Hello Srajan, thanks for publishing John Lim's email. I often wondered how long-term loans for reviewers come about. As you point out, it's important that such offers are made once a review has published. In your experience, does this kind of thing happen a lot? Barry Charling
My standard MO is to publish, then email the link to the maker with a "will be packed up and ready for pickup tomorrow, please advise when to expect shipper" request. Now it may happen that a maker asks to leave their gear and see it appear in future reviews. The obvious risk? It could eventually find itself compared to something better/cheaper and steal some of the original review's thunder. Either way, it's extra hardware that reviewers must store when not using it. Unless it fills a very particular hole in their toolbox, it just takes up space. In this instant, I'll use it permanently in the upstairs system until it's recalled. Its demonstrable resolution gains will benefit all incoming review loaners in the interim to help me do a better job. That's a real win.
In the past with budget gear particularly from Asia, their senders simply didn't want it back. Two-way shipping + VAT-type fees already paid + getting back 'B-stock' must have made it more cost-effective not to retrieve such loaners. That I didn't want them or had any use didn't matter. Those were things I gave away. I also suspect that at the time, Chinese companies in particular were used to a review culture in which not organizing return shipments was status quo. At least in my experience, that's thankfully changed so no, it doesn't happen a lot. What occasionally does is much delayed pickups. The going joke with my wife is that we should start billing storage fees for stragglers which clog up our entry in ready-to-go parcel and boxes.
Particularly when they're costly and big, I'm often surprised by how casual certain shippers can afford to be about getting their goods back promptly. Gathering dust in our entry hall does nobody any good. These and related aspects are things readers in general never consider. And why should they? It's not their experience. Reviewing simply isn't all fun and games. It's real work that comes with its own set of imperfections just like any other job. And occasionally like in this instant, there are the most unexpected surprises, too. Srajan
