Astronomy magazine's second annual Star Products

PHIL DINAN from said:

Just retired and was thinking about getting into the hobby, unfortunately I cant seem to get a straight answer about the best telescope in the $1500 to $2000 range that would suit my needs as a general observer. The upsell seems too be the answer to all my questions, I am having second thoughts about getting into this hobby I find that I am trying to understand lingo and terminology that only a Phd would get.

MICHAEL KNOX from said:

I am new to amateur astronomy; retired, on limited income. As
amazing as the photographs, artists depictions, graphs and
the numerous theories and quantitive analyses of time and space continuum may be, I find that very little information is of
benefit to me as a beginning amateur. Too much advanced technical information might stymie rather than stimulate interest.
Please consider those of us who are not wealthy astrophysicists, and who yearn to expand our knowledge and enjoyment of the hobby without having to return to college for another science degree.

GEORGE OSTENDORF from ILLINOIS said:

I did not mind so much that this Best Of product review included some expensive items since there were many products listed. I thought there was a decent balance between expensive and mid range.

But what I don't like is that the magazine usually only has 1 review per issue, and that review might be for something that costs $20K. What I would prefer to see is 3 to 4 equipment reviews per issue of mid range items, but not necessarily 3 to 4 pages each. 1 to 2 pages might suffice. Also, I find that the New Products page is too brief to be useful.

Back to this article, I thought that the links and pricing info on the last page were useful, but I would have preferred if this was listed inline with the item description. The descriptions were fairly brief though. It might be nice if those could be expanded to perhaps a half page and include links to longer reviews of the products.