CR is $7.95 a month. Sign up for a month when you're making a major purchase. If it saves even 10 minutes of research time, that's value enough for me.
Subscription fees are literally the only source of income for Consumer’s Union, the parent company of Consumer Reports. They don’t take ads, they don’t take payments for reviews, and they don’t sell rights to use their ratings in advertising (they sue companies who reference their CR ratings in any kind of marketing material).