How we test and review products
Our guarantee to you - rigorous hands-on testing from our team of fiercely independent hardware specialists
- WePC Team
- Updated Sep 30, 2024
It’s hard to know who to trust online. But, unlike other sites, WePC puts every bit of kit we review through rigorous testing in our labs to ensure that you get the most reliable buying advice. We’re transparent about what we review and how we review it, using standardized tests to provide you with reliable and comparable data, on top of our own expert opinion. We will publish all the data that we get in relation to the review to give you the most information possible. Where we get results that are unexpected, we will run the tests again to check for consistency. Our reviews are here to ensure you buy only the best products that suit your needs.
Understanding our buying advice
Hands on product reviews
Every standalone review we do is based on the same specced product that you can buy off the shelves. We will get the product on a short-term loan from a retailer or manufacturer. Where we have a product on a long-term loan this will be for review purposes only. If a manufacturer or a retailer will not send us a review product, we will buy it ourselves.
We will never agree to any pre-conditions that dictate what we can or cannot say about a product. The WePC team does not accept promotional items or gifts from third parties. BGFG will never accept money or monetary incentives to review a product. (See our full Editorial Policy for more.)
We may look at an early prototype of a product and where this is the case we may post a hands-on that doesn’t contain a verdict box or a score.
Every single product review is a mix of real-world and lab testing and is checked over by an editor before publishing to ensure accuracy. Opinion will be clearly presented as such, and separated from the test results.
Corrections and updates
Where we publish a story or review containing a factual error, we will make a correction as soon as possible. If this has a material effect on a review, we may change the review score, but we will make this clear in the copy.
Best of guides
We also publish Best Of articles that compare a number of products in the same category, to help you make an informed buying decision. These are compiled through our single product reviews and the team’s experience, and will change to reflect new products that are reviewed. As new products come into the Best Of guides, older products will drop out, meaning you always get an up-to-date snapshot of products in each category.
Comparison guides
We publish versus pages to show how certain products stack up against each other. These will help if you don’t know which product to buy from a certain spec in a category. These ‘versus’ pages may be drawn from full product reviews, or may be taken from early hands-on impressions or from specs. These ‘versus’ guides should be used as a guide to give you more information, but won’t give you as much information as a full single product review.
Hands-on
If we get a pre-release product we may run a hands-on to give you an informed idea of what the product is like. These won’t be as in-depth as a single product review and won’t contain scores or testing data. If you’re unsure about purchasing, you should wait for a full product review around the time of a product’s release. We may also run sponsored hands-on pieces that are paid for by a third party. These will be clearly as a ‘SPONSORED POST’ but will be fully independent pieces. You can read more about sponsored posts in our full Editorial Policy.
How do we choose what to review?
The WePC team are tech-heads and we want to check out the kit that we want to use. We’ll also review products that we know our readers will want to buy and anything that is particularly newsworthy or trending. We have a big team of in-house specialists that know their product areas inside out and have the best industry contacts to ensure that we’re ahead of the game.
How do we test?
To be completely transparent, we have broken down how we review products in every category so you can see what tests we put them through. We use standardized testing wherever possible and show you the results in context so you can make the most informed buying decision. We score everything out of five stars, and break this down into sub-sections which show you how much weighting we put on factors such as value for money, battery life, design, etc.
WePC Hardware Staff Writers
Shaun Conroy
Builds & Prebuilts
How We Test Prebuilt Gaming PCs How We Test PC Cases
Charlie Noon
Monitors & TVs
How We Test Monitors
Aaron Ritchie
Laptops & Tablets
How We Test Gaming Laptops
Jack Howarth
CPUs & Motherboards
How We Test CPUs How We Test Motherboards
Sebastian Kozlowski
GPUs & Storage
How We Test GPUs
What do our scores mean?
Our single product reviews are comprehensive and contain so much more than just a score. But, these scores give you a very clear indication of whether a product is worth buying.
Editor's Choice
An exceptional, stand-out product that gets everything right. You won’t see a lot of five-star rated products on WePC and they deserve your attention.
Highly Recommended
An excellent product with minor issues that don’t take away from the overall quality of the product. Any product that gets 4.5 stars also gets our Highly Recommended award.
Recommended
A very good product that comes with the WePC Recommended award. There are some minor issues that stop the product from scoring higher, but we would still recommend it.
A good product that has issues that prevent it from scoring higher. We will always detail the flaws and if they don’t affect you, or you can find the product for a good price, then it’s worth considering.
A score of 2.5 is our flat average and that means you’re getting a product that could, and should, be better.
You don’t want to be buying a product that is below average and we wouldn’t recommend it. We’ll tell you exactly what is wrong with the product and what you should be looking for instead.
Our awards
Best in class
The very best in its category earns the WePC Best in Class award. If you’re looking for the best product in any given category, this is it.
Editor's choice
Only products that score five stars get the coveted Editor’s Choice award. Not many products will be awarded the perfect score from WePC.
Highly recommended
Any product that gets 4.5 stars will come with the Highly Recommended award that represents real value for money.
Recommended
Any product that gets 4 stars is recommended by the WePC team as a solid buy.
End of year awards
At the end of the year we will award products that are best in their category for that calendar year.
Licensing
We don’t speak to any external parties before a review is published. After the review has been published we may contact retailers or manufacturers and sell them the rights to use our awards in promotional material. They can only use awards for the specific product it was awarded too.
If you are interested in licensing our editorial or award badges for you use in your marketing materials, please contact [email protected] to secure pricing options.
WePC annual awards
We reserve our awards for only the best products that we review. These are our stamp of quality, meaning that you really can’t go wrong with anything that has been through our rigorous testing process.
WePC product awards
We reserve our awards for only the best products that we review. These are our stamp of quality, meaning that you really can’t go wrong with anything that has been through our rigorous testing process.