We buy everything ourselves
Every product we score was bought at retail with our own money, the same way you'd buy it. We don't accept review units, and a brand sending us something unsolicited doesn't get it reviewed faster — it goes in the same queue as everything we bought ourselves.
Measured vs. claimed
Every comparison parameter is tagged internally as either measured-only or claimed-OK. Measured-only specs — things like motion transfer, temperature rise, or keypad entry rate — only ever come from our own bench, never a spec sheet. Claimed-OK fields, like a stated warranty length, can come from the manufacturer because there's no practical way for us to independently verify them ourselves — but we still label them as claimed on the page, not measured.
The tie rule
Every measured parameter has a tolerance — a difference small enough that it's more likely measurement noise than a real gap. If two products fall inside that tolerance, we mark that row a tie instead of picking a winner. We'd rather show you an honest tie than manufacture a winner out of a rounding error.
Re-testing
Every best-of list is re-verified at least every 60 days, and sooner if a product changes materially — a firmware update, a price change, a discontinued model. Every list keeps a public changelog of what moved and why, visible on the list's own page.