Review Methodology

A recommendation is only worth something if you know how it was arrived at. This is ours, stated plainly.

What we are

We are a research desk, not a testing lab. We do not buy every product we write about and we do not run timed trials in a workshop. What we do is read the whole public record on a product — far more of it than any one buyer has time for — and turn it into a straight answer about who should buy the thing and who should not.

Where an editor has lived with something themselves, the review says so. Where nobody here has touched it, the review does not pretend otherwise. That line matters more to us than sounding impressive.

What we read

Verified buyer reviews at scale — thousands per product where they exist — rather than the handful a brand chooses to display. Independent testing from publications that do buy and test, such as Which? and Consumer Reports, named in the piece whenever we lean on their findings. Owner communities and forums, which is where a fault that only appears after six months actually gets discussed. And the brand’s own warranty terms, specifications and returns policy, which are the parts almost nobody reads before buying and the parts that decide how it feels to own.

How a product gets in

We start from what people are genuinely deciding between. Brands can send us products and can ask to be included; neither earns a place in a guide and neither moves a rating. We do not publish sponsored posts, and we decline requests to remove criticism.

How we score

A score is an editor’s judgement of the evidence above, not a measurement taken in a lab, and we would rather say that than dress it up. We weigh how the product performs in reported daily use, how it is built, how it ages, what it costs against what it delivers, and what happens when it goes wrong. Ratings are out of five, or out of ten on a scorecard, to one decimal place.

How we are paid

Affiliate commission on links our editors choose. It costs you nothing, it never changes a rating or the order products appear in, and the editor writing a piece cannot see what any link pays.

When we get it wrong

We correct it in place and add a dated note at the foot of the piece. Prices and availability change constantly; we check prices automatically and date-stamp them where they appear. If you find something out of date, tell us.