Equipment Review Review

Here are the undisputable rankings of the leading sources of astronomy equipment reviews (after all, if you're going to put up a website full of equipment reviews you ought to be able to take a little criticism...) All rankings are on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 1 being Meade-advertising-copy bad and 5 being how incredibly great the reviews would be if I wrote them all.

Cloudy Nights (4/5)
Pro: Very numerous reviews, frequent updates. Reviews written by users; tend to be detailed, entertaining, and useful. Site is well-organized, free of ads (for now...), and popular. Best place to look for a review of a late-model piece of equipment.
Con: technical knowledge and writing ability of reviewers inconsistent. Because most reviews are written by people who own the equipment, and nobody wants to think they own inferior equipment, there's a strong positive bias to most reviews. (They almost always wind up concluding, "It may have some flaws, but it's overall a very good value and I'm glad I bought it.") This is even stronger than the please-the-advertiser bias found in the magazine reviews.

Ed Ting's Scope Reviews (3/5)
Pro: Written by an experienced, knowledgeable observer, with an engaging writing style. Because all the reviews are by the same guy, it's easy to judge his biases. He doesn't own the equipment he reviews (or appear to worry about p!$$!ng off advertisers), and is not afraid to rip it.
Con: Not many reviews posted recently, and therefore becoming increasingly irrelevant. Tends to focus on high-end stuff (big dobs, 6" refractors). Reviews are relatively short and tend to focus on one or two characteristics. Sometimes seems bored with equipment he's reviewing and dismisses it for no apparent reason.

Sky and Telescope (3/5)
Pro: Written by professional reviewers. Long, detailed articles cover most factors that might be relevant (especially ease-of-use). Usually include good pictures.
Con: Generally avoid technical details or comparisons to other products. Even though they avoid technical details, they still manage to be kind of boring to read. Possibly biased in favor of major advertisers in the magazine. Infrequent reviews, focusing on major-brand equipment.

Excelsis (2/5)
Pro: Large database; the only site to get reviews on a lot of products (esp. cheap eyepieces). Lots of different reviewers makes it less vulnerable to a particularly good or bad sample.
Con: Written reviews are relatively rare, and usually quite short (1 paragraph). Generally anonymous, and tend not to be well-thought-out or supported. Numerical ratings almost useless without written justification. Anyone remember how this site used to be, a few years ago? There were a LOT more written reviews, and the whole thing was much more fun & useful.

Todd Gross's Mini-Reviews (2/5)
Pro: Similar to Ed Ting's, only his reviews are shorter, less entertaining and less detailed.
Con: Even more out-of-date than Ed Ting's. Reviews are shorter, less entertaining and less detailed. Like I just said.

My suggested addition:

Astronomy Magazine (0.5/5)
Pro: They definitely are magazine copy, which plumps up the magazine, take up print space, and makes advertisers think it's maybe a good place to spend their money. Also useful for people who have no desire to read a useful review.
Con: Ridiculously lacking in any kind of useful content. A-Mag's reviews are a joke. Reviews appear to have been edited by summer marketing major interns that know nothing about astronomy, but must reduce the author's copy by 80% so that it will fit in with all of the silly photos that often are irrelevant to the article, along with the requisite image of M51 or Saturn taken in 1965. I can't think of another "review" source where the reviews routinely either make me laugh, or shake my head in horror.

...and Paul, I do agree that Cloudy Nights and Ed Ting's site (along with Tod Gross's reviews) are great. I've referenced these sites many, many times on my way to figuring out that Zambuto mirrors are what I like. ;-)