DON’T buy anything based on a first impression from me or ANYONE ELSE! I had a pretty involved back and forth conversation with a viewer after I posted my video of my first impressions of the Major Lutie Raptor F22 and one comment stood out. “When a kid sees an influencer make a video and all he says are good things then what do you think that means to a young or dumb person?” That’s worth discussing further.
TLDR Don’t Buy ANYTHING Based on a First Impression!
My basic attitude towards anything I put out is that you shouldn’t buy anything, not a car, a toothbrush, a book, movie ticket, nothing, based upon someone else’s first impression. For me it takes several weeks and sometimes months of constant use to find all of the nuances with a product that would influence a purchasing decision. For example, what if I get a product in and I’m in a deload week or I haven’t been doing that kind of training recently? With a barbell for example, you often can’t find flaws until you put about 500lbs on it so if I haven’t been deadlifting heavy enough to safely load a new barbell with that much weight, I can’t tell you if the whip is excessive, too little or just right. With electronics, sometimes it takes about thirty days for the bugs to start popping up so again, a first impressions review is only good enough to tell you that something exists, not for you to make a decision to buy.
My Review Process
When I’m doing a product review of home gym fitness equipment, I typically try to use that product in as many possible ways, for as close to a three month time span as possible before rendering a verdict. With the Major Lutie Raptor F22, I’m following that process by:
- Testing the Band Pegs
- Testing the Landmine Attachment
- Testing the Cables and Pulley attachment for weight tolerance and how smoothly they operate
- Load testing the Spotter Arms
- Testing the Rack for stability from front to back (i.e. will it tip over if you load it up to the specifications?)
How I’m Testing the Major Lutie Raptor F22
I have personal fitness goals of my own, so I never do random one off workouts just to test products. Instead, I do what you would do if you purchased a new piece of equipment for your home gym: I integrate the products into my own workouts. So far I’ve tested the Major Lutie Raptor F22 with squats, bench press and shoulder work. As I use it in my training and I find things that I like or dislike, I make a note of those things and then I cover everything in my comprehensive review that I do after about three months. Sometimes this takes longer, which affects how many products I can review in a year, but to me it’s worth it to make sure that I only give out the best advice to my readers and channel subscribers and members.
Why Are There So Many First Impressions Reviews and Unboxings Then?
When a brand sends you a product to review, it’s to draw attention to their product because they’ve got a timeline for generating sales so they can recover the money they’ve invested in that product. Workers at the factory need to be paid for example, they have to have revenue to pay the people who clean their offices, got to pay the customer service staff, etc. So in every contract that’s signed with a brand, you can expect a deliverable date, or a date by which you’re expected to publish a video on the product. That date is rarely (probably never) going to be three months after they send it to you. So the most a reviewer can tell you is here’s this thing, here’s what it’s supposed to do, here’s where you can get it if you want it. That’s not enough time usually to test durability and how easy something is to use or whether a brand will honor their product warranties. And that’s why you should NEVER buy anything based on a first impression from me or ANYONE ELSE!