Well, my personal process usually starts with finding the top rated items related to what I’m looking for on Walmart/Target/Amazon/Home Depot/Lowes/B&H. Then I do a bit of DDGing to cull the herd. When I get to my top 2 choices I’ll check Reddit for some final opinions, eg “x vs y site:Reddit.com”
It sounds like a lot, but for a big purchase this might take me all of half an hour.
I’ll take this any day over blindly taking Wirecutter’s word for it, then having to return/exchange/put up with/research an alternative when I find out the recommendation was not really any better, in fact probably worse than random choice of a highly customer reviewed item within a price range, while they take a cut for my inconvenience. Which I’ve done more times than I should’ve, really.
If you must, consider using Wirecutter as a “going in blind” option to find a rough price class for the item in question. E.g., if you know nothing about routers, see what the price is of the one(s) they recommend. If it’s say an average of $100, stick to something along those lines (or more).
I realize this is probably all quite obvious but… sometimes there’s no substitute for traditional search-engining.
It sounds like a lot, but for a big purchase this might take me all of half an hour.
I’ll take this any day over blindly taking Wirecutter’s word for it, then having to return/exchange/put up with/research an alternative when I find out the recommendation was not really any better, in fact probably worse than random choice of a highly customer reviewed item within a price range, while they take a cut for my inconvenience. Which I’ve done more times than I should’ve, really.
If you must, consider using Wirecutter as a “going in blind” option to find a rough price class for the item in question. E.g., if you know nothing about routers, see what the price is of the one(s) they recommend. If it’s say an average of $100, stick to something along those lines (or more).
I realize this is probably all quite obvious but… sometimes there’s no substitute for traditional search-engining.