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The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer products. There's WC, Consumer

• edgefield 4y ago
  rtings.com is very good for certain types of products like TVs, headphones, etc.
  • throw90259475 4y ago
    Agree - they updated the review for Logitech G PRO X WIRELESS build quality while the SoundGuys still show build quality 9/10.
  • srhngpr 4y ago
    Definitely trust rtings. They buy every product in store to do their testing.
  • Night_Thastus 4y ago
    Agreed, minus the headphones. Their headphone reviews are a joke. It's also worth noting some products have a lot of variation due to poor QC (PC monitors) and they may get an unusually good/bad unit from time to time, skewing the review.
    • jorvi 4y ago
      For headphones I just use Crinacle. It’s served me well so far. For other stuff, I usually check Wirecutter and cross-reference it with Reddit reviews. I also have noticed that Wirecutter seems.. less qualitative (?) since they got bought by The NY Times.
      • ethbr0 4y ago
        Also on headphones, head-fi ( https://www.head-fi.org/ https://www.head-fi.org/ ).
        • ferongr 4y ago
          Nope. Head-fi is audiowoo fairy land. Members generally loathe scientific testing and subjective, unsubstantiated claims are regularly made. There's even a cable forum, that, last time I went there, banned double-blind testing completely.
          • Night_Thastus 4y ago
            I don't like head-fi either, but scientific testing/measurements are (mostly) worthless. Really, the only useful test is an in-home trial in my view. If you like it, buy it. If not, don't. Here's a good video detailing some of why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa1y9JRip68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa1y9JRip68
            • FireBeyond 4y ago
              Sure. Ultimately what works best in your listening environment is what works best. But that's the result, not the means to the end. Head-fi is full of woo that thinks that you need a four digit power cable, and a rare wood volume knob. Some of the videos from High End - audio show in Berlin right now are just mind blowing. $12,000 power cables. Speakers that are $345,000 - each. Preamps that are the size of 4U rack servers. "This device streams from Tidal and Qobuz to your system. It's $39,000."
              • Night_Thastus 4y ago
                I agree. Lots of things make a difference (including power) but they are often quite negligible. Is a dedicated digital source better than a PC? By many miles. Is a $10k source better than a $200 source? Not by nearly as much. Do line-level and speaker cables make a difference? Sure. But it's really subtle and most setups would be hard-pressed to hear anything in a blind test. If you have money to burn and the test of the setup is 10's of thousands, a cable costing a couple hundred isn't that egregious.
  • elabajaba 4y ago
    I trust their measurements, I just don't like how they score things, and people tend to just use their scores instead of looking at the pros+cons and measurements. (they weight all the different subscores, and add them up, so eg. if there was an excellent monitor except it had a 100:1 contrast ratio, it'd still get great scores despite having such a huge flaw that most people would consider it to be essentially unusable). It's really bad for HDR monitors, where an edge lit "fake HDR" monitor can get a 7, while failing the basics that are necessary to give a proper HDR experience. Something like TFTCentral or HardwareUnboxed's HDR checklists, and just straight up failing monitors that don't meet all the requirements would be much better than their current (imo misleading) system that can give good SDR monitors high HDR scores, when they're terrible at HDR.
    • bb010g 4y ago
      Sounds like those basic components should be weighted more heavily, then?
      • bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Not really. If any single category is "good enough" then the weights are reasonably correct. It's just when a single category is a deal breaker that the simple metric of adding them up doesn't work.
• astura 4y ago
  Is Tom's Hardware still around? Personally, I don't trust reviews unless I personally know the reviewer. Too much garbage out there.
  • msbarnett 4y ago
    Yeah but it’s little more than an SEO farm these days.
    • ethbr0 4y ago
      They sold the property in 2007. It's not the worst now, but it's certainly no longer the most editorially-independent.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    ServeTheHome does some review-like stuff, but its not entirely detailed though they do actually run the hardware and measure things like noise, power, etc.
• wgd 4y ago
  Regarding "reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing", I'm not sure Consumer Reports deserves to be listed these days either. I bought a subscription a few months ago because I needed to buy several large appliances for my home, but all I found behind that paywall curtain was computer-generated tables of star ratings and statistics about mechanical reliability. Which is probably useful to somebody, but isn't something I found valuable. I ended up ignoring CR's data tables, cancelling my subscription, and buying the same models of appliances my parents have because at least I could try those out in person and verify that they worked decently well without any glaring flaws.
  • lozenge 4y ago
    I found similar at the UK take, Which. Everything is boiled down to star ratings and then Mail Merge creates the review text. Apparently, each air purifier which can handle a large room is big, heavy and loud. And the air purifiers that score highly on being quiet have the downside that they can only handle small rooms. Oh, and they did measure the CADR, and will tell you that "this air purifier scored five stars on our CADR test".
    • rkagerer 4y ago
      For air purifiers, if cost is no constraint, my IQAir GC has worked like a champ. The lower three speeds are reasonably quiet, and speed 6 cleans out the room in no time when my partner burns the cooking. Comes with a 10 year warranty.
      • jfim 4y ago
        Keep in mind air purifiers are just a fan with filters in front of it. A box fan with a furnace filter strapped to it, while ugly, will do similarly for reducing the amount of particles in the room. What you're paying for is basically three things: a design that looks acceptable in a room, a fan that's reasonably quiet, and ability to source filters in the future.
        • 4y ago
• mrkwse 4y ago
  It will be interesting if LMG can pull off what Linus is aiming for with the massive investment in a laboratory environment. There are huge parts of the tech market where the most critical reviewing you can find is anecdotal accounts of if the reviewer liked a product or not (or the more clinical reviews are drowned out by the anecdotal noise).
  • kitsunesoba 4y ago
    I'm hopeful for LMG's lab too. It's still a bit of a gamble, but from the sound of it the company is set up such that they can review products in an objective, data-backed way and tank any blowback from manufacturers that occurs as a result. It's much more focused on enthusiast computer hardware, but Gamers Nexus[0] is doing good things in this space too. Their style is much more dry and data-dense than LMG's though, which isn't everybody's cup of tea. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChIs72whgZI9w6d6FhwGGHA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChIs72whgZI9w6d6FhwGGHA
    • hansword 4y ago
      I want to second the gamers nexus recommendation here. (To be frank, I think LMG labs is very much inspired by what GN has been doing over the last year or two.)
      • danudey 4y ago
        I go with LTT if I want to know if a laptop is good to use or not. I go with Gamer's Nexus if I want to know if a GPU used the wrong kind of thermal interface for their VRMs and what effect that has on core clocks second by second, backed by rigorous scientific benchmarks producing huge amounts of data, summarized in highly detailed graphs.
        • sixothree 4y ago
          My problem with LTT is finding a _work_ laptop using their recommendations. I don't need gaming graphics and I cannot work on a 13" screen.
• callahad 4y ago
  In the UK, https://www.which.co.uk/ https://www.which.co.uk/ fills a similar niche to Consumer Reports.
  • pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    I used to subscribe and they were generally good, but they made no account of cost. So you might have (made up example) an Electrolux vacuum getting a score of 73, but a Dyson gets a score of 74 and wins their "recommended buy" then you see the Dyson is, like, twice the price. I can see they might do the review price-blind, but it does make one suspicious that they get some sort of financial benefit from having top picks be vastly more expensive products. Useful reviews though.
    • permo-w 4y ago
      It is good to be sceptical, but Which? is a charity that doesn't take advertising money, and keeps afloat with paid subscriptions. If it got out that they were taking kickbacks, even setting aside the probable illegality, they'd never sell a subscription again. It's one thing for some shady website with little to no reputation to lie about these things, but Which is an old company whose model is entirely based on trust.
    • gmac 4y ago
      Which? annoys me in various ways, but not taking the cost into account in their ratings is I think actually one of their better moves. In your example, you can see very plainly that the Electrolux is a much better buy. If they'd included cost in the rating, you'd probably be left wondering whether the Dyson was worth the extra.
  • bityard 4y ago
    I used to subscribe to Consumer Reports back in the day, and basically regretted it. They rarely described their testing methodologies and more often than now, when they did, I wasn't impressed. Their testing usually just boiled down to whether or not the specs met the manufacturers claims, not anything useful like how well it was built and how long it is likely to last.
• mattacular 4y ago
  Consumer Reports used to be good but it seems to have gone through change in management or something because now it is indistinguishable from the avg SEO spam site.
  • technothrasher 4y ago
    I gave up on Consumer Reports many, many years ago when they got caught taking kickbacks from tire manufacturers.
    • bryanlarsen 4y ago
      That's a very serious accusation that I don't believe and Google can't find.
    • dredmorbius 4y ago
      Please provide a source for your claim.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • librarianscott 4y ago
    Nonsense. As a non-profit founded in 1926 with 50 testing labs and partnerships with outside labs, the proof is in the test after test after test after test that is unbiased and, more importantly, the criteria and testing methods are always available and reproducible! So when you don't agree with their rankings you can at least agree that there methods are clear, not based on SEO, not based on spam, not based on money, and pro-consumer.
• bombcar 4y ago
  Toolguyd reviews tools and is open about where he gets them and when he's in a sponsorship relationship: https://toolguyd.com/category/tool-reviews/ https://toolguyd.com/category/tool-reviews/ But it's not all tools and often aren't super detailed. AvE also reviews tools in slightly unorthodox ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpWsuUItrA&list=PLvgS71fU12Mbx-w18Chu_Sg9v6loipEFO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpWsuUItrA&list=PLvgS71fU12... Terry Love has toilets: https://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm https://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm
  • KennyBlanken 4y ago
    Being open about when you are in a sponsorship "relationship" is not something that earns you an internet cookie, it's required by the FCC https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/sponsorship-identification-rules https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/sponsorship-identificat...
    • syedkarim 4y ago
      Those FCC regulations are for broadcasters.
      • anamexis 4y ago
        No they’re not: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/disclosures-101-social-media-influencers https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/disclosures-... Whoops, missed FCC vs FTC. Anyways, there are similar regulations from the FTC.
    • bombcar 4y ago
      You would be surprisingly sad to learn the number who do not even attempt to do this, and the "marketers" that encourage it.
      • geerlingguy 4y ago
        It's absolutely rampant on any social media platform, and most blogs. I'm guessing it's extremely rare anyone is prosecuted for violating the disclosure laws. Some choose to do it to keep their viewers trust, but one big problem as platforms go all-in on algorithms, it's less about having a trusting audience and more about doing what you can to get random videos/posts picked up by the algorithm, regardless of content.
• darzu 4y ago
  YouTube or google site:reddit.com usually yields the best actual human reviews for me. Or specific categories like America’s Test Kitchen for kitchen stuff.
  • AussieWog93 4y ago
    100% this. YouTube's fantastic for real reviews.
    • adastra22 4y ago
      Video is terrible as a medium though. Can't skim, can't grep, not trivial to index. I hate that more and more content is moving to video (or podcast) format.
      • saiya-jin 4y ago
        Also once its removed due to whatever (copyright, owner is removed from youtube, reported, million other reasons) its gone. No archive.org, google cache or anything left.
  • idoh 4y ago
    site:reddit.com works and I use it often. But I do wonder how long it will be until reddit starts to get gamed as well (if it isn't already).
    • kettleballroll 4y ago
      It regularly gets gamed very hard. You can sell old high karma accounts for quite a lot of money, because those are best for such things. It's also a thin line between astroturfing and fill on spamming products. But I have no doubts that some reviews on Reddit are payed for.
      • KoftaBob 4y ago
        > You can sell old high karma accounts for quite a lot of money, because those are best for such things. Why is the accounts karma important for something like that? Does the Reddit algorithm favor high karma accounts when deciding what posts to rank higher?
• systemvoltage 4y ago
  I wonder if we can ever have a centralized review site that also has the subject matter expertise in each area. The future of in-depth and unbiased reviews is distributed and perhaps there is a dire need to collect all the scattered reviews on a central platform. Like a sub stack of product reviews.
• geekamongus 4y ago
  CNN Underscored is trying to be a competitor with legit reviews, as I understand it, but it still feels a little "affiliaty," if you will. (Disclaimer: I work for CNN Digital).
  • inferiorhuman 4y ago
    Wirecutter is exceptionally "affiliaty".
• allenu 4y ago
  > I feel lucky if I find any professional reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing I would say even Wirecutter doesn't always do this. I recall doing research on some products before and encountering a Wirecutter article and the research was essentially just what they themselves pieced together from online sources. They didn't actually try any of the products themselves (they admitted as much in the article). It was very strange and very disappointing.
  • aiisjustanif 4y ago
    I’m going to dissent here on this thread because I’m not seeing any references. I personally feel the quality of Wirecutter has gone down since NY Times just a bit. However, after almost a decade of reading Wirecutter they have overwhelming provided a decent “why you should trust us” section for staple consumer items. There is a good example from just today. [1] You can always say they should do more, but honestly they do more research that many others in the space. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-conditioner/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-conditio...
    • criddell 4y ago
      I'd love for Tim Heffernan of Wirecutter to respond to this article. It seems pretty damning and I think it hurts his credibility.
    • wgjordan 4y ago
      >> They didn't actually try any of the products themselves (they admitted as much in the article). > I’m going to dissent here on this thread because I’m not seeing any references. OK, here's one such reference in "The Best Baby Formula" [1]: > We didn’t do any testing for this guide, because babies have minds of their own, and it would be impossible to control for all of the variables that might make a baby prefer one formula over another. Now there might be various reasons why actually testing the product is difficult or unnecessary to produce a helpful, well-researched review article, but there are definitely examples of this. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-baby-formula/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-baby-formula...
• guelo 4y ago
  It's a real shame Consumer Reports were so bad at transitioning from their 20th century business model to the online era. We really need non-commercially funded reviews but it feels like CR is barely functioning anymore.
• throw0101a 4y ago
  > The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what else? I like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen-y stuff. Project Farm (on YouTube) for tools / DIY stuff perhaps.
  • birdman3131 4y ago
    I like a lot of project farm's videos but his electrical tape video was far off the mark of what actually matters. They were good tests for tape but bad tests for Electrical tape.
    • fooqux 4y ago
      Fair, and I'd also say that many of the tests he does could really use more data points. For example, testing torque using bolts- I've had a few bad bolts in my life that were weaker than they should have been. I really hope he does that but edits it out. However, I would say that's the price you pay for an independent reviewer these days. He's (presumably) not simply reading a carefully prepared script by the vendor. That he actually pays for all the things he reviews is astonishing. Likewise, I'll forgive him the occasional bad video. Speaking of, in the electrical tape video you mention, he tests for things he cares about. Presumably you would have want him to test resistance I presume? I would think so too, but in doing some research while responding to your post, that doesn't seem what anybody actually cares about. Most tapes advertise heat resistance only. I can't actually find a mention of tape in the NFPA, aside from checking it for heat-damage, which makes sense as in house wiring you would be using wirenuts, not tape to actually bridge and insulate connections. Frankly, I can't think of a single time I've ever cared about it being an insulator since I was a kid hacking together batteries and wires. All that said, on second thought, I guess his video is fine after all; in my book, at least.
      • birdman3131 4y ago
        Not resistance. More along the line of usability. (I will gladly admit that I am a fan of super 33+ and will pay the $5 a roll any day. My thoughts are a bit skewed.) Things that matter in electrical tape to me is flexability when wrapping wires. And how well it lasts in the sun. I get that the later test takes awhile. He has done a of couple year long tests but I get why thats rare. It is hard to explain the difference in cheap electrical tape but if I was to take cheap tape and super 33 (or 88 which is a bit thicker) and wrap something with it the difference in how well they conform is night and day. And the adhesive itself is also a lot better.
• viktorcode 4y ago
  There is Rtings for television, and other specialised sites for other product categories. I don't think you can stick to any general review source and consistently get quality reviews.
• DeathArrow 4y ago
  Project Farm is testing a lot of things: https://youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm https://youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm
  • dan-robertson 4y ago
    I watched a few of these a while ago and I can somewhat see why they’re popular as they have this fast-paced data-dump look-at-all-this-testing format but I didn’t really think they were very good. I thought many of the tests were likely poor metrics for actual quality and that results would therefore be misleading. A stupid example would be trying to measure how much torque a Phillips head screwdriver can apply before camming out because the point of the screw design is that screw drivers should cam out at a certain torque (so better screw drivers shouldn’t necessarily let you go tighter).
    • mgdlbp 4y ago
      Re: Phillips drive, it's actually a common misconception that this was an intentional feature of the design. The original patent for the driver[1] specifically describes resistance to "camming out" (seemingly in the modern sense of the phrase). Omitting some of the verbose context: > One of the principal objects of the invention is the provision of a recess in the head of a screw which is particularly adapted for firm engagement with a correspondingly shaped driving tool or screw driver, and in such a way that there will be no tendency of the driver to cam out of the recess when united in operative engagement with each other. (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS2046839 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS20468...) And the patent for the drive (I don't know why under patent law several consecutive patents mostly saying the same thing had to be filed) uses the word to refer to the ejection of trapped debris instead of the driver: > This same angular formation of both elements is especially designed to also create what might be termed a camming action during the approach of these angular faces toward one another with respect to any substances which might have become lodged within the recess of the screw. (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS2046837 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS20468...) Edit: Wikipedia notes that a later patent acknowledged the tendency to cam out and its effect of preventing damage to screw heads...perhaps meaning that the head would be saved from snapping off--the drive itself surely isn't!
• OrwellianChild 4y ago
  Just going to throw out https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/ https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/ as a solid option for the climbing, hiking, and outdoor sport equipment they review. Most reviews involve real-world subjective testing, which is really what you need when you're trying to figure out whether a jacket is warm or a rain shell keeps you dry, etc.
  • onemiketwelve 4y ago
    These guys were the first thing I thought of but to be honest for me, their suggestions have been a bit off. Ofc it's all subjective but I remember distinctly buying two full face helmets they had on their list because their ratings were so different from the concensus from reviews. I could'nt tell who to trust. The gearlab suggestion was very obviously inferior beyond first impressions
  • s0rce 4y ago
    I like to read their subjective discussions as one point of view but its really hard to get much use from their rankings. One obvious example is at one point in time all their highest ranked ultralight sleeping bags were quilts (ie. open back, no zippers) and then all of a sudden the quilts dropped to the bottom and were replaced with more traditional zip up bags. I assume the reviewer changed and simply doesn't like quilts, which is totally reasonable, they don't work for everyone but it wasn't clear how the rankings are useful when they just shuffled so drastically.
    • OrwellianChild 4y ago
      Agreed on the challenges with subjectivity and I probably should have clarified - I like their full-length testimonials. Never did figure out how their star rating and badges worked...
  • GloriousKoji 4y ago
    I haven't trusted them for years, their testing is too subjective and the "objective" tests aren't considering the right things. For example I bought hiking boots based on their recommendation. They were the most comfortable hiking boots I've ever worn but their terrible traction literally nearly got me killed despite their claims of having excellent traction. I angrily returned those boots. I also bought a backpack based on their recommendation. They have this volume test filling a backpack with pingpong balls. It sounded like a great objective test in theory and my new pack had a higher volume than my old pack but I couldn't fit everything into it as the shape changed too much with a sleeping back and bear can in it reducing usable volume. Finally I gave up on them when I was looking to buy a new headlamp. They ranked a headlamp lower because it's battery life was less than all the other headlamps being tested. But that headlamp max brightness was 3x the lumens of the other, batter life should have been tested at a comparable brightness level.
• matthewfcarlson 4y ago
  I’ve quite enjoyed rtings.com but they only cover a few categories. I remember growing up that my grandparents were huge consumer reports fans
  • manishsharan 4y ago
    rtings.com only covers a few categories but they cover those categories really well and they do a excellent job of testing those products.
• underhill 4y ago
  I feel like the crowd-sourcing / SEOing / optimization of reviews on the internet has, for all its benefits, made everything too noisy and untrustworthy. I know myself and a lot of other people first search reddit now instead of google because it's impossible to get anything written by a real nonbiased human otherwise. For similar reasons I've used things like Yelp less and less and tried to use professionally editorialized reviews (Eater, The Infatuation, Bon Appetit, etc) for food, well-known travel sites/bloggers for hotels, etc. There's still some paid incentives there too obviously but I can at least calibrate it to how much I align with the publication.
  • ethbr0 4y ago
    I (about half-honestly) blame Amazon, and more recently Google Maps. All reviewers are not created equal. In the early days before mass-SEO, you at least got the benefit of most reviewers being authentic, even if inept. Now, we have the worst of all possible words: mass fake reviews + a public trained to expect only amateur-level reviews.
    • Scoundreller 4y ago
      It doesn’t help that google has largely de-prioritized smaller sites. For better or for worse, my reviews about banks and their products have now been replaced by 10 links in a row to different sub-pages of the bank’s domain. At least it used to make sure a blog article and a forum would appear on most search term’s top10. I get it for my “XYZ Bank’s Phone Number - talk to a human now” pages. They probably shouldn’t have out-ranked the bank’s own official site, but the bank’s own website was much less user friendly than my own despite the abuse potential.
  • bityard 4y ago
    Heh. The biggest problem I have with Amazon isn't even the fake reviews, it's the people who leave reviews and don't even know what a review is, which is almost all of them. "My gadget just arrived today and I haven't even used it yet but it looks well-made and I'm sure it will last forever. Five stars!"
• tediousdemise 4y ago
  Consumerlab.com is a paid but excellent resource for obtaining information about various foods and supplements that we can find on the shelves. Just last night I was eating some of my favorite organic roasted seaweed from Costco and spit it out half-way when I read that they are laced with lead, cadmium and arsenic, which was confirmed by independent third party testing [0]. This website has opened my eyes that many foods and supplements we have access to are deceptively unsafe. [0] https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/seaweed-snacks-and-foods/seaweed/ https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/seaweed-snacks-and-foods... > All of the products contained the heavy metals lead, cadmium, and arsenic at levels often exceeding tolerable upper intake levels. It is no secret that there are heavy metals in seaweed snacks, in fact, many have warning labels indicating that they may pose a risk of reproductive harm or cancer (typically due to lead), as this is a legal requirement for products sold in California under its Prop 65 law. However, labels don't tell you how much lead or other heavy metals are present in a product. We even found that one product without a warning was more contaminated than one with a warning. Our report shows exactly how much iodine and heavy metal contamination we found in each product (see What CL Found). Individual concentrations can be found in their product table for paying customers. The subscription cost is worth more than its weight in gold.
• olivermarks 4y ago
  >'The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one.' Since it was bought by the NYT company I no longer trust their quality. This great air filter contra article is a great example and I appreciate the link and the person who took the time to write it
• bayindirh 4y ago
  There is also Rtings (https://www.rtings.com https://www.rtings.com).
  • ethbr0 4y ago
    On the topic of displays, and specifically monitors, also the excellent TFT Central ( http://tftcentral.co.uk/ http://tftcentral.co.uk/ ).
    • saiya-jin 4y ago
      another one - https://pcmonitors.info/ https://pcmonitors.info/ Run by one guy but he tests really well, bought my relatively cheap 32" few years ago and its great for both work and gaming with VRR.
  • SmellTheGlove 4y ago
    I wish rtings had a Boolean on tvs so we could search explicitly for non smart models. That is basically the only thing else I’d want from that site, it’s really good.
    • mwt 4y ago
      I'm with you, but I wonder if this is the sort of "only people on this site care and the vast majority of the readership wouldn't use it" thing ... I'm not sure it is, but it could be, and I wonder if somebody with their ear to the ground/access to more analytics knows.
    • mschild 4y ago
      I think the main problem is probably finding any mainstream consumer TVs that are non-smart. I have looked and beyond some obscure brands or short of incredibly expensive commercial models there are barely any options.
      • applecrazy 4y ago
        Any TV is stupid if you don’t connect it to the Internet.
• permo-w 4y ago
  in the UK, there's Which?, which is pretty good
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I've always enjoyed Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)[0]. He's made a pretty lucrative career of great reviews, without selling his soul. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/marquesbrownlee https://www.youtube.com/user/marquesbrownlee
  • ReaLNero 4y ago
    He's great at getting there first with the unboxing or review with insane visuals and editing, but the content itself is very lacking. He's very heavily biased towards Apple devices, and doesn't dig deep at a technical level, preferring more subjective judgements which are difficult to compare across devices. I don't find his advice any more objective than a Reddit comment.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
      I tend to use reviews as a "try this door" kind of thing, and do my own research. Probably the most awesome review site that I used to rely on was DPReview[0]. I haven't really looked at that site, in the last five years, but they used to be absolutely top-shelf, and full of geek value. I tend to be heavily Apple-biased, myself (I write native Swift software for Apple devices). Other sites tend to be heavily biased towards Intel/AMD (usually gaming review sites). [0] https://dpreview.com https://dpreview.com
    • makeitdouble 4y ago
      You seem to be longing for a combination of iFixit teardowns, Anandtech deep dives and JerryRigEverything roughtless tests. I am with you, but that's a hell of a niche to fill.
    • fomine3 4y ago
      Dave2D is similar style but more detailed
  • nexus7556 4y ago
    I think he is entertaining, but I don't find his reviews critical enough. He typically reads off a spec sheet and shares subjective opinions of just a few days of use. I need deeper, more critical reviews
• malermeister 4y ago
  If you happen to speak German, Stiftung Warentest is great and reviews a wide range of stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest
• oezi 4y ago
  The German consumer reports are also quite good: www.test.de In many countries there are similar consumer reports organizations.
• Splendor 4y ago
  For synthesizers and other music gear, there's loopop on YouTube. His reviews are so in-depth that they can often function as replacements for the product's user manual. https://www.youtube.com/c/loopop https://www.youtube.com/c/loopop
• nojs 4y ago
  Depends how you define “real”. It’s a standard issue affiliate marketing site that recommends products according to deals they have with manufacturers: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to-play-model https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...
• tuna-piano 4y ago
  rtings.com has great reviews for electronics, measuring detailed metrics and putting them through various tests. (for example, their AirPods Pro review: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/apple/airpods-pro-truly-wireless https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/apple/airpods-pro-...) Outdoor Gear Lab for outdoor product reviews: https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topics/camping-and-hiking/best-backpacking-tent https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topics/camping-and-hiking/bes...
• jonahhorowitz 4y ago
  Since some are throwing out good, more specific, gear tests. I'd like to throw out Baby Gear Lab (https://www.babygearlab.com https://www.babygearlab.com) if you need baby stuff. They're way better than the Wirecutter because they're run by experts in baby gear. (I'm not affiliated in any way, but I'm a new parent that found it super useful.)
• lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  I actually subscribe to Which a UK consumer reports guide. And mostly it's kind of like subscribing to the Guardian newspaper - putting a few quid where my shrivelled liberal conscience used to sit. Oddly there is a episode on this on BBC podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-bottom-line/id264340697 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-bottom-line/id2643... This podcast is not the best (it's often too lightweight and too frightened to dig deep, or the format is wrong or something). But anyway this week was particularly terrible - hardly any teeth at all. But in amoung at all the annoying self serving justifications of the guests, it did try to raise the fundamental problem - truth, trust, and a sea of opinions, mendacious or not. How do we deal with it all?
  • gerdesj 4y ago
    "I actually subscribe to Which a UK consumer reports guide." I used to too, for quite a few years. However, their IT related reviews boiled down to "Windows PC: Good, Apple: Pretty, Linux and Open Source: Not on my watch". A Consumer Forum "for good" completely ignores Open Source - why? Personally I think it is down to a lack of imagination rather than anything politically motivated. I did find many of their reviews useful - you get some great details on their working and they spend a decent amount of time on reviewing non IT stuff. The content articles were also often very decent, well written and often thought provoking. Their consumer campaigning has got as far as making changes to Laws too in the past so I do think Which is a general force for good. I just got pissed off that as soon as a laptop or desktop or software article came along, the usual turgid crap would come out. Perhaps this has improved since around 2015 when I ditched them after being a subscriber for over 10 years.
    • nathancahill 4y ago
      Surely this will be the year of the Linux desktop.
    • bearmode 4y ago
      "Linux and Open Source: Not on my watch". A Consumer Forum "for good" completely ignores Open Source - why?" Because for general consumers, most of it really isn't suitable compared to their competition.
• wly_cdgr 4y ago
  I think all the good reviewers have moved to YT
• iancmceachern 4y ago
  It's not a review site, but the YouTube channel "project farm" is this. He not only has great objective comparison reviews but he shares his test setup, results and data so its clear its a great objective review.
• elbigbad 4y ago
  Outdoor Gear Lab is another good one for outdoor gear. Actual things reviewed by real people, though perhaps flawed in the same way as wire cutter. At least it’s real people putting the products through the paces in real use cases. https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/ https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/
• a_f 4y ago
  gamersnexus for pc gaming hardwear is another
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• okdood64 4y ago
  A lot of times, after I get a product, I disagree with the WC review on many points about a recommended product and have to end up returning it. That said, I still use it to inform my purchase decisions. Anyways, how specifically is it "highly flawed" though?
• dangus 4y ago
  The worst part about Consumer Reports is that they barely test anything. They're only useful for a specific set of popular products. There are too many categories where the content says "sorry, we stopped testing this category, this information is old."
• Stevvo 4y ago
  HDTVTest is good for TVs. The reviews are boring as they come; the same objective measurements on every TV.
• harha 4y ago
  To add to that: most sites just compare the features at best. I’m interested in actual usability and durability, things you might need more than five minutes or just reading the specs to find out. E.g. how do headphones handle multiple devices, how long will the battery survive, what are the options when they are broken?
  • nextos 4y ago
    Yes, assessing devices is far from trivial. In case of air purifier reviews, there's little focus on two crucial elements: * Real energy consumption and performance when the filter is a bit dirty * Fan noise and vibrations when the device has already been in use for a year or two For example, in my experience, the top pick from Wirecutter (Coway) excels on the first item but fans tens to become misaligned after a while and vibrate a lot at low speeds. It happened to 2/2 units I bought.
• jxramos 4y ago
  The Project Farm channel on YouTube does a great objective and transparent set of reviews to follow along. It’s not exhaustive for every product on the market but does a reasonable sample and is a joy to watch.
• reagle 4y ago
  https://www.rtings.com/ https://www.rtings.com/ It’s really good at what they cover.
• AviationAtom 4y ago
  Don't forget about the huge amount of paid reviews now too!
• WhitneyLand 4y ago
  On the continuum between “highly flawed” and imperfect I find WC to be generally good intentioned and skewed more toward the latter than the former. Is there something that keeps it from thus threshold in your view?
• neuronexmachina 4y ago
  I've found Rtings to be pretty good for audio/visual products.
• dunco 4y ago
  The sites I've found to be at least making an honest evaluation are: choice.com.au (Australian context, Aus version of consumer reports) Their reviews just seem to miss the mark sometimes, but at least you can count on the fact its an honest take so you can kind of pick specific facts from the reviews and take them as true, maybe don't rely on their overall recommendations though. funded through magazine/web subscritoions rtings.com - tech stuff, detailed and with a good table tool for comparison. funded through subscriptions notebookcheck.com - funded by ads, but does a very good job of highly detailed and consistent reviews. same as choice where you don't necessarily follow their recommendation, but they give you lots of information that you can compare. Their model is a red flag, but my impression is of general trustworthiness. I subscribe to choice and rtings to support them because honest brokers are so rare in this space.
  • bash-j 4y ago
    I also subscribe to choice. They do lots more than product reviews. They have general guides on how to get the best use out of products, mystery shoppers reviewing customer service, tools to compare health insurance, etc. The reason I stay subscribed is they campaign about consumer rights issues which actually cause industries as a whole to change, e.g. bank fees. They also have the shonky awards which usually gets a bit of media attention each year, where they shame companies for poor behaviour, quality, outright scams, etc. I think of it like a lobby to help us consumers out, which we need more of. Too often we are listening to the advice of the industry bodies that represent the companies rather than the consumers.
    • dunco 4y ago
      totally agree. In fact the consumer advocacy is probably more of why I stay subscribed than the reviews :)
• asix66 4y ago
  Maybe Rtings? Not for “all the stuff”, but many things, especially TVs snd monitors. https://www.rtings.com/ https://www.rtings.com/
• MrDunham 4y ago
  I had the privilege of working in a co-working space in Tahoe that also subleted out to outdoorgearlab.com/techgearlab.com. Having been on their private list where they resell items that I purchased I can say that they do purchase and touch every single item that they’ve used. I also find the reviews tend towards a higher priced end of the spectrum because it is affiliate paid. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed by how much they put everything through its paces. For the record, I haven’t talked to anyone there since 2016 and have no reason to pump them.
• sumoboy 4y ago
  The challenge with picking an air purifier is everyone's situation is different given the reason for purification, room(s), price, and maintenance costs. Someone who has allergies vs pets vs volatile chemicals all need something very specific, so the BS one size fits all wirecutter recommendation would have you believe it's the best. Unless you can talk to a real expert who matches up the model(s) you need, reading reviews and YT is pretty much worthless. In the world of purifiers, you definitely get what you pay for.
• calsy 4y ago
  Doesn't the blog post clearly show thats its not a real review site. It's also not that hard to find things written by humans.
• matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Yeah. I want to read about the real opinions and experiences of real people, not some paid-for marketing piece. I used to search reddit for that kind of thing but it's probably been compromised by now. I wonder if there even is a place that isn't. Real place gets created, real people start going there, marketers realize that's where the people are and immediately start working the place.
• rasz 4y ago
  'Gamers Nexus' (gamersnexus.net) is striving to deliver reliable impartial consumer advice for Computer stuff. Unlike LTT (unless something changed and Linus started hiring people who know what they are doing) GN is leaning heavily on industry best practices instead of 'this feels good' opinions: We Bought Apple's Old Acoustic Testing Mini-Chamber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n97ot-gXXVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n97ot-gXXVw This Thing is Huge: Fan Tester Setup, Install, & Overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikRcG1xE3xs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikRcG1xE3xs
• tkgally 4y ago
  A good specialized site and YouTube channel is Garage Gym Reviews [1]. Their reviews are clear and thorough and should be useful references for people buying gym equipment for the home. The owner can go into obsessive detail about equipment features that I, at least, have never thought about, like knurling on barbells [2]. I have learned a lot from his videos. [1] https://www.garagegymreviews.com/ https://www.garagegymreviews.com/ [2] https://youtu.be/5rFSsUx_KDI https://youtu.be/5rFSsUx_KDI
• rocqua 4y ago
  RTINGS is a pretty good actual review site for electronics. Sometimes I find their focus on measurable data a bit annoying. Intangibles matter aswell. But they are exhaustive reviews and make comparing very easy.
• ornornor 4y ago
  I have no faith whatsoever in WC‘s reviews or advice anymore. I’ve bought several of their recommendations post NYT acquisition and they’ve all turned out to be flawed in a way that I’d aimed to avoid by following their recommendations. I find „site:Reddit.com“ a much much much better source of actual information that isn’t SEO spam.
• janandonly 4y ago
  The Dutch "Consumentenbond" is real and paid for by real users. But alas, it's in Dutch, and most is paywalled. https://www.consumentenbond.nl/ https://www.consumentenbond.nl/
  • Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    I'm also really skeptical about their impartiality; I wouldn't be surprised if they have a lot of underhanded deals with whatever they review and advocate for.
• bearmode 4y ago
  Which? in the UK is pretty excellent.
• Goz3rr 4y ago
  I'm very happy that in the Netherlands we have tweakers.net. Not only do they do tech news and reviews, they also have an amazing parametric search/price watch tool that I'm reasonably sure is a major contributing cause to how competitive pricing is here compared to neighboring countries. Every time I happen to use Amazon I die a little inside because of how bad their search is.
  • janandonly 4y ago
    Agree. https://www.tweakers.net https://www.tweakers.net rocks ! Also, to use Amazon I search for the 1/2/3-star reviews and see if I disagree with the given reason for the low review. If I disagree, I will contemplate buying the product.
• maremp 4y ago
  What about Rtings? For tech stuff, I found the reviews to be of good quality and it does not seem like it’s biased or sponsored. > googling "reviews of X" DDG produces somewhat better results, or at least does not rank the seo spam, generated garbage up to the first page. Also, I do not have ads following me everywhere for the next week.
• ramraj07 4y ago
  Hey at least be happy you have some options! It’s 2022 and I cannot get a single reliable suggestion on ANY product, refrigerator or cell phone, in india. Which is fine for small electronics since I can lookup Wirecutter but for anything else where the models in india don’t match American ones, there’s absolutely nothing on the internet to guide you to an informed opinion. Market opportunity?
• napkin 4y ago
  Adding my personal beef with the majority of tech 'reviews': The lack of honest distinction between a (medium-term usage) product review, and hands-on/impressions. Even with some hard data/testing methodologies- when you're a media outlet relying on page views and advertising, and you're racing to get your 'reviews' posted sooner or at least at the same time as the other sites- the reviews are going to be based on increasingly short-term impressions. We need a better place than reddit where a wide variety of users can congregate and honestly discuss their experiences with products. Very hard problem when the market is basically at odds with what consumers want, in this regard.
• 404mm 4y ago
  As somebody not familiar with Wirecutter’s history or legacy, I always considered them to be one of the paid fake review websites that pretend to offer very shallow reviews, mostly just built based on referral links and information that can be harvested from product descriptions. I just don’t agree that they are a real website that does actual testing. 0/10. Would block form Google if I could.