My goal today is to get the shady dealings I’ve experienced out in the open both for
people looking to buy tablets, AND for artists who will get contacted by these companies
with offers to receive a “free” tablet to review.
I should mention overall I’ve had ok experiences with tablet companies despite the fact they’ve
asked me to do stupid things, some of which I was too naive to say no to.
That naive person won’t be you, not once you’ve heard this.
So let’s start with the truth for tablet buyers.
The truth is, unless a person has reviewed multiple tablets, they are not a good source
of information.
You need to review tablets from different companies to know which ones are good.
Be wary of how tablet companies use popular artists to try and sell you stuff.
Tablet companies target well-known artists, send them an inexpensive tablet to “review”
or “unbox” so all of their fans learn that company exists and maybe end up buying
something.
If the company likes the review the artist made, they send that artist increasingly more
expensive tablets because they know that person will do a good job giving them basically free
marketing.
Over time, these companies become more demanding about what the artist or reviewer should do
in their video.
And if you don’t do what they say?
Well, they stop sending you stuff.
So there’s always a little bit of pressure for a reviewer receiving the product for free
to do what the company says.
If you’re planning to buy a tablet, the other thing you should watch out for is the
fact many of these companies tell reviewers to give them five stars on Amazon.
I’ve had two different companies go so far as to request I buy their tablet from Amazon
with my own money so that my review would be marked as a verified purchase, and then
the company would Paypal me the purchase cost.
At the time it didn’t seem so crazy but now that I’m talking about it - wow.
That’s devious!
So be careful where you get your tablet reviews.
Don’t buy something just because your favorite artist did a video about it.
Now for the juicy details - let’s discuss what kinds of things I’ve been asked to
do.
As a basis for comparison, a decent tablet company will send you the product for free.
The only thing they ask in return is a review and links to the product’s store page.
That’s it.
But other companies have a lot of questionable, ever-changing rules, and kind of sneaky ways
to get you to do as much for free for them as you’re willing to do.
Some demand video descriptions be a certain way.
They usually have a long, typed up description for you to copy and paste.
This includes their social media, sale prices, information about products you didn’t even
talk about in your review, etcetera.
And they police this.
I’ve rewritten descriptions to be more clear, and was asked to change them back.
In the end I pasted all their junk in a separate section underneath what I wanted my video
description to be.
Some companies will ask you to send them the review video before you post it online.
If you send a company your review, they may make recommendations for you to change your
video, remove parts where you say negative things, or mention features or special sale
prices you did not mention.
Even if they don’t outright censor your review, the process of fixing your video creates
more work for you.
I’ve always said no to any changes like this - you should too.
Once in a while a company may send you a tablet directly from, say, China, instead of your
country’s Amazon.
When this happens you’ll end up with a customs and import bill.
I’ve tried to get companies to pay this.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
So you might be getting a $100 tablet, but be footed with a surprise $20 customs fee
by the shipping company.
Sometimes you’ll be offered a chance to do a giveaway.
If you look into the rules for these giveaways, they require your viewers to do stuff like
sign up for marketing email lists and social media.
It’s also very easy to cheat in these contests.
One contest required winners outside of certain countries to pay for shipping.
That’s actually illegal in many places; giveaways must be free to enter and free to
win.
Giveaways are worse than reviews.
The company is using you to profit.
At least with reviews you get important information to potential customers and receive a tablet
you can use or sell.
But by far the worst thing that ever happened to me was getting duped into doing product
testing for free.
A company asked me if I would like to review a new tablet that had not been released yet
and test it.
Reviewing, sure, but little did I know that “testing” was extra: locating issues with
the tablet, reporting those issues, checking to see if they were resolved after the company
made changes.
Repeat this process until everything works.
This is product testing.
Product testing is a paid job.
I got absolutely nothing out of doing this.
I spent 2 full-time days testing the product, they fixed their drivers, and I still had
to do the tablet review on top of that.
And because I received a beta version of the tablet, it didn’t come with its official
box or accessories.
Never agree to test tablets.
You should be receiving the finished product ready for review.
The most recent development is review deadlines getting ridiculously tight.
Normally a company either mentions no deadline, or around 3 weeks.
In one of my more recent reviews, the video needed to be done 1 week after receiving the
tablet.
That’s crazy!
That’s crazy.
So, what to do about all this?
First, make sure you ask for the review rules the first time you work with any company.
Second, negotiate.
Any of the stuff I’ve mentioned you can negotiate.
Say no, or even simply ignore unreasonable requests.
How are they going to know if you left a five star review on Amazon or not?
They don’t.
Give the product the rating it deserves.
When a company says they’ll send you a tablet if you give a positive review, you can say,
“I’m happy to review your tablet but I do not guarantee positive reviews” and they’ll
usually work with you anyway.
Most companies don’t care if you include critical points about their tablet in your
review, as long as you also cover what the tablet does well.
As a reviewer, the most important thing is to say no to anything you don’t want to
do.
You have the power here.
It’s your channel and you are an independent reviewer, not their sales department.
Thank you for listening, and I hope this video will help you make good reviewing choices
in the future.
Please share this with other artists you know so they don’t fall into the same traps I
did.
As of now I am quitting tablet reviews: it costs me more to make them than I get in return,
I’m tired of being used as free marketing, and I don’t want to be a product review
channel.
I wish to stay focused on animation and animation tutorials.
This monologue is a response to two other videos, the original by Aaron Rutten and the
second by the guy I go to for tablet reviews, Brad Colbow.
My experience 100% mirrors these guys, and they do way more tech reviews.
Links below to their perspective on the Painful Truth About Drawing Tablet Reviews.