Have you ever felt overwhelmed trying to decide which outdoor product might be best for you? Or have you been recommended a product (or worse still bought it) only to find out it wasn’t the right one to meet your needs?
Do you find yourself pogo-ing from website to website to find the answers you need to your questions about the outdoors?
We’ve experienced all of this and more, and that’s why TopNotch Outdoor exists - to help you.
TopNotch Outdoor’s mission is simple: to create the world's best resource for outdoor gear reviews, to answer all your questions, and listen to you - our Reader.
We believe the world's best outdoor resource should help educate you if you need it, and help you make great choices in selecting the best product for your budget, specific needs, and interests.
How do we do it? Our secret sauce…. is our team of independent researchers and reviewers - experts in their specialist areas (such as fishing, camping, skiing, running, survival) who spend every moment of their spare time doing what they love, and then writing about it for you.
Here's how it works:
- We select the very top products in each sector.
- To be completely independent - we will never accept free products for evaluation from manufacturers.
- Our TopNotch Outdoor team put the products through rigorous side-by-side testing both in the field and in the lab - assessing value for money, performance, reliability and ease of use.
- We analyse the data, rank the products, and finally we give our TopNotch Outdoor awards to the star performers.
How our ratings work
Every product we recommend is scored the same way, so you can compare like for like. Our testers rate each one on five criteria, mark each out of ten, and combine those into a single overall score out of 100. That number is the badge you see on every product card.
The five criteria we weigh on most guides are:
- Value for money: what you actually get for the price against everything else we tested.
- Performance: how well it does the core job, whether that is holding ice, running quiet, or throwing light.
- Durability and workmanship: how it is built and how it holds up to real use over a season and beyond.
- Ease of use: how simple it is to live with day to day.
- Portability or reliability: the fifth criterion shifts to fit the category, from how easy a cooler is to carry to how dependably a generator starts.
The green bars on each review show how a product scored on each criterion, and the number badge is its overall score out of 100. The three highest scorers in a guide earn our Top-Notch awards.
These scores are our own independent editorial judgement, not the manufacturer’s. We buy or borrow the gear, test it in the field and the lab, read back through real owner reviews, and never take payment or free product in exchange for a better rating. Where we cannot verify something first hand, we tell you plainly.
TopNotch Outdoor is completely reader-supported. We do not accept any free product or financial remuneration from any supplier.
If you click on a link to buy a product we’ve reviewed, we may earn a commission which is used to support our work.
Our review process starts with research: we research hundreds of products – we check out the reviews and look for best sellers in order to find the top contenders for each category. We then put these products through detailed hands-on testing.
To be objective in terms of our scoring, we develop a set of criteria for each product range so that we can properly quantify key differences and form comparisons between competing products.
These products are then put through not only TopNotch Outdoor’s lab tests but also field testing where we test them (sometimes to destruction) to see which hold up and how they compare to any competitor product.
Our TopNotch Outdoor testers are avid campers, hunters, runners, climbers, bikers, surfers, backpackers, skiers and snowboarders. We use our TopNotch Outdoor labs for review and then put products through a side-by-side field testing. All our testers have an eye for detail and we're obsessed with finding the best.
Many of our testers are professionals in their field and bring years of collective wisdom and hands-on experience to the job.
Our mission is to create the world's biggest and best resource for outdoor gear reviews - helping you find that all-important product for your needs.
Product which is within budget and best in its class.
To achieve this goal, we publish our scores against each product relative to its competition, with an overall score - in addition to scoring across important criteria for each product category. This means it will be easier for you to find the product that best meets your individual needs.
Our
Top-Notch Choice
awards go to those special products we believe are the very best overall.
Our
Best Value Award
goes to quality products that offer the best value for money.
Our
Top Pick Award
goes to products that stand out from the rest for a ‘specific application’.
Our Top-Notch Choice awards go to those special products we believe are the very best overall.
TopNotch Outdoor reviews enable you to buy a product with confidence and provide you with all the information you need to choose the right outdoor product for your needs and budget.
Our TopNotch Outdoor review process takes a lot more time and work than other reviews you’ll find online. We firmly believe that good reviews are independent and compare and contrast. We find out how one product stacks up against all the other best products in the range, and why one product is perhaps materially better than another.
It's our rigorous testing style - comparing and contrasting - whilst remaining completely independent and objective, that sets us apart from other online reviewers.
Sean Williams
Editor-In-Chief
Sean is our Editor-In-Chief and an Outdoor junkie who has a special passion for Outdoor Kit!
He has built our team of highly talented researchers and writers who are proud to serve you up the best Outdoor Gear Reviews - every week. Brace yourself, there's everything you need here at topnotchoutdoor.com
"If being in the outdoors is your idea of heaven, and your interest is in doing it as comfortably and effortlessly as possible, then our reviews are for you!"
Sam Benedict
Author
Life-long buddy and Outdoors aficionado Charlie went to Uni with our big boss Sean - though allegedly they spent more time in their tents at weekends than they did on Campus - that's where they learned their real craft!
When we asked him for a quote, he said "I do what I love - so it never feels like work - and my passion is seeing others benefit from that."
Kudos Charlie!"
Keep In Touch
Now you can check out our reviews and let us know if we live up to our promises.
If you have any further questions, please check out our FAQ section, Affiliate Disclosure or you can email us here. We’d love to hear from you and we encourage any feedback - it’s how we improve what we do - of course.
Help us make TopNotch Outdoor the world's leading source of information for outdoor enthusiasts just like you.