I was reading ArsTechnica today at work, and apparently, while I was on vacation, there was a torrid scandal in the blogosphere about Microsoft giving some bloggers early copies of Vista to review.. of course, thats mainly because they gave them fully loaded Acer Ferrari laptops as “review units”, and apparently didn’t require the units to be returned.

Who knew that providing top of the line hardware to ensure the reviewers have a good experience (or, at least so they have a chance at a good experience – this is still a Windows OS they were reviewing so right off the bat you know its not going to be a really good thing) was so horrible.

I’m not one to defend microsoft normally…but.. this is just how things work! How else did people think reviewers get their reviews completed and published (especially in the print world) on the same day (or earlier) that the product is released?

I’m not seeing the reason for the outrage..unless..its just because its M$ doing it this time… from what I’ve read so far about this ‘scandal’ only one of the sites really gave a gushing review of Vista after receiving the laptop and Vista to review…

For the record.. I was not offered a fully loaded Acer laptop….but.. if anyone wants to send me a product to review and a fully loaded Mac Pro with 30″ Cinema display to review it on.. I’ll be sure to give you a fair, unbiased review.. especially if I get to keep the hardware!