Samsung Mobile US Press keeps two kinds of list. Software lists are ranked by our record score. Phones, devices, chips and AI models are sorted by their figures — newest first, or by the figure a list is about (the cheapest models by price per million tokens, the longest-context models by context) — and never scored.
The record score
The record score reads what is on the record about each app, from its maker's own pages, and weighs five things:
- The research order (40%). Where the research found the app in its market when it built the list.
- The record (25%). How much the maker publishes that we could read and source: distinct facts, and plans with a printed price.
- Reach (13%). Where it runs: the web, Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone — and Android, which counts twice, because most of our readers carry a Galaxy.
- Access (12%). A free plan, a free trial, open source.
- Freshness (10%). How recently the facts were read. Facts read in the last 30 days count in full, then less, down to a fifth after four months.
A perfect record scores 9.5. Ties go to the research order, then the name. The score is computed every morning from the research centre.
Places that are bought
Makers can buy a numbered place on a list (#1 to #5), a place beside a rival on that rival's page, its alternatives and its comparisons, or a featured slot. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. The products below a bought place move down one, and a bought place can show a score of its own. Everything else on a list is in the order the record score gives it.
Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. A review a maker paid for says so on the review itself.
Where the facts come from
Every fact, plan and figure is read from the maker's own pages (and, for phones, from public records such as Wikidata) and kept with its source and the day it was read. A maker can claim their app's page for free and edit what it says about the app themselves (shown as the maker's own, dated); if a fact we read is wrong, they report it and a person reads every report.