I've used them for baby equipment, for mattresses, and for cars. They were spot on with cars, baby car seats and cribs, but their mattress ratings could have been better at the time. Overall, I've found them to be pretty high quality, and most importantly, independent. Their reviews will often differ from more public sources. And I could be mistaken, but I think they don't even accept free products from companies. They buy the products they test.

Generally I've found them to be pretty good with the reviews. The testing is thorough and they explain what to look for when buying something (I've used it for appliances).

Its subscription only (they don't do ads), which means they're not beholden to the companies they're reviewing for money (a good thing)

They generally make a grid of the items you're looking at with dots indicating the ratings. Its very easy to nagivate and intuitive.

You'll have to pay for it (or find someone to give you their old copies, or many libraries have subscriptions).

I'm a big fan of the grids they do. Really allows you to pick the things that are most important to you and maximize them.

Consumer Reports is pretty good for household products that they have expertise in. For example, I'd trust their dishwasher or toaster recommendation. However, when they test something that's outside of their sphere of expertise, they can miss the mark by failing to focus on criteria that are known to be important by real experts. For example, from time to time they'll review bicycles. Anyone who really knows about bikes will be amused/exasperated by the aspects of the bikes being tested that they make their judgement on. They've been testing computers for long enough that I'm sure they're not completely clueless, but I think their judgement criteria are based more on a casual computer-as-appliance home user, and a power user might feel that they focus on superficial things.

> a power user might feel that they focus on superficial things

battery life affects everyone and they had the competency and integrity to call apple out multiple times

In general, they do well, but there are a few categories which they don't seem to "get". They do a good job of trying to remove a lot of barriers to objectivity, even when useful reviews require subjective knowledge. They also try hard to find equivalent, reproducible tests so that they can use them on multiple products, even if they're not exact equivalents. This means, for instance, that they might end up testing ice-braking tires by measuring the stop distance in an indoor ice rink where they can control the conditions... that makes it easy to measure the tires against other tires, but it's not real-world. They also purchase their products, rather than accepting them from the companies, which helps increase the odds that they're getting the same things off the shelf you do. Again, they seem to be clueless about a few categories, though, such as certain electronics. Just look at the ratings for the Google Home and Amazon Alexa--very poor--because they get lumped in with wireless speakers where sound quality is the utmost importance.

I found them useless for high-end dishwashers (both Mieles they recommended worked poorly), audio equipment, and high-end vacuums. I specify high-end because I am very willing to pay top dollar for appliances that will last many years, not because I'm a snob.

>> I found them useless for high-end dishwashers (both Mieles they recommended worked poorly)

That seems to apply to all of their highly rated dishwashers -- when you read the CR user comments, most of them got a lot of horrible user ratings.

I don't know if it's the dishwasher segment, but it seems like dishwashers in general have gone downhill.

I was also going to buy a higher end dishwasher but it was so hard to choose because of the negative user comments that I ended up getting a lower priced one that got decent reliability ratings. I didn't want to get a Bosch or Miele after reading the user reviews on CR.

Having said all of that, if you've been using dishwashers since the 80s, it turns out your old habits can result in bad washes. I was used to scraping my dishes clean, but according to my research, you actually need your dishes to be soiled enough so the newer detergent pods can clean them properly. I was lucky I found that out or I'd be getting inconsistent wash results.

Also, it appears newer ones have less effective drying hardware which forces them to rely on "rinse aid," so your choice is either still-wet dishes or dishes with residue.

When I was researching, I found that the SweetHome (Wirecutter's sister site) had very useful information on this stuff.

I originally had my eyes set on a European style dishwasher which dries very differently from an American style dishwasher.

I ended up going with an American style dishwasher which has a heating element for drying (compared to passive drying in European models).

Thanks for the tip. My Miele does badly with or without the prewash.

Not really... most people I know use things like the Wirecutter instead.

This became Hacker News fare because lots of people were unhappy with the new MacBook Pros for other reasons.

Never heard of that until you just mentioned. But geez it's apart of the New York Times and they earn affiliate fees for things you buy!

http://thewirecutter.com/

Wirecutter is one of the best affiliate executions I have ever seen. I've used it to buy multiple things. It was only recently bought by the NYT.

My mother and sister are very huge fans of Consumer Reports.