How we score
Read this first: the word "tested" in the name Tested Outdoor Gear refers to testing done by owners over months of real use — not by us. We never handle the products and we run no physical tests.
The rules
- We do not handle the products. We run no physical tests, no instrumented tests and no hands-on evaluation of any kind.
- The word "tested" on this site refers to testing done by the owners whose reviews we read, over months of real use — not to testing done by us.
- Scores come from aggregated public owner reviews — review counts, the distribution of complaint types, and how often buyers say they would not buy again — combined with the manufacturer's published specifications.
- Every dataset states its sample size, the models it covers and the date window the reviews were drawn from.
How a shortlist gets built
- Pull every public owner review we can reach for the models currently on sale in the category, and record the review count and the date window.
- Code each complaint into a type — wheels, zipper, handle, shell cracking, telescoping tube, warranty service — and count how often each type appears.
- Compare the complaint rates across models in the same price band, because a bag with ten times the reviews will always have more absolute complaints.
- Check the manufacturer's published specs against the listing: weight, capacity, dimensions, warranty term. Discrepancies get noted on the page.
- Write the shortlist. Where the review sample is too small to separate two bags, we say they are not separable instead of inventing a winner.
Where this method falls short
- Owner reviews are self-selected: people who are angry and people who are delighted both write more often than people who are fine.
- We only cover models currently on sale, so a discontinued bag with a good record can be missing entirely.
- Review text tells us what owners noticed, not what an instrument would measure. Nothing here is a lab result.
Corrections
Every page carries the date it was published and the date it was last updated. When we get something wrong, we fix it on the page and say what changed — our default is to correct in place rather than quietly delete. Mail data@testedoutdoorgear.com and it will reach an editor.