About GearLab

Have you ever wanted to buy tech, consumer electronics, or home appliance products and been stumped about which product is best? Or, worse, bought a product only to learn later that you didn't buy the right one for your needs? I have, and that is why I started GearLab.

The GearLab mission is simple: to create world's best product reviews.

We believe the world's best gear reviews are based on objective, independent testing of each and every product, with ratings, awards, and expert insights that help you select the right products for your specific needs, budget, and interests.

We describe our work as “Reviews You Can Rely On” because of our commitment to creating independent, objective, side-by-side comparative reviews based on extensive hands-on test results.

Here's how we do it:

1. We select the top products in each category.

2. We buy all the products we review ourselves, at retail just like you, to help assure complete objectivity and independence in our ratings. We will not accept free evaluation units or paid endorsement from manufacturers.

3. Our product testing teams put the products through detailed side-by-side testing plans, both in the lab and in the field, and carefully assess performance, ease of use, and reliability.

4. We rank the products, explain why, and give awards to the best.

How We Make Money

GearLab is a free service that is entirely reader-supported. We select and review products objectively and independently. We only make money when you click on our affiliate links and buy products we've reviewed, which helps support our testing work.

If you click on a retailer's link on our site and make any purchase, the retailer will contribute a portion of the sale to help support this site. It won't cost you anything extra, and it's a simple way to help us fund our gear reviews. Thanks for your support of our work!

Independent Product Selection

Our review process starts with selection: we look at hundreds of products to determine the top contenders in each category. We then purchase ourselves the top contenders for detailed hands-on comparison testing.

No Ads, No Freebies, No Promotion

We refuse to accept any manufacturer's free evaluation units, and we do not accept any paid endorsements. Our focus is strictly on creating content for the benefit of our readers, and we align our business model to focus on our reader's interests.

A Deep Commitment to Testing

To provide a fair basis for scoring, we develop a set of objective lab tests for each category that will help us quantify important differences between competing products.

We put every product through thoughtful testing plans that bring out key performance differences. We do a lot of hands-on real-world field tests, designed by experts, where we use products under challenging conditions to see how they hold up to the competition. We then combine field testing with in-house lab testing that provides measured data we can use to inform comparison and performance ratings. Many of our lead product testers come from a science or engineering background, from top schools such as MIT, UC Berkeley, Princeton, and Oxford. We take a thoughtful approach to each review category and apply the rigor of scientific and engineering standards to product testing and rating.

Our Awards

In the end, our mission is to help you find the best product for your situation, keeping in mind that each person's needs are unique. To achieve that goal we publish the scores of each product relative to its competition, both overall and across important attributes for each category. That means you can find the one that best meets your individual needs.

You'll find that our Editors' Choice award goes to those products we believe are the very best overall, and you'll learn why we selected them by reading our detailed reviews.

Our Best Buy award goes to quality products that offer the most bang-for-the-buck.

Our Top Pick award goes to those products that stand out for specific applications, and our review will explain the details of why and what for. All our Top Pick awards have a specific “for something” as part of the award, which describes the specific application we feel the product is especially well suited for.

Our reviews should provide the information you need to select the right gear for your budget and needs, enabling you to buy with confidence.

Creating Honest Test-based Reviews is Hard Work

Our review process takes a lot more work than the typical gear reviews you find online. But we strongly believe that the best gear reviews are those that take the time to test products extensively and objectively compare and contrast competing products. When we read reviews, it's not enough just to know if the reviewer liked or disliked the product. We want to know how it stacks up against all the other top products out there, and why one product may be better than another.

If you appreciate our commitment to objective, independent testing, please let your friends know about GearLab, and help us grow and fund expanding our free service.

So check out our reviews and let me know if we are living up to our goals. If you have more questions please check out our Frequently Asked Questions or email us. I'd love to hear from you, and especially encourage feedback that can help us improve. You can help us make TechGearLab the world's best source of information for consumer electronics enthusiasts like you.

Chris McNamara
Founder and CEO

GearLab

P.S. If you love the outdoors, check out our outdoor gear review website, OutdoorGearLab. OutdoorGearLab.com is part of the GearLab family of websites, and applies the same ethics we use on TechGearLab.com, to create the world's most detailed, scientific, and objective reviews of outdoor products.

P.P.S. If you have a baby, you'll enjoy our sister site, BabyGearLab, which reviews baby products. BabyGearLab.com is another part of the GearLab family of websites, sharing the same commitment to side-by-side comparison reviews, and using the same underlying technology platform.