STANDARDS / PRODUCT GUIDES
Reviews & Testing Policy
A documentation-based buying guide, personal experience and a controlled test answer different questions. We identify which evidence supports a recommendation.
Last updated:
Three different kinds of evidence
- Documentation-based guide: specifications, prices, manuals and source-based comparisons; no hands-on testing is implied.
- First-hand experience: the author's actual use of a product, with relevant context and limits. A personal impression is not automatically a controlled comparison.
- Measured test: a documented setup, version, task, procedure, results and limitations that allow a reader to understand the measurement.
Conditions behind a recommendation
When reporting a test, identify the product and software version, setup, task, date and comparison basis. Do not invent these details to make an experience report look more rigorous.
For buying guides, give the relevant market, currency, taxes where known, included equipment and price-check date. Example budgets are estimates, not live quotations or guaranteed savings.
The author's experience
The Sony FX3/FX30 guide includes the author's reported personal experience with both cameras. That account is distinct from a documented laboratory comparison.
Other product guides must state their own methods; the editor's experience in one area is not evidence that he tested every product covered.
Review units, access and conflicts
Product loans, discounts, paid access, travel support and other material relationships should be disclosed where relevant. A provider does not purchase approval of a verdict.
The publisher's related products and promotional placements must not be presented as independent recommendations.