The review was good for a chuckle, at least. Being an historian by academic training, I decided to do a little research to see if I could find out a little more about the reviewer and the magazine's testing process.
A quick Google search using the reviewer's name turned up this article (
http://www.pcmag.com.my/cameratesting/) on their camera testing methodology. Interestingly, I saw no mention of subjective "UI testing" or out-of-lab real-world photography with the camera. Just a few basic benchmarks and that's it. Hopefully, they just forgot to mention usage testing. If not, their methods are highly suspect and they should be called on it.
I feel sorry for consumers who have little or no photography experience or education... they'd have no idea from this review why the camera was designed the way it is. The problem isn't limited to the computer/consumer electronics press, though. I heard a salesperson in my local MicroCenter explaining to a potential customer that "this landscape picture was brought digitally into focus which you can't do with a film camera." I pulled her aside a little bit later after her bewildered-looking customers left and gave her a quick tutorial on why that was a misleading and inaccurate statement (aside: it felt good to answer "yes" when she asked if I was a photographer or something). Anybody else remember the days when the camera salespeople at department stores actually knew something about photography?
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