Reviewing the review of The Boss from Sage Appliances

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I was tipped off by Jonnie yesterday to possibly the most biased “review” he had ever read, involving one of our favourite pieces of kitchen equipment.   As soon as he pointed it out to me I wanted to scream because as Jonnie said “it’s almost like appliance slander”.     The review couldn’t appear more biased and to me smacks of “well I wasn’t allowed to keep the expensive one so I have slagged it off and given it just 1/5”.

I have no idea if that is true but how interesting that within the review in the Mail there is an YouTube advert for the one that was given 5/5.  So is this just a sponsored post?  Something that had I written it would have to be labelled as such so that you would know if I had been given an appliance for free in return for an honest review?    Yet on that review there is no such admission.   And in fact it should just be labelled an advert for the appliances that got 5/5.   To the detriment of the other manufacturers who have been dragged in and slagged off.

I am struggling to even understand why The Boss is in the review since it is not just a soup maker, and yet some of the others appliances are.  Hence the huge price difference.

We have had The Boss from Sage Appliances for over a year now and it is a serious piece of kit, as you would expect for £500.   So to review it as just a soup maker is ridiculous in the first instance.

It would be akin to reviewing a Ferrari’s ability to do a milk round.    Yes it can deliver milk round country lanes but it isn’t really designed for that is it?   Just as The Boss can make soup but it is not the soul purpose of the appliance.

I have broken down the various reviews in the piece we saw yesterday and added my immediate thoughts to them, first of all The Boss that receives just 1/5.    As I say above it is not JUST a soup maker, it can make ice cream, smoothies, crush ice, turn a can of chick peas into hummus in seconds, make batter in minutes.   It really so much more than a soup maker, or even a blender.    So to mark it down for not frying onion is laughable.  This bad boy can turn a bag of frozen peas into hot steaming soup in six minutes.  SIX MINUTES.    And it washes itself afterwards.  Where are the bonus points for that?   Or even any mention of the cleaning function?

 Next up is the Tefal.  This gets 4/5 but it takes 28 minutes.   I could drive to Tesco and buy some soup, come home and microwave it faster than that.

The next review is of the Salter Soup maker and we have more annoyance at the lack of frying options.  What is it with frying onions for soup?  And why no picture of it?   The Cuisinart is another one that takes close to half an hour.  Why would you?!  I don’t get it.   I can bung vegetables and stock in a saucepan, heat them up and then blend with my stick blender in five minutes if I really want to make soup so badly.   Why would you buy an appliance whose soul function is soup making and it take so long?

Finally the Morphy Richards that gets 5/5 yet it can’t clean itself and still takes close to half an hour.     And in this one our review is next door reading the paper, yet contradicts herself in the final review by saying how lovely it is to have a glass jug so you can watch it and see when it is ready.  Again that gets 5/5 but can’t fry onion and doesnt have a cleaning function on it.

I take my reviews really seriously.  I don’t do them quickly or undertake them lightly and I like to think I am not biased.  I am also open about whether I have been given a product and have been able to keep it after the review, something this piece in the paper doesn’t do, leading us to conclude that the lack of “a freebie” is has overshadowed the whole thing.