Review standard v3.0 · effective 2026-09-06
How we review
We get the product, use it the way its buyers would, check the manufacturer's claims against its own documentation, and write a plain-English review that says what it does well, what it does badly, and who it is for.
How we pick products
We cover the equipment that fleets, crews and field workers actually buy: rugged computers, protective cases, field power, communications, vehicle kit and camp gear. We get the product ourselves — bought or borrowed — and the manufacturer has no say over what we write.
What every review covers
Full reviews work through the same sections in the same order, so two reviews can be read side by side.
- 01
Design & Build
Materials, sealing, port doors, buttons, mounting and how the thing feels in the hand. Which variant or mark you are actually buying.
- 02
Display
Size, resolution, brightness claim and whether it is readable outdoors. Touch behaviour with gloves and in the wet.
- 03
Performance
The processor, memory and storage on offer, and how the machine behaves under sustained load in a sealed body.
- 04
Battery
Capacity, hot-swap behaviour, charging, and the benchmark behind any runtime headline.
- 05
Ports & Connectivity
What plugs in, what radios are inside, what the expansion bays can take, and which options rule out others.
- 06
Software & Support
Operating system, update commitments, warranty terms and what the small print takes away.
- 07
Verdict
Who should buy it, who shouldn't, and what to buy instead.
Where the numbers come from
We never publish a figure we didn't obtain, or describe a test we didn't run. Every number in a review is marked with where it came from: measured by us, observed by us, or claimed by the manufacturer. If we didn't do it, we say so.
- MEASURED
- We put an instrument on it — a scale, calipers, a meter, a stopwatch.
- OBSERVED
- We saw or handled it ourselves, but did not measure it.
- CLAIMED
- The manufacturer's published figure. Checked for consistency, not verified.
- CONVERTED
- Derived arithmetically from a published figure, with the working shown.
Every review has a Claims, checked section. We read the manufacturer's spec sheets, footnotes and regional pages side by side, decode the IP and MIL-STD-810 wording, and point out where the documents disagree with each other or with the marketing. Where a claim is adverse to a manufacturer we give them written notice and five working days to respond before publishing.
Independence
No paid reviews
Manufacturers cannot buy a review, see one before publication, or change a word of it. Sponsored placements are labelled at the top and are never presented as reviews.
No manufacturer travel
We do not accept flights, hotels or hospitality from the brands we cover.
Corrections in the open
Mistakes are corrected on the page, dated, and logged publicly. Nothing is edited silently.
Full policy: editorial policy · corrections log
Questions
- Do you give products a score?
- No. Each review says in writing what the product does well, what it does badly and who it is for. A number would hide the reasoning we want you to read.
- Do you drop, freeze or immerse the products?
- Not in a laboratory. We use them, measure what we can with ordinary instruments, and check the manufacturer's durability claims against their own documentation. Anything we did not do ourselves is marked CLAIMED.
- Where do the review units come from?
- We buy them or borrow them. Either way the manufacturer has no say over what we write, and loaned units go back.
- What changed from the previous standard?
- Version 3.0 drops the seven-pillar assessment and the pre-test state. Reviews are now written in standard hardware sections and every review published is a complete review.