How we review

This page explains the rules we work under, because “trust us” is not an argument; a process you can check is. Everything below is a rule the site actually runs on, not an aspiration.

Every claim has a source, and we say which

Nothing on a guide page is there because it sounded right. Claims about what a product does are attributed — to the vendor's own documentation, to published material we link, or to our own first-hand work where that has happened. When a claim comes from the company that makes the product, we tell you so, because a vendor describing its own product is a different kind of evidence than an independent measurement.

What a testing status means, and why you can check it

Every guide states in one sentence what its claims rest on. There are exactly three sentences it can be. They are held in the publishing system rather than written by hand on each page, which is why they read the same on every guide:

• Based on first-hand testing by the named reviewer.
• Based on published benchmarks and manufacturer documentation, cited in the text.
• Based on published documentation and research. We have not tested this ourselves.

The last is the default and, for most of what we publish, the plain truth. The first is not something a writer can decide to deserve: it exists only where a named person recorded what they did with the product, in a separate deliberate act, with notes that have to answer the question “why does this page say that?” six months later. A guide that reaches that status shows the evidence — what was done, what worked, what did not, and our own unedited photographs.

The rule that has teeth

A guide may not describe using a product unless that record exists. This is not a promise about our diligence. It is a check that runs, and it stops the page rather than warning about it: the publishing gate refuses the page, the build refuses to compile the site, and the test suite fails. Three separate places, so that no single one of them has to be remembered.

It also runs in the opposite direction. Once a page is recorded as first-hand, a sentence left over from before — one still telling you the product was never touched — is refused just as firmly. A page that says both things a few hundred words apart is worse than a page that says either, because you cannot tell which half to believe, and the natural guess is the one that costs you the most.

Prices don't appear, on purpose

A price we copied today would be wrong by the time you read it. We describe what products do and who they suit; the current price is one click away on the seller's site, where it is always accurate.

What we won't publish

No scores or star ratings

We have not earned them, and a number is the easiest way to make a judgement look like a measurement.

No borrowed reputation

We are a small independent site and say so. We claim no audience, no reader counts, no endorsements and no partnerships beyond the ones disclosed. The phrases that usually smuggle such a claim in are on a list the build refuses.

No price superlatives

Nobody who is not continuously surveying every retailer can substantiate a claim to be the least expensive anywhere, so we make none.

No paid coverage

Nobody buys a mention, a placement or a position here. The affiliate commission described in our disclosure is the only money that reaches us from anything we write about, and it never decides what we write.

No undisclosed gifts

If a vendor gives us free access, credits or a sample, the guide says so in the same breath as the findings.

When we're wrong

Guides are dated, and a guide's date moves when its content moves — not when a build ran or a link was re-checked. If later work contradicts something we wrote earlier, the correction replaces the claim; we do not leave both versions standing. Found an error? Tell us at hello@tavigam.com, or through the contact page.

Who we are

TaviGam is an independent product-discovery site, written and reviewed by its publisher. It is not owned by, sponsored by, or editorially influenced by any brand we cover. Affiliate commissions fund the site; they don't change what we would tell a friend — and every rule above exists so you don't have to take that sentence on faith. More about who runs it is on the about page.