In-depth guides, expert tips, and buying advice to help you make the best purchasing decisions
A fan cannot cool a room — it cools you, by speeding up evaporation from your skin. From a tested field of 109 fans: which body style actually moves air, why more blades cost less to run, and the Levoit model-code suffix that changes by country.
Matt Fankey
14 Jul 2026
Forty-eight jug blenders were tested. The Bosch VitaBoost wins on 1,600 watts, 30,000 rpm and six automatic programmes, the Braun PowerBlend 9 lets you choose the texture, the Vitamix Explorian E310 is the power ceiling, and the Philips HR2291/41 is the compact budget pick.
Matt Fankey
14 Jul 2026
The winner has the lowest resolution in the field at 1.3 megapixels and the clearest picture, while a 5-megapixel rival produced the worst image tested. Why HDR beats megapixels, the storage decision that avoids subscriptions, and three doorbells worth fitting.
Matt Fankey
13 Jul 2026
Compare Xiaomi, Blueair, Levoit and Coway air purifiers using published measurements of noise, power use and controls, with clear limits on filter claims.
Matt Fankey
13 Jul 2026
The bar figure on an espresso machine box is the pump maximum, not the nine bar the coffee actually needs — the honest check is a 25-to-30-second shot with proper crema. From a 29-machine tested field: why home users need not pay for a dual boiler, and PID in plain English.
Matt Fankey
13 Jul 2026
Hair starts taking damage above 70 degrees, and that single number decides which hair dryer is worth buying. A tested field settles what temperature control, ionic technology and technique actually contribute.
John Higgins
13 Jul 2026
The best coffee grinders of 2026: the Eureka Mignon Specialità takes the overall win, the Lelit William PL72 is the espresso specialist and the Baratza Encore ESP is the pick for filter and French press.
Matt Fankey
13 Jul 2026
An e-reader is two decisions in one: the device, and the bookshop you will be locked to. From a 53-reader tested field — the Kindle golden cage versus the open ePub world, why colour E-Ink costs you text quality, and the phone-sized reader that escapes the question entirely.
Matt Fankey
13 Jul 2026
What triggers the alarm is almost never a burglar — it is the neighbour's cat, playing children or wind in the branches. Why object filters matter more than megapixels, why card-only storage walks away with the camera, and the outdoor cameras worth mounting.
Matt Fankey
13 Jul 2026
The dearest brush in a range and the cheapest clean about equally well — that is what the dentists and the independent testing say. What the Cochrane evidence really shows, the technique most people get wrong, and the only two extras worth paying for.
Matt Fankey
13 Jul 2026
One number decides whether studio headphones will work with your phone at all: impedance, where 100 ohms and up is ruled out for mobile use. From a 96-headphone tested field — dynamic versus magnetostatic drivers, open versus closed, and six picks led by the Sennheiser HD 490 Pro Plus.
John Higgins
13 Jul 2026
What separates mesh systems is rarely headline speed. A tested field settles the differences that matter: backhaul design, whether the ports can carry more than a gigabit, and which kits demand a cloud account or a subscription before they work properly.
John Higgins
4 Jul 2026
The most consequential smartwatch fact is not on any spec sheet: the platforms do not interoperate, so your phone chooses your watch. Plus the data-protection warning worth reading, measured blood-oxygen and ECG findings, and four picks including a watch with a real blood pressure cuff.
Matt Fankey
4 Jul 2026
Nine flagship phones worth buying: the iPhone 17 Pro for balance, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 for folding, the S26 Ultra for its Privacy Display and battery optimisation, the OnePlus 15 for endurance at 7,300 mAh and 31 hours, and the Nothing Phone (3) for personality and seven years of updates.
John Higgins
4 Jul 2026
A phone beats a compact camera in good light and loses badly once it fades. From a 24-model tested field, three cameras worth the carry — and the model-name traps, including a Ricoh variant that cannot shoot in colour.
John Higgins
4 Jul 2026
The action camera market is now a two-horse race — and DJI's mounts fit GoPro's, which nearly solves the accessory question before you start. Plus the cold-weather battery that adds about 40% runtime, and why the SD card is part of the camera's price.
John Higgins
4 Jul 2026
The best dash cams of 2026, with UK prices verified on 2 August. The Transcend DrivePro 230Q leads on picture quality and event handling, with 4K, dual-camera and wide-angle alternatives.
John Higgins
4 Jul 2026
The speed on the box is a ceiling, not a promise — plug a USB4 drive into an ordinary port and it runs at the port's pace. From a 38-drive tested field: the USB naming decoder, measured sustained-write truths, and eight picks led by the LaCie Rugged SSD4.
John Higgins
4 Jul 2026
Pick the size before you compare anything else — a mini speaker and a party box are not competing products. From roughly 300 speakers heard across five categories: what battery figures really mean, how far Bluetooth actually reaches, and a winner in each class.
Matt Fankey
4 Jul 2026
A 126-keyboard group test settles what actually matters in a gaming keyboard: magnetic switches, rapid trigger and SOCD. The overall winner is not sold in the UK, so the practical picks are the Logitech G Pro X TKL Rapid and, for a number pad, the SteelSeries Apex Pro Gen 3.
Matt Fankey
4 Jul 2026
Office mice fail in predictable ways: the wrong connection type, a dead battery, or a click that annoys the room. A tested field settles what actually matters — dongle or Bluetooth, how many devices, and why 1,000 DPI is the only sensor number worth checking.
John Higgins
4 Jul 2026
The most important earbud specification is the case, not the buds — per-charge figures run as low as 2.5 hours, and the fifteen-minute recharge test separates models more than peak runtime does. From a 112-pair tested field, with the occlusion effect explained.
John Higgins
3 Jul 2026
Six OLED televisions worth buying: the LG OLED 55G6 wins outright on over 3,400 cd/m² and near-complete DCI-P3 coverage, the Samsung S90F is the value QD-OLED, the LG G5 pairs 3,000 cd/m² with unusual efficiency, and the Philips 65OLED959 adds Ambilight and a 5.1.2 sound system.
John Higgins
3 Jul 2026
The average cordless vacuum lasts just 12 minutes at full power — the number nobody prints. From a 50-model tested field: where cordless beats corded (carpet) and where it loses (hard floor), the swap-battery trick, and seven picks from Miele to Bosch.
John Higgins
3 Jul 2026