How we test

Not every product in a guide is hands-on

That is the honest position, so it is the one stated first. Byte Sized Gifts is a small operation, and buying ten of everything in every category is not realistic. Some products we own and use. Others we recommend on the strength of research: specifications, long-term owner reports, repair and warranty records, and the consistent complaints that show up across hundreds of reviews.

Every guide tells you which is which

Where we have used something, we say so: the product carries a Tested marker, and the guide’s header states how many of its products we have physically used out of the total — three of eight, say.

Where we have not, there is simply no marker and no line — we do not label the rest at all. The absence of a claim is the claim: if a guide says nothing about testing, nothing in it passed through our hands.

That count is not typed by hand. Each product in a guide is marked hands-on or not in the underlying data, and the count is calculated from those marks. It cannot drift from reality, and it cannot be inflated by editing a sentence.

Individual products carry the claim, not the page

Products we have used are marked with a Tested badge, sometimes with a note about how long we have been using them. Products without that badge are ones we have researched but not handled. We never put a blanket “tested” label across a whole guide, because it would not be true of every item in it.

First-person claims about using a product — how it feels, how it sounds, how it held up — appear only where that badge appears.

Why there are price bands instead of prices

Prices change constantly and a stale number is worse than no number. Guides sort products into bands, which stay meaningful for months, and send you to the retailer for the current price.

What would make us change a guide

A product being discontinued, a persistent reliability problem emerging in owner reports, or a better option arriving in the same band. Updated guides show an updated date.

What we do not do

• No sponsored placements. Nobody can pay to appear here or to rank higher.
• No star ratings or review scores until they reflect something we have actually measured.
• No claiming experience we do not have, in prose or anywhere else.