I was searching for a 15' Display Port (or DisplayPort) to HDMI conversion cable on Amazoo recently and wow, talk about a minefield. Seems like a fixed 5% of the reviews, no matter whose product, will be 1-star. No 2-star reviews. A bunch of 3's and then, mostly 4 & 5. Some of them are entertaining to the point of comedy.
What gripes me is that so many people try to use a product for a non-intended purpose and then trash the product for not performing up to expectations. Such is the case with DP to HDMI cables. ALL the product descriptions clearly state these cables are ONE-WAY. They take a DP signal OUT from a source (laptop, game console, etc.) and convert it to HDMI which goes INTO a display device (monitor, TV). Yet, you still have people who try to plug the cable into the DP on the TV or monitor and plug the HDMI end into their laptop (usually a Mac...are Apple users that bad at reading?). Bang, instant bad review "defective cable, doesn't work."
Amazon search needs improving
We can all be stupid at times, right? In my case, it's not paying 100% attention to search results that include "sponsored" results. 95% of the time, the "sponsored" results are NOT what I'm looking for. In the case of DP to HDMI, almost ALL the sponsored results were for HDMI to HDMI cables. Yeah great specs but not what I needed.
Anyway, I put a 15 foot Amazon Basics DP to HDMI cable into my cart and then Amazoo started prompting me to get free overnight delivery by adding another $13 to my order.
Thinking I was getting a different DP to HDMI cable, I blithely put a "sponsored" cable from "PowerBear" into the cart. Got the PB cable with the Amazon cable and noted immediately that it was HDMI to HDMI. Did they ship me the wrong one? Nope. The "sponsored" listing was so filled with buzz words and verbiage that it obfuscated the straight HDMI. Sigh. That will teach me to order shit after two adult beverages.
The good news is the Amazon Basics cable seems to work for my application which is to extend the screen of an old HP laptop onto my Toshiba 1080p TV for karaoke lyrics. But again, 5% of the reviews think this cable is junk, defective, fattening, immoral and causes herpes.
Somehow, Amazon needs to figure out how to leave out "sponsored" results that don't apply to the search at hand. I'm guessing companies are paying for the keywords: HDMI, cable, adapter. Even though their products don't do Display Port, you get those anyway. (Note that using + as Display+Port helps reduce the noise but you still end up with wonkiness.)
Clothing search
My other gripe is clothing searches. I realize that Amazon can only load up what a seller says about their products but you'd THINK we could get better standardized sizing. ALL men's pants should have specifications for WAIST and INSEAM. Instead, it's a mashup of varying specs that make searching for a particular size almost impossible. You want something with a 32" waist and 29" inseam (aka SHORT), you simply can't do it. Put in the keyword "SHORT" and of course you get Men's Shorts. put in "29 inseam" and you get any listing with the number 29 and random things from "inseam".
Why can't Amazon take some cues from the big online clothing retailers (LL Bean, Land's End, etc.) and design a proper sizing / tagging system?