Lifewire Product Review Editorial Guidelines & Mission In This Article Expand Jump to a Section Our Team What We Do Why You Should Trust Us How We Test Our Products Meet Us Contact Us Our Team We’re a team of experienced writers and editors who obsessively scour the retail landscape (both online and off) to find the best products for your life. Besides being experts in our fields, having worked for brands like Amazon, Ebay, and PCMag, we’re consumers too, and we have a passion for products and services that make your life easier. Our Mission It is our mission to help our users make the best purchasing decisions—it’s that simple. What We Do We exhaustively research and recommend a broad range of products and ultimately make a curated list of recommendations from writers with subject-matter expertise in every product category we cover. We do receive an affiliate commission on some, but not all, of the products that we recommend if you decide to click through to the retailer site and make a purchase. After we publish an article, we don’t just forget about it. Our team is relentless when it comes to updating and keeping our existing recommendations fresh, accurate, and helpful. We have our fingers on the pulse when it comes to the latest new tech releases, from laptops, to smartphones, to drones. Our recommended products run the gamut from budget to splurge-worthy, and we’re not loyal to any one specific retailer or brand. We make it a point to source recommendations from reliable companies who deliver exemplary customer service, so you can have a seamless shopping experience. Lifewire Please note that all products, including those we review and recommend, may from time to time be subject to recalls or revised use recommendations. We, therefore, urge you to monitor any official announcements that may be related to products you purchase. We also know how frustrating it can be to do your research on a product only to add it to your cart and see that it’s out of stock, so we try to mitigate this by having dedicated editors check availability daily to provide you with the best user experience possible. As a real-world technology site trusted by millions, we are committed to ensuring that our content reflects the diversity of our audience. This means showcasing brands owned by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and other minority groups whenever possible, using more images of mixed races, and hiring more diverse writers and staff members to cover topics important to our audience. Read our full commitment to Diversity & Inclusion here. Lifewire Why You Should Trust Us The product recommendations from Lifewire are purely editorial. Our team never lets retailers, public relations firms, or salespeople dictate our content and product coverage. Instead, we do the heavy lifting ourselves by tapping into our network of experts and testers to help you make smarter purchases—and to avoid that dreaded buyer’s remorse. How We Test Our Products We believe in using these products just like you would—on the streets, at home, at the gym—in real-life settings that put them through their paces. We buy almost all of the products that we test, then send them straight to the homes of our thorough reviewers. We will occasionally accept review models of products that are not available for purchase yet (like a just-announced Apple flagship device, for example). We use these products for a few weeks before we send them back to the company. We have over a hundred reviewers spending weeks and months evaluating everything from photo printers to wireless headphones to find out if these products are worth the spend. We typically send our testers three to five products in the same category, so that they can make comparisons, which gives you real insights into how different brands and models measure up against each other. Our testers also take dozens of photos to help you see what the product will actually look like in your home or in your hands. They make sure to capture all the important angles and details to give you the most information before you buy. Lifewire In addition to writing about their personal experiences, each reviewer fills out a comprehensive questionnaire that collects over ten data points. The testers rate their products on a scale of 1 to 5 for each factor—like comfort, design, or battery life—to come up with a rating that reflects their overall opinion. We tailor these ratings to each category and never use a one-size-fits-all method. For instance, we rate smartphones on their display quality and performance but evaluate headphones based on their comfort and range, among other factors. You can find our testers’ honest feedback—both positive and negative—under the “Tested by Lifewire” badge to help you make the most informed buying decision. We give you an overall star rating, pros and cons for each product, and experiences and opinions directly from our reviewers. We want to make sure we’re providing you with the most unbiased feedback that we can. Meet Us Molly McLaughlin Senior Editor & Content Strategist Molly McLaughlin is Lifewire's Senior Editor & Content Strategist; she conceptualizes and assigns product reviews and how-to content to a large freelance writing team. She has been a technology editor and writer since 2004.At PC Magazine, she edited hundreds of product reviews and features and covered key tech milestones, including the original iPhone and Android smartphone releases. She also spearheaded ConsumerSearch's smartphone coverage strategy and ran a full-time editorial business.Molly graduated magna cum laude with an M.S. in Journalism and Technical Writing from Polytechnic University (now NYU Tandon School of Engineering). Read more Yoona Wagener Editor Yoona has been a Lifewire Freelance Product Review writer since April 2019, specializing in smartwatches, peripherals, laptops, and streaming devices.In 2020, she joined the Lifewire Evergreen team as a freelancer and in that capacity has written how-tos and roundups on various subjects, from the best streaming content, macOS customization, to managing Google Home devices.Her prior experience includes end user customer support, knowledge base technical writing, as well as content writing, nonprofit marketing, and academic publishing. She joined Lifewire fulltime as a Commerce Editor in 2022. Read more Contact Us If you have questions, comments, or opinions you’d like to share with our team of editors, please feel free to email us at [email protected].