theVooner.com Review - Welcome to High Gear

In mid-October 2000, theVooner contacted me by email with an idea about a new section for [danchan] that reviews gadgets. He told me he would even be a guest reviewer. The idea of writing reviews of stuff had been at the back of my mind for some time, and I suggested that theVooner should be the resident reviewer while I would take guest reviewing duties.

You see, theVooner is much more qualified than me to review gear, because well, he is the Gadget Master. I've known this guy since fifth grade and he has always had the latest and greatest gear. He also lives in Hong Kong which is just a day later than Tokyo from getting the cool stuff.

Which brings us to the Gear Selection Process. Generally, any items we review are things that we bought, after much research and thought and comparison against all competing items in the same category. As such, the reviews are generally skewed towards being positive, since at the time of purchase they were considered by us to be best of class. There are exceptions, we do make mistakes and end up with lemons sometimes.

The review process is not scientific in any way. It is based partly on impression and partly on subjective performance tests. We got sick of looking around the Internet for information about the latest gear and finding nothing, or at best, a list of specifications. Who cares that the device takes 4.5V DCIN?

We want to know: Is it cool? What is the design? Does it work well? Probably in that order, in fact.

Cost does not factor into the review. In that sense, all items are on a level-playing field. We are looking for the best in class.

What does best in class mean? Well, we won't compare the top of line prosumer DV camera with the top of the line professional DV camera used to film Star Wars: Episode II. So there is some practicality in our choices. They are within reason.

What will we review? I leave this open, but initially our focus will be on consumer electronic equipment.

How do we rate the gear? We want to make it simple, but we also didn't want to use the decisive thumbs up, thumbs down rating since we believe there is a gray area. So, items are given one of three designations: Essential, Money to Burn, and Waste of Time.

Essential and Waste of Time should be fairly self-explanatory. Money to Burn is that gray area of debatable usefulness. Don't get us wrong, the item might still be best in class, it's just not apparent whether or not its fun-factor, or its allure, is lasting. These are things that are generally best left until the day after receiving a big bonus check.

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Well, fifteen months and twenty-nine reviews later — it's January 23rd, 2002 — I realized that High Gear had far exceeded my greatest expectations. These reviews used to be hosted on [danchan], but I feel at this point in time, High Gear deserves a new home and a new name. From now on all new reviews will reside at theVooner.com.

Welcome to theVooner.com Review.

theVooner can be contacted at theVooner@yahoo.com