At CNN Underscored, we test tens of thousands of products every year. Some of them are good, and some of them are, well, not. There are products that crack under pressure (sometimes metaphorically and literally) as we put them through their paces, and there are products we rigorously test in the name of finding “the best” for a given category.?We even feature everyday products our editors use and love that don’t make it into our in-depth, long-form testing pieces or our Editor Recs column. These might eventually make it into the product pool for a “best” guide, but not necessarily.
But we noticed a third category that requires attention. This category is for products with a certain X factor that puts them in a class by themselves, not always represented in a “best” guide or Editor Recs column. Maybe it’s an innovator in its space, a creative take on a classic or just really fun to use. These are the products that stand out among the many we vet each year and manage to captivate the Underscored staff. They are topics of conversation around the watercooler that we used to shoehorn into one of our other categories because there hadn’t been a proper channel for us to share them with our readers — until now.
Introducing Underscored All-Stars, a new title we’re bestowing upon products that stood out from the crowd and changed our lives for the better. These are not your flash-in-the-pan novelties that explode onto the scene, make a few waves and then quietly disappear. These products are not only best-in-class, serving a specific purpose, but also products that have surprised and delighted us. Now we hope they’ll surprise and delight you too.
Starting this week, you will see All-Stars brandishing a brand-new badge on the website, on our social media channels and in our newsletters. When you see this badge, expect something exceptional. We’ll tell you not only why you should buy the product but also why it has a special place in our hearts. We’ll tell you how we put it through its paces and about other products we tried that didn’t measure up. We’ll tell you why the brand values are ones we can get behind, because if they’re not, that product won’t be an All-Star.
They will include everything from coffee makers to bidets to TVs to socks at every price point, along with handy links to other articles to read more about how they earned our stamp of approval. Overall, we want to ensure that if you buy an All-Star product, you’ll love it just as much as we do. And that’s a whole lot.
