"Industry standard"

Quality:
The SM-57 is the industry standard for mic'ing instruments, just like the SM-58 is the standard for vocals.

Desirability:
It is a mic, hardly a statue of Aphrodite.

Sound:
Uncolored and transparent

Ease of Use:
It is a mic, if it doesn't work then YOU did something wrong.

Support:
Shure is Shure they have been in the biz for a million years they deliver service that matches their high quality

"Legendary for nothing."

Feature:
There arent any special features, mics dont need them.

Quality:
This is definetly one of the most durable mics I've come across. However, recently, my bro was swinging it all Roger Daltrey style and it hit something pretty hard, and we have'nt got it to work right since. That was not the first time it ever hit something though.

Value:
Great value, not great sound.

Desirability:
This thang aint got no sex appeal to me!

Sound:
I must start my review with a question: Why is this mic so popular?! Why do people still settle for mediocrety? There are so many better mics than this for EVERYTHING, guitar amps, acoustic guitar, drums, you name it. It's definetly a good value, but if you're really serious about your music, why chose this? This mic is basically a jack of all trades, but a master of none. There are some good "one-does-all" type mics out there, but this is certainly not one of them. When me and my brother (we both play music) got a couple of these to mic our amps, we thought they were great, because we really weren't paying attention to the tone. In truth, these mics reproduction of our amps was (and still is) very brittle sounding, and no amount of EQing can cure the shortcomings. In short, the "SM57" is nothing special.

Ease of Use:
You can't really get great sounds out of this thang.

Support:
Never had to deal with Shure.

Overall:
I hope to replace this mic soon.