Our 2020 Christmas message is simple. No matter what has happened in 2020, your resilience and patience mean it has to be better in 2021.
As many of our readers resorted to Work From Home, they sought our advice on what to buy. Review readership skyrocketed. One thing is for sure – the face of work has inexorably changed, and moving forward must include a lot more office/home/time flexibility.
And as cinemas and outside entertainment locked down, the purchase of large-screen TVs and soundbars also skyrocketed. We wrote several guides –Dummies Guide to TVs (and its companion Techy’s guide to TVs), Dummies Guide to Dolby Atmos, Dummies Guide to saving money with LED Lights and quite a lot on eliminating Wi-Fi Blackspots. We have a lot more to do here to help readers understand what tech is all about.
Working from home also had some downsides. Hackers were more active in trying to get into home networks and use that to access remote corporate networks. Paid Virtual private networks and paid security from Norton LifeLock, McAfee, Kaspersky, Trend Micro et al., became mandatory. A lot of new routers from D-Link, NETGEAR and ASUS even have paid security built-in.
Hackers also ramped up scams unleashing a tsunamic of attacks, online shopping scams, highly targeting phishing emails, password verification scams (from the ATO, banks, Australia Post and more). The ASIC Government Scamwatch website has become mandatory reading.
On the bright side – we are still here and focusing even more on reviews and hard news. By year-end, we will have reviewed about 300 products, including 76% of mainstream smartphone models under $1000. A reminder – if you want to see a tech item reviewed, let us know at admin@gadgetguy.com.au.
The top categories include (2019 placement in brackets)
- Mobile phone reviews (↑ from #4) – we covered 76% of all main brands/models
- Computer (laptop, all-in-one, monitor, docks, printers, eSafety, networking routers, mesh and accessories) – (↑ from #5)
- TV (↓ from #2)
- Smart homes, smart living and smart devices (↓ from #1)
- Consumer electronics and audio (↓ from #3)
- Hard news (↑ from #8)
- Telcos (especially 5G rip-off, the Trials and Tribulations with Telstra – new category entrant)
- Guides, editorial and ‘good weekend reads’ (↓ from #7)
- Cameras (↑ from #10)
- Home appliances (↓ from #6)
But even more important to us is our credibility rating. Over 90% of readers say they trust our reviews and would buy the product if they needed it. We do not charge vendors for reviews – they are 100% independent, factual, and we test things under real-world conditions.
We do not sell anything nor take affiliate commissions – vendors can’t buy our credibility.
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GadgetGuy team
- Val Quinn – CEO and Channel 7 GadgetGuy
- Ray Shaw – Managing Editor
- Thomas Bartlett – AV guru
- Content manager – Anika Blasina
- Web support – Jay Marshal
- Designers – Allison Williams and Jay Marshal
Hawaiian shirt-wearing Peter Blasina founded GadgetGuy.com.au in the mid-1990s. It is a division of Theory of Invention, a digital asset management agency specialising in technology clients at Woolloomooloo, Sydney.
