidance of distraction.

Of course product reviews suffer from the need to push through as many reviews as possible in a short time. The 1-2 minute CNET video reviews for instance always make me wonder if anyone finds them valuable. To me they are worthless repetitions of the most obvious features I usually find documented everywhere else aplenty. How about some more courage for subjectivity in product reviews?