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by jxn 3441 days ago
In general, they do well, but there are a few categories which they don't seem to "get". They do a good job of trying to remove a lot of barriers to objectivity, even when useful reviews require subjective knowledge. They also try hard to find equivalent, reproducible tests so that they can use them on multiple products, even if they're not exact equivalents. This means, for instance, that they might end up testing ice-braking tires by measuring the stop distance in an indoor ice rink where they can control the conditions... that makes it easy to measure the tires against other tires, but it's not real-world. They also purchase their products, rather than accepting them from the companies, which helps increase the odds that they're getting the same things off the shelf you do. Again, they seem to be clueless about a few categories, though, such as certain electronics. Just look at the ratings for the Google Home and Amazon Alexa--very poor--because they get lumped in with wireless speakers where sound quality is the utmost importance.