Every smartphone review now always comments on “phone wobble”, where a protruding camera bump makes the phone wobble a bit when you tap it on a table.
It’s okay if one person comments about it, making the review more relatable and such, commenting on an random everyday annoyance. But it’s not the biggest issue in the world, and the parroting of “phone wobble” now in almost every single one is annoying.
It’s like if a potato chip reviewer (crisps if you’re British) kept on commenting how on most bags, it’s difficult to grab the tiny crumbs buried in the corners. Yes, it’s somewhat annoying, but it’s not a massive deal and doesn’t affect the functionality (in this case, the tastiness and small amount of nutritional value) of the potato chips/crisps in question.
Why is the trend of “phone wobble” so big? Who cares? 90% of the time you are holding up the phone, leaning it on a stable thing (wall, cup, tissue box), or a phone stand of some kind. The few times you do put your phone on the table (e.g. you’re in the kitchen and looking at a recipe while cooking and don’t happen to be leaning it or putting it on a stand, you will tap occasionally to swipe) the wobble is mildly annoying at best. Why is it blown up to be such a big deal?
Does it keep viewer’s attention that little bit longer for the algorithm?
Are they being paid by the smartphone manufacturers to do so, to avoid precious time talking about functional problems (e.g. stagnant cameras, performance or thermal issues)?
Are they simply just out of touch with real world users, thinking that this is what normal people care about?
The majority of phone reviewers (and modern tech reviewers in general) get their review units for free so they lack that feeling and awareness that comes with spending $1000+ of their own money on a new device.
So what they feel are issues and what everyday customers feel are issues becomes skewed. Quite often I have seen reviewers ignore major software issues because they personally feel they are not that significant… on a device worth hundreds of dollars.
Or you get the opposite where they get hung up on something that most people aren’t going to care as much about. They can’t feel ripped off because they got the phone for free so they have to find something else to complain about. Phone wobble is kind of annoying but I forget about it like 10 seconds later.
Agreed, but if I ever spent a 1000 bucks on any product, I’d expect it to be able to sit in a usable position without wobbling.
I’m glad they’re highlighting this - the more the better until phone design is improved to eliminate such a stupid flaw.