Last year I went camping with my six-year-old son. We both loved it.
My parents loved the outdoors, and we always went camping. I hiked and camped until my late 20s, after which I could afford to, well, stay indoors.
So, when my son’s school had a dads and lads weekend, I was arguably more enthusiastic than he was – until a friend offered us his tent and we set it up in our garden a week before to check it had all the poles and gear.
But before my friend’s helpful offer – including the most important new upgrade, sleeping stretchers – I was planning to buy one. I searched for decent reviews of camping gear and was amazed at how little information there was. All the camping brands and retailers can tell you what their gear does, but there are surprisingly few actual reviews by people who have actually used them.
For instance, we bought two folding camping chairs from Takealot. One of them arrived broken, which we had replaced, while the replacement broke on that weekend camping trip. We didn’t bother returning it – because clearly, the brand is not as good as its marketing claims. I’ll spare them the shame by not naming them.
Instead, we bought more robust chairs from Decathlon. They still work just fine.
There are great outdoor magazines, but what I found was pretty limited and often out of date.
So, I am going to write them myself. Expect a camping section on stuff.co.za soon.
Lifehacks
But what about all the other things you need in life?
Where do you get reviews of running shoes, kitchen appliances (I tested two air fryers last year, to my ongoing amusement), vacuum cleaners, lawnmowers, and obviously, yoga mats? (I’m always amazed at how many articles I see in prestigious international news titles about yoga mats.)
I look around my house and think of all the items that most of us buy without being able to find an authoritative reviewer to guide us.
You can never rely on reviews on e-commerce sites, as anyone who has ever scratched the surface of those will tell you because people get hired to write those fake reviews. Now, companies are using generative AI to write clearly fake reviews – making the whole idea of user-generated content null and void.
Read: AI spam comes for product review sections but it’s easy to spot (for now)
Experts
At Stuff, we pride ourselves on the quality and depth of our reviews of consumer electronics. Last year, we noticed how many small businesses were asking us for similar tech advice for their purchases. We have since expanded what we do to help other small businesses with honest, reliable tech advice and reviews.
When we aren’t experts, we bring in experts – such as getting Comrades runner Lianne Rey to try out the Garmin Forerunner 965.
We have an expert in e-bikes, who makes sure that section – online and in the print edition’s Top Tens – is correct and current.
All of us at Stuff have passions – one of mine is cooking, so I have (unintentionally) been trying out pots, knives, and kitchen gizmos. I still have my grandmother’s Le Creuset pots, now at least 80 years old, and can give you a fairly long (and no doubt boring) explanation about why good pots and pans need thick bases, and the ins and outs of caring for them.
While I am a non-practising health fanatic, Stuff’s MD Sally Hudson is a triathlete and avid cyclist. She’s been writing our sports tech reviews for years.
Stuff’s editor Brett Venter is an ardent astronomer. I’m just a lowly space geek, who loves the history of space flight and the mysteries of the universe.
But Brett has many telescopes and as many (obviously not boring) stories about how to spot what is in the night sky, and then take a picture. (Have you also noticed how much space news and scientific discoveries we publish? I can’t get enough of this amazing exploration of our universe either.)
And fashion?
When I told a good friend – who is a serial magazine editor – she loved the idea and will be writing our fashion reviews.
What about baby gear and cool kids’ things? When my son was born, I realised I wasn’t the only geek dad who needed advice about which baby monitor, or the myriad of sleeping accessories to make the first three months more bearable.
If you’ve never heard of a Nose Frieda (a clever plastic tube to suck you-know-what out of a kid’s nose before they learn to blow them themselves), it’s one of the most important pieces of advice I tell new parents. (Also, silicone ice trays are easier than those hard plastic ones – when you get to eating solids and freezing them.)
Practical
On the few occasions I have found relevant reviews on international websites, they are often focussed on their home market. Working out the difference between inches and centimetres is an ongoing bugbear of mine.
When we review something at Stuff, we actually review it. I was asked by a tech firm – about 20 years ago, and have been repeating it since – why I didn’t review a new product they’d launched. I told them I hadn’t seen the actual product. “But we sent you the press release,” their comms person told me.
My reply: “I don’t review press releases”.
