It’s a disaster out there right now when it comes to decent review sites.
Google is absolutely complicit in this, if not entirely to blame. Their search ranking has over the years pushed to the top all the low effort listicles that are full of sponsored Amazon links and no actual reviews, and a lot of the real reviews have disappeared due to traffic starvation.
And now those top sites are often just AI nonsense that steal content from whatever few other sites actually exist. Nonsense “reviews” just spouting the product specs, from people who have never even put their hands on the product for real.
My personal go to these days (although I wish it wasn’t) is youtube.
There’s still a load of nonsense listicles on youtube, but with a bit of searching you can usually find some actual person who is genuinely knowledgeable about the product category, and has a bunch of different ones actually in their possession for real, that they can compare and give honest opinions on.
Check out Wirecutter. It’s been my go-to site for most purchases outside my wheelhouse for years. I like how they break down their findings, like pros/cons, budget picks, and picks depending on what kind of user you are (take record players, for example: are you interested in the format, but don’t want much fuss? They’ll have suggestions for an all-in-one setup. Or are you an audiophile looking to upgrade specific parts? They’ll cover that as well). They also include advice from experts in the field of whatever they’re reviewing, which I find useful.
It’s a disaster out there right now when it comes to decent review sites.
Google is absolutely complicit in this, if not entirely to blame. Their search ranking has over the years pushed to the top all the low effort listicles that are full of sponsored Amazon links and no actual reviews, and a lot of the real reviews have disappeared due to traffic starvation.
And now those top sites are often just AI nonsense that steal content from whatever few other sites actually exist. Nonsense “reviews” just spouting the product specs, from people who have never even put their hands on the product for real.
My personal go to these days (although I wish it wasn’t) is youtube.
There’s still a load of nonsense listicles on youtube, but with a bit of searching you can usually find some actual person who is genuinely knowledgeable about the product category, and has a bunch of different ones actually in their possession for real, that they can compare and give honest opinions on.
Check out Wirecutter. It’s been my go-to site for most purchases outside my wheelhouse for years. I like how they break down their findings, like pros/cons, budget picks, and picks depending on what kind of user you are (take record players, for example: are you interested in the format, but don’t want much fuss? They’ll have suggestions for an all-in-one setup. Or are you an audiophile looking to upgrade specific parts? They’ll cover that as well). They also include advice from experts in the field of whatever they’re reviewing, which I find useful.