Since I came back to the yoyoing community I’ve noticed something that throws me off about alot of the yoyo reviews…the people making them don’t have the skills to actually “review” the yoyo, THUS THE REASON I DON’T DO ANY REVIEWS YET (because I don’t have all of the skills necessary to give a proper review) . Now… Im not saying you cant give your general impressions of a yoyo and weather you like it more than another throw or not. Most people that do yoyo reviews only do tricks like skin the gerbal or a basic gt or brent stole. How can you talk about if a yoyo is good for speed or not but then you don’t do any speed combos? How can you say if it’s good for horizontal but then throw a half horizontal trapeze and then just bind the yoyo when you didn’t even do true horizontal… or not even throw a horizontal combo at all? I feel like alot of yoyo reviews are misleading because after I actually try those yoyos they aren’t like any of the reviews… I think “reviews” need to be left to the people with the skills to push the yoyo to its limits and find out its true strengths and weaknesses and for the people without those skills, just make videos about what they “think” about the yoyo. Alot of the times you see someone without the skills say one thing then someone with the skills says the complete opposite. Just something that has been on my mind cause while some people just want the entertainment, when I watch a review, I want to know what a yoyo is good and bad at. Shout out to the ppl that make great reviews though like Brandon Vu, yoyo Joe, and a few others.
There’s more to it than just that IMO - on these lower quality reviews, lack of skill is only a small part of the problem. More often than not, the person reviewing hasn’t used or hasn’t owned many yoyos to compare the throw being reviewed to - they don’t have a good point of reference. They think their super heavy 68g throw is good for speed combos because they haven’t tried or owned lighter yoyos that actually excel at speed combos. They think their extremely rim weighted yoyo is floaty because they haven’t tried or owned many yoyos that have a decent amount of mid weight. You get what I’m getting at. If you have only ever driven or been in one car in your entire life, you’re probably gonna think the next car you drive is gonna be the best car ever. Whereas a person who has been in all kinds of cars and driven lots of different models will have an opinion that’s able to be taken more seriously since they have a better frame of reference than the guy who has only driven one car. Frame of reference is important in reviews and I honestly think it’s a bigger problem than the reviewers skill.
Personally I think most reviews aren’t that helpful even if it’s a skilled player. Most people never say anything negative and give very general assessments. Most of the terms for reviews are kind of made up like power of a throw. How do you quantify the power of a throw during a combo? Also If Gentry can win Nationals on a Replay Pro I think just about any yoyo could win Nationals so talking about how good something is for long combos doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Determining if something is good for horizontal should be a given as well just based on the design.
Great point!!!
Great point! When I think about power, it’s all about which yoyos can power through the long combos… Obviously if you do long combos, some yoyos can handle them and some will die out before completing. You don’t have to throw the longest combo to win a contest you just have to get the most clicks and then look good while doing it. About the horizontal… Indeed you should be able to tell by design but even yoyos with a similar design could be better or worse than the other for different reasons.
Yoyo reviews and ‘usefulness’ - Often discussed even before youtube with written reviews on Dave’s board, II etc. They’re not that useful, but entertaining for those that want that type of content and a useful way to stay informed on what is happening in yoyo wrt new companies and throws.
I don’t watch many reviews as I know what appeals to me and what doesn’t but I welcome any and all that have the passion and interest to make these video’s regardless of their personal skill level. Good on them. And please don’t stop doing what you are doing.
If they’re not useful to you then make content that you think is more useful. There may be others that agree and will gladly watch.
So I have been thinking a lot about this, and I feel I have an interesting solution. It could be called the community reviews. Basically one person starts a thread about their thoughts on a product. It could be written or video or whatever, then anyone else can chime in about their thoughts. It would be a collection of everyone’s thoughts that could help people in the future. I also think it could bring more people to the forum. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked for any type of review and nothing…and I bet other people had the same experience. They could even make a sticky at the top of the forums with sub threads- the community reviews
But idk if people would hop on the bandwagon
Its entertainment for me. They are not designed to help you make a purchase decision.
Its also a good place to see what a yoyo looks like. Its hard to judge the size of a yoyo from just pictures!
I don’t even think I have the skills to review yoyos. Just a thought I had
This is a great idea!
They are def entertaining. I’m just strictly talking about the people that say things about the yoyo and don’t have the skills to back up what they are saying about the yoyo…does a slow skin the gerbil… says its good or bad for speed, does a half way horizontal trapeze and says its good or bad for horizontal. I def like watching them to see how a yoyo looks. Hope nobody takes this post the wrong way cause again…I don’t even think I have the skills to make a proper review but I can definitely let yall know if I like a yoyo better than others and what it feels like compared to them, as well as my thoughts on what they are good at in categories that I am skilled at or if its floaty or heavy haha
It’s hard to trust reviews by people sponsored by the company of the yo-yos they review 
Which is the case most of the time lol
Like who sponsored by YYF is gonna tell you “it is widely known in the community that quality control is lacking with YYF” 
Most of my collection is YYF so I’m not bashing them , it’s just after owning about 25ish YYF throws I can safely make that assessment I think 
While I agree with what you’re saying, I think it comes down to the yoyo itself sometimes. I’ve seen reviews from highly skilled throwers who call any yoyo that isn’t a V-shape performance model a bad or lesser yoyo. I feel like 90% of yoyoers out there don’t compete or aren’t interested in the latest high clicking tricks. I personally don’t like speed combos and horizontal. Like I can appreciate the skill involved but I find 9/10 a speed combo just looks a bit silly. So when I watch a review I don’t care if you can do a horizontal combo on an undersized organic yoyo. It goes both ways I guess. Like if I was watching a review of a wide performance-focused throw then sure I wanna see all those types of tricks. That’s why I tend to just watch Nates reviews as he spends time going over how the yoyo was made, what type of tricks it might be focused towards and includes a couple of comparisons.
There probably isn’t a real solution to this problem other than reviewing the yoyo based on your skills. Don’t give feedback on doing horizontal if you can’t do horizontal. But I think if someone says “I’m bad at horizontal” then tries it and the yoyo actually turns out to help them land it then that’s valuable information to some people. It could help people looking to get a throw that could aid them in learning that type of trick.
Great post! I agree… And yeah I like nate! Does a horizontal trick and says I’m not that good at horizontal and then gives insight on if it helps him or not.
Even a well written review from an expert player is still going to be real subjective. You won’t find a yo-yo than will make you a more skilled player without lots of patience and practice.
Don’t be too hard on folks doing amateurish reviews of their new throw. Most people get yo-yos for fun, and are just looking for pics and first impressions.
Besides, doing a quick review is mostly just a tool to help us justify a new purchase we really didn’t need to make.
I’m not trying to be harsh I don’t mind someone talking about their new yoyo, that’s perfectly fine. I’m specifically talking about when people mention things that they don’t have the experience to talk about. To me, it’s just misleading information. I definitely want people to keep making videos about their new yoyos, even new throwers. It helps the community 
I think it’s great that reviews are done by competitors and casual players. It helps me get different perspectives on a throw that I might be interested in. Personally, I’m not on that competition level, so I like watching the more casual reviewers because if they’re around my skill level then I will probably have a similar level appreciation for what they’re reviewing.
However, I’d like to see reviews that aren’t as well known or discussed in the community. I feel like a lot of the time reviewers are given the yoyo by the company to do a review and it’s usually a pretty reputable company that we know is putting out a good product anyway. Plus, if I got a yoyo for free to review, I probably wouldn’t have anything bad to say about it. I’d like to see more negative reviews as well.
Thats why I think it would be good if everyone could contribute to the review. Adding little tidbits and giving personal preference along with unbiased info
When you say negative reviews are you saying someone say that a yoyo is bad? Or just say more negative things about each yoyo?
I think just more negative aspects, if there are any. Honestly, thinking on it now and looking at my own collection, I can’t find much negative to say about any of them lol. Maybe it’s just hard to do these days since everything coming out is so well made. One recent purchase that comes to mind is the Sync, which has a pretty tight gap and binds felt really snappy out of the box. At first, it kinda irked me. After the pads wore down a bit, it started to feel just right and I like how reliable binds are on it. Problem is, I wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t spent a good amount of time with it.