BestReviews is the site to turn to when you're about to buy something. From heated blankets to trampolines to cordless drills, we compare the top products in thousands of categories to give you the most reliable purchasing advice. Our goal is to make it easy for you to pick the best product and be confident in your decision.
BestReviews is majority owned by Tribune Publishing (NASDAQ:TPCO), which operates newsrooms in 9 markets with titles including the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida's Sun-Sentinel, Virginia’s Daily Press and Virginian-Pilot, The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Hartford Courant. As a result of this ownership structure, BestReviews partners with multiple Tribune Publishing brands to bring product recommendations to consumers, and the companies share commissions on certain purchases.
Why trust BestReviews?
BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing, and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. We only make money if you purchase a product through our links, and we never accept free products from manufacturers.
We’ve helped
consumers make their purchasing decisions.
How we do it
When you're getting ready to buy a product, you have a lot of options. There may be hundreds of products to choose from, dozens of them with user reviews that make them sound equally great. It can be confusing and time-consuming to cut through the data to find the best product for you.
That's where we come in.
Our reviewers and subject matter experts evaluate the dozens (or hundreds) of available products in each category, and from them, select the shortlist of the most promising and best-selling products — the products in each category that really matter.
When we decide you, the consumer, would benefit from additional product insight, we buy these products, just like you would, and subject them to independent evaluation and tests.
Independent testing
In many cases, we build our own test equipment to evaluate products and test them against each other. Why? Because reliable testing requires repeatable tests, and just handing products to people to try out isn't enough. While we test many of the products we review, for some product categories we solely use research and consumer feedback to create the information in our review.
We gather insights from those who use the products day in and day out to help us build review methodologies and design new ways to research and test products.
Expert advice
How do we know what to look for in a product? We interview industry experts, contractors, and other super-users before our review process begins.
Our expert advisors and experts in residence include physicians, who provide guidance on testing health-related products, PhDs with backgrounds in nutrition and other specialty areas, building contractors who use power tools every day of their work lives, and professional chefs who know what works and what doesn't in kitchen appliances.
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Dale brings over 40 years of automotive industry experience to the BestReviews table. An avid DIY guy, he has worked with, rebuilt, and led maintenance on a variety of vehicles. He’s also well-versed in fleet management and vehicle operations. Dale’s past experiences include distinguished service as an officer in the US Army.
Dale
| Automotive Super-User
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Richard is a seasoned small business owner in the hardware industry. He also owns a pool maintenance business and serves as an advisor on groundskeeping committees for a number of prominent organizations. He’s a regionally renowned safe cracker/locksmith expert, and in his spare time, he renovates and repairs vaults, safes, appliances, and a number of other products.
Richard
| Hardware Store Owner, Do-It-Yourself Guru
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Tristan is a lifelong photographer, photoshop expert, and passionate producer of incredible artwork with cameras and photography gear. When not taking amazing photos, you might find Tristan tinkering with an automobile.
Tristan
| Photography Professional
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Master Barber Susan D’Arcangelo has over 20 years of experience in both cosmetology, barbering and creative haircutting. Susan blends state of art production techniques with an ever-expanding repertoire of precision cuts and styles. Susan is passionate about making you feel and look your best
Master Barber Susan
| Men's Hair & Beauty Expert
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Sarah O’Kelley has spent 15 years immersed in the food and beverage field. From working in Emeril’s culinary department to founding her own restaurant, she has explored many a culinary path, and more recently she has fully dedicated herself to wine studies. She has her Certified Sommelier certification through the Court of Master Sommeliers, and she is currently studying for the advanced level. She will be opening a wine and beer shop in Charleston, SC, in the spring of 2017, Edmund’s Oast Exchange.
Sarah
| Food & Wine Expert
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Kelsi is a professional women’s rugby player and currently trains full time with the USA 7s team at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California. Before making the national team, she played for the Seattle Saracens and helped win two National Championships. A true fitness enthusiast, Kelsi has also participated in cheerleading, basketball, volleyball, soccer, track, gymnastics, and wrestling.
Kelsi
| National Champion Rugby Player
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Born and raised in Paris, the land of unapologetic butter, Francois has spent the last 20 years shaping the American culinary world behind the scenes. He was a buyer at Williams-Sonoma, built the Food Network online store, managed product assortments for Rachael Ray's site, started two meal delivery businesses and runs a successful baking blog. When he's not baking a cake or eating his way through Europe, Francois enjoys sharing cooking skills with cooks of all levels. Rules he lives by: "Use real butter" and "Nothing beats a sharp knife."
Francois
| Kitchen Expert
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Currently Executive Chef at Bon Appétit Management Company, Steve began his tenure with Bon Apetit as Chef de Partie. He has over ten years of experience, including tenures at two- and three-Michelin star restaurants. Steve is passionate about all things cooking – products, supply chain, management, menu design, and budgeting.
Steve
| Executive Chef
EXPERT CONSULTANT
BestReviews interviewed fire safety experts including an assistant fire chief and licensed electrician to bring you these tips.
-Stay aware of your surroundings when using powered lawn equipment or cutting tools, especially around electrical cords
-Plug equipment directly into an approved power source and use UL certified adaptors / etc
-High powered appliances require permanent wiring by a licensed electrician! Extension cords can overheat and cause a fire if used permanently for a large appliance like a hot tub.
Expert Tips
| Outdoor Electrical Safety
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Arden is a pet behavior consultant and master certified pet first aid/CPR and safety instructor. Arden is the founder of Pet First Aid 4U.com, host of the Oh Behave Show on Pet Life Radio, the author of over 25 cat and dog books, and is a regular contributor to leading pet publications. She has provided dog behavior consulting for four $500,000 dream dog park projects and interviews leading veterinarians, business leaders, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things for pets.
Arden Moore
| Pet Behavior Consultant
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Samantha Attard, nutrition PhD, is a consultant, coach, yoga instructor, and founder of Happy Healthy Human. Through her business, Samantha provides personalized health solutions to individuals and groups of all sizes. She also has a line of health snacks that to help individuals all over the country eat with intention. Her research has been featured in the British Medical Journal, Diabetologia, and Journal of Hypertension, among others.
Samantha
| Nutrition PhD and Consultant
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Jonas has spent more than half of his life surrounded by children's products. He published a series of baby books called Indestructibles that are designed to take everything a baby can dish out. More recently, Jonas has taken on a role as Marketing Director for ConsumerSafety.org, where he oversees safety campaigns to inform consumers about recalled products. As a father and safety expert, Jonas has a critical eye for analyzing products, and is well-versed in CPSC safety regulations for baby products.
Jonas
| Product Safety Expert
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Matt graduated from Columbia University with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, then went on to become the founder and CEO of Computer Repair Doctor, a phone repair, computer repair, and laptop repair company with locations throughout the United States. Matt and his team of tech doctors are experts in consumer electronics of all types – there is no device they can’t fix!
Matt
| Consumer Electronics Expert
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Allen Rathey is a cleaning expert who promotes healthier indoor spaces. He is past-president of the Housekeeping Channel and the Healthy House Institute, and principal of the Healthy Facilities Institute (HFI) culminating more than 30 years of experience in making indoor places cleaner. He has been tapped as an expert by the New York Times, Real Simple, U.S. News & World Report, and other national media.
Allen
| Indoor Cleaning Expert
EXPERT CONSULTANT
Amy is an outdoor addict who began her love affair with nature as a tiny 3-year-old running the trails of Nova Scotia with boundless energy. She has continued to live in close harmony with the outside world ever since, growing up hiking and camping on the East Coast. She moved to Los Angeles after college and lost no time exploring the infinite adventure opportunities that the Southwest offers. She is now a backpacking guide with TSX Challenge on their Eastern Sierra and Grand Canyon routes. She adores nerding out about anything to do with gear, camping, or backpacking in general.
Amy
| Backpacking Guide and Outdoors Enthusiast
Consumer feedback
Finally, we consider the opinions of buyers like you, who have already invested their money and time in using the products. We survey readers regularly to seek their opinions on products, and we also pore over the product evaluations left online, to develop a clear picture of the strengths and weakness that a product may exhibit over time. That's because our lab testing can evaluate the performance of a product, but only long-term real-world use will turn up durability and other design flaws.
Our independent product testing happens in our labs and in the field, where we use the products like you would at home.
Where we test
Where we test
Field Testing
When we test products, we evaluate them in real-world settings like where you would use them as a consumer. This helps us understand if the product has longevity and value.
Where we test
Reno, Nevada
Our large lab in Reno, Nevada is outfitted with all of the equipment to complete both standard as well as proprietary testing. We design and build our own test rigs as needed to perform consumer-focused tests.
Where we test
San Francisco, California
We test many of our smaller appliances and home goods in and around our headquarters in San Francisco, California.
Product acquisition
We purchase every product we review with our own funds. We never accept anything from product manufacturers. Our goal is to be 100% objective in our analysis, and we do not want to run the risk of being swayed by products provided at no cost.
By purchasing products through normal retail channels, we also avoid the risk of a manufacturer sending us 'juiced up' models. We review exactly what consumers buy off the shelf.
If, during testing, we find a product that performs much worse than expected we will buy an additional unit and re-run our testing, to make sure we did not receive a bad copy of it.
We test products where you use them – in real life situations. Whether it's mixing dough with a stand mixer, filming with a drone, or building a table with a miter saw, our picks have been thoroughly evaluated before recommending them to you.
Where reviewed products go
A few weeks after we're done testing and reviewing a product, we donate it to a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization – either for specific use by the charity or to be sold to raise funds for the organization. Some of the charities that have benefitted from our donations are No One Left Behind, Edgewood Center for Children and Families, Girls, Inc., Contra Costa Crisis Center, White Pony Express, and Goodwill.
Our promise
We strive to provide value to readers by making solid and reliable buying recommendations. We make money when a reader clicks through to a product buying page and purchases a product. It doesn't matter which one, though - we earn the referral fee on any item you buy. We are not biased to pick one item over another. Our sole focus is delivering the best review possible.
If we fail to win your trust and guide you to a purchasing decision, we do not make anything.
We are in this for the long haul, and we succeed only by running trustworthy and accurate product reviews. If we fail at recommending the best product, our readers won't come back.
Our team
BestReviews was started by entrepreneurs with three decades of business experience. The company was incubated out of the Harvard Innovation Lab, and our senior management team has educational backgrounds from Harvard Business School, Stanford, Berkeley, Northwestern, Notre Dame, West Point, and the US Army's Airborne and Ranger Schools, in addition to corporate experience at Google, Tesla, LinkedIn, and the US Army.
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