How We Test

Android and Windows how-tos on Being Tricky are tested on real hardware before they’re published. When we test a guide hands-on, it shows a Tested on box with the exact device, software version and date. Anything we couldn’t test ourselves is labeled.

Our devices

What we don’t test (and how we label it)

• iPhone and Mac: we don’t currently have an iPhone or Mac to test on. iPhone and Mac steps are based on Apple’s official documentation, labeled “From Apple’s documentation”, and linked to the Apple page we used.
• Other Android phones: menus on Pixel and other brands can differ from Samsung’s. When we include them, the steps come from the maker’s documentation and say so.
• Carrier-specific features: we use one mobile network. Steps that depend on your carrier are based on the carrier’s own help pages and labeled.

Our process

• We do every tested step ourselves and take our own screenshots, with personal data blurred.
• We note what failed, not just what worked. Those cases go in the “If it doesn’t work” section.
• For comparisons, we run the same tasks or prompts on each product and show the results.
• Prices are shown with the currency and the date we checked them.
• Every article passes our written pre-publish checklist (see the editorial policy).
• We re-test popular guides after major software updates and mark the change in the update history.

Reviews and ratings

We only call something a review, or give it a star rating, if we used the product ourselves. We don’t accept payment for reviews. How ratings are decided: our review method.