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Subscribe to RSSDon't know which washing machine or television to buy? Mandy Walker of Consumer Reports shares the magazine's top picks for the best appliances, electronics, and food products of the year so you can shop with confidence.
The right product to buy? You know you need to do your research, but who has the time?
What most people don't realize, Mandy Walker, senior projects editor at Consumer Reports told NBC News by phone, is that you can "often get top quality products, from a brand name, at a good price." That's good news in this economic climate, where every penny counts more than ever.
From their low-slung brown brick headquarters in Yonkers, N.Y., the testers, engineers, scientists, journalists and consumer advocates at Consumer Reports put a dizzying array of products through a battery of grueling tests, all year long. Now they've culled from all that data and published their 475 Best Products of the Year to give you a handy buyer's guide cheat sheet. These are the best of the best. From large to small appliances, from electronics to wine, whether you're gearing up for Turkey Day or getting a jump on holiday shopping, don't enter the shopping aisles without it.
To make it onto the list of best products at the best prices, a product really has to get high marks in the Consumer Reports testing facility.
To test washers, they put a piece of fabric through the washer multiple times and then count by hand the number of threads exposed in the worn-down area. Vacuums are hooked up to a mechanical guide and forced to suck up crumb after crumb and hair after hair. They have a special room for testing audio equipment, baffled so that it's completely soundproof and echo free. To make sure that no building vibration disturbed the tests, it sits on a completely separate foundation from the rest of the building. Everything is measured, tested, and the results are tallied and reported.
Another thing that most people don't realize is that to maintain its objectivity and independence, Consumer Reports doesn't test samples provided by the manufacturers. They have an army of secret shoppers who buy the products on the open market and then ship them back to Yonkers for testing. That's to make sure the manufacturers don't send them any "goosed" versions that would cheat the tests.
"We test products for consumers from rival manufacturers to make sure they're going to work well, work for a long time, and that they're safe," says Walker. "That's our mandate."
Here's the best of the best:
- Best washer: LG Washer WM3470HVA, $1100
- Best dryer: LG Dryer DLEX3470V, $1200
- Best vacuum: Kenmore Intuition 31100, $250 bagless upright
- Best TV: TV Samsung UN55ES8000, $2500
- Best tablet: iPad 3 16 GB 3rd Generation $500 OR Google Nexus 7 16 GB $250
- Best eReader: Barnes and Noble Nook Simple touch $100
- Best SLR camera: Nikon D3200 $700
- Best camera: Nikon Coolpix AW100 $300
- Best GPS: Garmin Nuvi 2455LT $160
- Best Mac laptop: Apple Mac Book Pro 15 inch $2200
- Best PC laptop: HP Pavillion M6-1045DX $700
- Best streaming player: Roku 2 Streaming Player $80
- Best olive oil: 16 oz. Trader Joe's California Estate Olive Oil
- Best red wine: Columbia Crest Grand Estates Cabernet Sauvignon $10
- Best white wine: Bogle Chardonnay, $10
- Best coffeemaker: Krups Grinder & Brewer KM7000, $130
Check out more of the 475+ Best Products of the Year over at Consumer Reports.
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Leave a Comment:
Notice the huge price differences between the two best tablets and the best Mac laptop and best PC laptop. And my friends wonder why I don't like those greedy bastards at Apple.
Best Mac laptop, don't they only sell one laptop? Kind of hard to be bested in your own category.
Somebody must be paying CR... they claim that
is the best coffeemaker. But, if you go to their (CR) website http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/appliances/kitchen-appliances/coffeemakers/drip-coffeemaker-ratings/models/overview/krups-grinder-brewer-km7000-99021270.htm
You'll find that A) the price is $179+ (not $130)... and B) the person counting the 'stars' in the reviews has a problem with numbers also. I count, with all the review ratings - less than 2 stars out of 5... somehow, they count 3 stars. Almost every person reviewing this coffeemaker said it broke, many before the 1st year.
My Dad used to swear by CR... but I have my doubts after reading just this one. Not worth my dime to buy a subscription.
Best Coffee maker in the world: a dented stove-top aluminum perker that you can get at the Salvation Army for 79 cents.
$179 for a coffee maker? Insane. And yea, I've been there. I drink tea now, 2 cents a cup.
See:
http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/05/cheap-coffee-makers-best-kind.html
Second best are the $15-$20 el cheapo models you can find at drug stores or Wal Mart.
Paying a lot for an expensive coffee maker does not mean better coffee or that it will last longer.
In fact, usually the opposite.
BTDT....
http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/05/grand-turbo-2500-gas-grill.html
Oh my. These guys must have been paid for these results. There is no worse laptop in the world than an HP. And I have other thoughts about tablet's as well.
Don't agree with the Olive oil, don't agree with the wine or the coffee maker.
I used to subscribe to Consumer Reports but no more. They simply don't test enough models of enough brands in many categories to be useful. They also don't test higher end models for many products.
The MacAir is about half the price, and is fantastic for the everyday user. Also, the basic components inside a Mac tend to be a better quality than the pc innards. Lastly, support costs money, and Apple's tech support is about the best out there. You are paying for quality and a company which backs up their products.
You mean like that 1st gen 40 GB iPod I had that didn't get 20 minutes of battery life and Apple wouldn't replace under warranty? Yeah, they really stand behind their products...I guess that's how they lost the class action lawsuit over it.
The best products of the year for the people of Main Street were 'handguns', 'gold and silver coins', and 'affordable food supplies'.
For the rest of the population, the Elite few, the best products of the year were 'off-shore accounts', 'Congressmen', and 'foreclosed properties'.
I lost all respect for Consumer Reports when they suggested that the fix for the iPhone 4 antenna 'issue' involved putting a piece of duct tape on the body of the phone. That statement was an obvious biased attack against Apple and not a legitimate professional statement about a problem that never really was that much of a problem for the vast majority of iPhone 4 users. CR is like a home inspector or commissioning agent for a construction project. All they do is nit pick for any issue, no matter how trivial and justify their existence by doing so. This mag is a shred of what it used to be and is now pretty much biased trash.
You've provided one example, something that Apple itself admitted was an issue. Care to provide others? "biased trash" is a pretty strong statement.
Too bad you have to subscribe to CR's website to view the 475 best. Just because MSN writers have access doesn't mean the rest of us do.
Dont wanna pay CR? They charge because they dont accept advertizing money. Why dont you test your own products and post the results for free for us?
Consumer Reports is not credible at all! They are bought and paid for by overseas corporations, especially China and Japan. American made products have been and continue to be the best VALUE, bar none, and the sooner we Americans go back to buying Made in the USA, the better off we will be because we will all be working and thriving. Just look at Canada (I know because I am currently living in Ontario for a short term project). They limit imports and promote goods and services provided within Canada, and their economic outlook is far better than the US economy. Its all about providing home grown jobs, which create $$ for more families. Buy American Products.
Hey, American, there are few, if any, major appliances still being manufactured in the U.S. Even brands like Whirlpool and Maytag shut down their plants and moved to China. Computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. are all made in Asia now.
It is easier to sling slogans about than true meaningful and valuable information. I work real hard at not buying stuff made in China and buying American, but on MANY things it is impossible.
I stopped paying attention to pro evaluation mags like CR a long time ago. If you're going to buy something, be it an energy drink, camera, washing machine, or a car spend some time on line and read the reports filed by actual consumers. Toss out the highest and lowest 20% of ratings and go by the middle 60%. That will give you an honest, unbiased, and generally unpaid-for evaluation of the product. Over the years I've found it to be an excellent way of judging a product.
Excellent advice - it works!
I also agree but with the warning that there are reports of people being paid to give either good or bad comments. It's hard to trust anything or anybody nowadays. Particularly when it comes to the purchase of consumer goods.
I use a lot of the electronics listed, and so do many of my friends. None of us can figure out how they came up with this list - in many categories there are VASTLY better products at a much better price. In fact, many of their choices are last year's technology with this year's price tag (Apple being the most obvious - and most egregious).
So which washer did YOU think was best?
I have some items that work just fine and didn't pay hundreds for them. I think that maybe there's a ego factor to be considered, lol. "By gawd, I paid $500 for my gizmo!" Yeah well, bragging rights cost money.
And sometimes buying quality costs money. Many people are happy to pay $50 for a radio or whatever instead of the one that is $150 but will last 4 times as long. Sometimes its worth the price and sometimes not. I am now somebody who will do without until I can buy top quality that will last a long time.
An example is buying a bed. So many are now made with resins instead of wood. I am definitely will to spend more for wood than for plastics. No matter how many sellers say they are just as good or better.
The writer should have noted that the report can be accessed only if you pay for it.
Personally, I tend to avoid CR because they test the same machines over and over and over and over and over. I buy a specific appliance maybe once every 15-20 years. I also regard the testing of products such as wine, stereos, and food products to be, ultimately, semi-useless because everyone's senses of taste, smell and hearing differ. For example, I can't stand blue cheese, but obviously a lot of people love it.
I agree with the food and beverage products, but stereo systems can easily be tested objectively. There's all kinds of testing equipment out there to measure distortion, sound waves, etc.
The problem with testing audio equipment is that we all have ears that hear differently. While CR may measure distortion and purity of the sound in a sterile environment, it has little to do with what you hear in your living room. Ultimately, other than reliability, audio equipment testing is as dubious as food and beverage products.
Consumer Reports used to be a very trusted source for deciding which products to buy. But one can't help but wonder about the very expensive products they are now recommending (promoting?). Products the average consumer would find almost impossibly expensive to purchase.
Somebody ought to check out the finances of the Consumer Reports staff and management because something about some of their recommendations smells awfully fishy.
If you looked at what they actually publish instead of list of the absolute best products you will see they do in fact test the entire line of products. No matter how much people want to say it the mercedes is a better car than a chevy. I wouldn't pay 3x the price in my current situation, but if I had a lot of money then I wouldn't hesitate at getting the best no matter the cost. Just because you or I can't afford the top price doesn't mean they shouldn't test it or that other people won't buy it if it is the best.
Consumer Reports blows chunks. They are pretty clueless about most technology and often discredit decent products for spurious reasons (it was too hard to reach the ashtray, so the car is listed as "Not Recommended").
Most of the items on the list are very expensive - $1100 washers and dryers? For that much money, you can buy TWO lesser models and keep them longer.
Bogle wine? Not a bad wine, but for less money, you can get better value.
I would put Consumer Reports right up there with Smithsonian Magazine - a bunch of B.S. peddled to confused oldsters.
Consumer Reports are just one man's opinion, not objective engineering evaluation of a product. And in terms of life-testing, they do none, as they cannot afford to.
So you buy your $100 LG washer and five years later it needs a $500 repair. Now what? CR didn't see that coming, for sure. How could they? They just push the buttons on a new one and look at "features".
If you want a good value on a washer and dryer, look on Craig's List for a used one, about 1-2 years old. I used to buy GE washers and dryers for $100 to $200 the PAIR this way. They would last five years easily, and after that, you just haul them out to the curb.
Most appliances today cost more to repair than to buy, so it makes no sense paying a lot of money for them, just so you can have a "delicate" cycle.....
That Kenmore vacuum isn't bagless...it's bagged. Sad. I am shopping for a great bagless vacuum. Would be nice if they got the details correct before they published the article.
You have to subscribe to see the results? Gee CR, thanks for letting everyone know that you're just in it for the cash. GFY
Nasty, JWeilan. If you'd think and mayne do research you'd see that charging is the only way they raise money to pay their employees, run facilities and get products. They don't accept advertising so you expect them to volunteer and take their kids' money to pay for the light bill? Everything can't be free. Think of it as an investment to save you money in the long run.
I have found that whenever CR reports on products in categories that I know something about, it becomes apparent that they really don't know that much about the category (in this case, the wine recommendations). Which makes me wonder about all of their other recommendations.
Consumer reports didn't include -- Better than Google Nexus 7 and Ipad at half the cost -- the new Novo 7 Flame Android tablet -- priced at $189 at site called TabletSprint -- it has a high resolution screen - 2 cameras, 5 Megapixel Camera/Video recorder with AF and Flash and 2 MP Webcam, a Micro SD card storage slot, HDMI with Full 1080p HD, and Wifi, Bluetooth and an option for 3G Wireless -- Ainol Electronics won "Best Tablet of the Year" for the first Novo 7 Tablet at the 2012 CES/CNET Consumer Electronics Show held each year in Las Vegas - truly a great deal!
Novo 7 Flame Android Tablet at US site - TabletSprint
Oh please, these manufactures paid for these rankings.
Do you have proof of your statement?