Hi,

I have been looking around for a truly independent review site which recommends past and present tech gadgets from different user-profile perspectives. Trouble is, other than maybe tomsguide(??), I cannot find them easily. MY last venture re buying 2 new shock-proof/water-proof digital cameras led to me wasting tons of time googling where almost all of the camera recommendation sites deliberately recommended the more expensive cameras, with the 1 or 2 cheap ones selected invariably being very poor value, and a joke. Needless to say, they got 30% commission if you bought the cameras via the amazon link they provided on their website.

So, if anybody could recommend some genuinely independent sites for tech gadgets, I would be most grateful.

Another question:-

1Razer products. I gather that they are suppose dto provide high-tech pc peripherals etc., in return for being more expensive. That said, I several times online read some comments on how Razer apparently relocated manufacturing , a few years ago, to some SE Asian/East Asian country and now produces products that do not last very long any more., due to being made from inferior plastic etc. Now, I have no idea if this is true or if these comments were from nasty competitors. Could people please give me thier views/opinions on this? I would love facts even more, if available.
So far, I have bought a Goliathus mouse-mat, my mouse seems to be a wannabe Razer-copy, what with the black/luminescent-green pattern. I very much like the razer colours, but am terrified of behaving stupidly, like I used to, years ago, when I would regularly buy sennheisser headsets which were great but broke so quickly due to wear-and-tear that it was ridiculous.

Any help ppareciated, thanks.

I've always liked Tom's Hardware guides. They seem to usually pass my bs detector and often do a good job recommending budget options as well. Consumer Reports is a long time independent non-profit group which has reviewed products for decades. Their claim-to-fame is their very independance. To be honest, I haven't used them much lately but once upon a time...

Personally, I just Google search. Click links. Read reviews looking for signs of bias or poor methodology. And keep going until i find one that seems trustworthy.

Regarding Razer products, I bought 2 and am in mixed opinion on them.

I bought a Razer Black Widow Chroma keyboard. It's a mechanical keyboard, and once you get used to the clicking sound of each keypress, it is brilliant. Build quality is definitely high no matter where it's been made, solid materials that in the year and a half of use have shown no wear or any sign of degredation. There's a strong metal base, and it generally feels good.

I bought a Razer Mamba TE gaming mouse to go with it, this is plastic rather than metal (though the keys on the keyboard are plastic too), and generally doesn't feel as "solid", but has not troubled me in any way over the same period, has a high speed response, and a generally good feel to it. All that said, I've heard reports of others failing, not because they're razer, but because it's a high response mouse, and they only have a lifetime of a few years, some can fail quicker. It's just because the clicker's more sensitive, so as it warps even slightly it will register false clicks.

Both mouse and keyboard have some nice lighting effects that are heavily customisable (right down to different effects to different areas of mouse/keyboard. Mine are currently glowing a mild red.

Overall can't fault Razer quality specifically, I can however massively fault their incredibly intrusive "driver software" that installs a popup UI on every boot that you need to dismiss, except that it won't if updating, which happens every 2-3 days (seriously, not a bug, they update that frequently). It's my biggest gripe with Razer.

I have only used one Razer product, a gaming mouse. (a gift from my well meaning wife)

To use the software for game profiles, I had to register with them and the software was all online for the profiles. I wasn't prepared to do that, passed it on to someone else and returned to Logitech mouse and keyboard.
Profiles stored on my PC and the only connecting to the internet is to check for updates (which I have set to do manually)

I've never had a problem with Logitech quality and their warranty is good and long too

Ditto.

I have to admit that I'm a big Amazon review reader as well. I know folks are against them but every once in a while, you get some honest reviews. Once of course you get past "I bought this product. I don't understand this product. I'm not going to read the manual or look online to solve my problem because I'm above that. Therefore I'm right and the company who sold me this item is a bunch of crooks and evil and eat babies and all that" reviews.

While I grew up on Consumer Reports, they also running the Consumerist website and they've just been caught so many times with problems on their reports and not verifying.

I;d point you to some of the reports of such but i appears they finally shut down and that's filling the first 10 pages of whatever google search I do for them.

https://nypost.com/2017/10/30/consumerist-site-shuts-down-after-alleged-mismanagement/

It also seems parts of Consumer Reports is pay-walled. Best advice is to read and doubt. Search Google. Trust the reviews that seem the most factual and remain skeptical.

Wow, an actual article on Cracked:

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2376-i-get-paid-to-write-fake-reviews-amazon.html

Well, thanks for the replies. I am afraid I simply do not trust amazon, ever since I read articles about authors writing likes about competing authors among other fake-news reviews which I encountered while surfing. I will sometimes buy if an amazon review has a certain authenticity to it, but an obviously genuine amazon review has usually to be quite lengthy before one can be reasonably sure it is legit.

Well, the online comments about razer's newly poor products iseems likely to be fraudulent. I am far more concerned with razer's intrusive software-related issues. Well, I think I will stick to Logitech mechanical keyboards as that can seemingly be half as expensive as the razer equivalents.