msmobiles has published an article entitled HTC HD2 news review – on sale at carriers, problems with camera, positive reviews from freebie-getters and it includes comments like-
“several online writers are publishing overly positive reviews of HTC HD2, most of these writers using iPhone as their primary cellphone and one could wonder why? Well: they got “keeper” (not loaner) units of HTC HD2 from HTC for free. Unfortunately in most of these reviews this fact is not mentioned, so if you see overly positive review of HTC HD2 on the Internet you should ask the reviewer in comments whether she/he got the HD2 as freebie!” and-
“Disclaimer: we asked HTC to get HTC HD2 as freebie (because we have higher traffic and ranking than some sites that got HTC HD2 for free), but HTC has refused. We didn’t get it even as a loaner for review, but if this is a price that we have to pay for telling how it is, so be it.”
I haven’t linked to this particular article.
Now, I don’t want to start an online war here, but this article is highly subjective and could discredit many other sites who have posted genuinely honest reviews of the HTC HD2 and other smartphones in the past. It also sounds bitter and not well thought out, but I am mostly concerned about the impression it could give it. Saying that ‘we tell it how it is’ because they had to purchase a device is nonsense and no credible news resource would be influenced by the fact that the phone is a freebie.
I have never personally received a free phone for review and will always say it as it is, but even if I did get one for free it would make no difference to how I review it. To suggest otherwise, on the basis that some may have missed the HD2 camera problem, is grasping at straws and goes against an online community of websites which on the whole support each other through thick and thin.
The irony of all this is that PDA-247 is not a pal of the big manufacturers either, but I am not going to cry about it and proclaim us to be the only source of truth in the smartphone world.
Yeah, this is typical msmobiles “news”.
See my comments here: http://www.pda-247.com/wordpress/2009/11/htc-hd2-will-be-officially-upgradeable-to-windows-mobile-7/
I find this site funny, they are so off on reporting its fun to read.
I think it’s pretty obvious that this particular site (msmobiles) is hardly worth giving the time of day. Having said that, and having worked as both a journalist and PR consultant, I know for a fact that “freebies” and relationships with advertisers DO play a part in influencing editorial content, both in print media and online. Unfortunately, integrity is in short supply everywhere, these days.