Consumer Reports has been around since 1936, worth checking out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports

Consumer Reports is a widely-respected nonprofit. They make their money from selling subscriptions (most of their information is behind a paywall), and do not sell advertising. Their board is elected by their membership. All products that they review are purchased at retail—in fact, they even make their purchases discretely, to make sure that they don't get preferential treatment.

Your summary is totally correct.

But, it must be noted that CR has a history of inventing ad hoc tests, and basing overall product ratings on the ratings in a single-point test. There have been errors in the past, with the rollover test of the Suzuki Samurai, and some infant car seat tests. See their wiki page. Their audio equipment reviews (don't know if they still do them) have been useless. Often their reviews may be useful for a general consumer, but not for a specialist.

(I'm a former subscriber, but don't buy enough of that kind of stuff to make it worthwhile to still subscribe.)

Most large product companies are going to be met with some people not liking the choices, or some backlash. You make it sound like all their products receive 2/10 across the board or something, when that's simply not true. One can't please everybody, but most of the phones have been well received. I think the worst issue was the iPhone 4 models having some cell reception problems ("You're holding it wrong"). Most of the products they put out are generally liked by reviewers, with usually fair criticism as well.

That said, I think the recent years of there just being more earlier on bugs is worrying. I hope apple ups their quality control in the coming year.

god, you must be young :-)

or not American

Indeed, I'm British and certainly not young. Never heard of it over here... and I just asked around and nobody around me has.

It's the US equivalent of Which?.