Best Review Sites?

[Lucan Unlordly]

There used to be a time when you could go online and find Reviews that you could, after reading between the lines, determine that the writer was genuine. Along with technical sites linked to magazines etc., one had half a chance of being told enough truth to make a valid purchasing decision.

Where are they now? Apart from WHICH, a subscription service, and possibly GSM Arena for mobile phones i'm struggling...

My latest search is for an Air Purifier but even the main brand sites like AEG have supposedly genuine customer reviews running into several hundred words. None, have 'Yes, it looks nice and works well but is noisy'

What are you go to review sites - particularly for technology as that's where I often get stuck...

 

[The Byre]

Amazon and YouTube, followed by the websites from specialist magazines.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Thanks Byre.

I'll look again at Amazon reviews.

I do use YouTube and find far too many to be subjective rather than objective. The Yanks spend the first 10 minutes telling you what they're going to tell you about as well

 

[The Byre]

There is one YT channel called 'Project Farm' that does incredibly thorough reviews and is totally impartial - unfortunately US only, so not really applicable in many cases.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2rzsm1Qi6N1X-wuOg_p0Ng

He gets between 100,000 and 500,000 hits every day! Some of his videos have over 10m downloads and are therefore more popular (and earn more!) than most mainstream network TV programmes!

Unfortunately, he does not seem to have ever reviewed air purifiers. It would be interesting if he did, as there seems to be a great deal of snake oil being pushed in that market.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Is this an issue with Amazon...

SHARK 4 Fan HE400UK Air Purifier​

Nearly all of the reviews are by recipients of free products via Amazons Vine programme each writing padded out paragraph upon paragraph about the delivery box, packaging, aesthetics, build quality etc., Call me cynical but I want to hear what a genuine off the street Joe Bloggs has to say about how well the thing works - or not - in a few sentences.