How we test
This page exists so you can judge our conclusions instead of trusting them. If a review of ours ever contradicts what is written here, the review is wrong.
Where the machines come from
We buy the equipment we test, or we source it independently through a rental house or a working shop that already owns it. We do not accept review units supplied by a manufacturer in exchange for coverage.
If a tool ever reaches us any other way, the review says so in the first paragraph — not in a footnote. A reader deserves to weigh that before reading our verdict, not after.
What we measure
Adjectives are cheap. Every review is built on things that can be checked:
- Stated versus real capacity. Manufacturers quote maximum cut depth or throat capacity under ideal conditions. We record what the machine does with material it will actually see.
- Behaviour under sustained load. Most tools are pleasant for ten minutes. We care about the fortieth minute — heat, bogging, tripped breakers, duty-cycle limits.
- Noise and dust. Measured at the operator's head, not at a distance chosen to flatter the tool.
- What the warranty excludes. We read the document. Exclusions are quoted directly, because that is where the surprises live.
- Cost of ownership. Consumables, blades, bits, filters. A cheap machine with expensive proprietary parts is not a cheap machine.
When a figure comes from the manufacturer rather than from our own measurement, it is labelled as such. We would rather look less thorough than pass off a spec sheet as a test result.
Every review names who should not buy
A review that recommends a tool to everyone has told you nothing. The most useful sentence we can write is usually the disqualifying one: the shop size this machine does not suit, the workflow it fights, the buyer who will regret it within a year.
Our verdicts are deliberately blunt — recommended, recommended with reservations, or avoid — and each one is tied to a specific type of buyer rather than issued in the abstract.
How this site is funded
Three rules bound that relationship, and they are not negotiable:
- A commission never changes a verdict. We have recommended against products we could have earned from, and we will again.
- No manufacturer, affiliate manager or brand sees a review before it is published. There is no approval step.
- We do not run sponsored posts, paid placements, or "partner content" dressed as editorial. If that ever changes, it will be announced on this page first.
Full detail is on the affiliate disclosure page.
When we are wrong
We will be. A test misses something, a firmware update changes behaviour, a manufacturer quietly revises a part.
When it happens, the correction is added to the page with the date it was made, and the original claim stays legible. We do not silently rewrite a published verdict — an archive that edits itself is worth nothing.
If you have found an error, tell us. Corrections from readers are credited unless you ask otherwise.
What we will not do
- Publish a roundup of ten tools we have never touched.
- Invent a scoring system with decimal places we cannot defend.
- Use countdown timers, fake stock counters, or invented urgency of any kind.
- Recommend a product because it pays better than the one that is actually right for you.