While the web is loaded with expert sites that do hardware reviews, and many of us web workers rely on them to make our technology buying decisions, there is still merit in word-of-mouth recommendations. Additionally, in this economy, getting the right price is often a crucial part of the buying decision when evaluating, say, a new computer or Wi-Fi router. I’m a fan of two sites that both aggregate good tools for seeing what others think of products I’m considering, and lead me to the best prices: Retrevo and Wize.
![]()
Here is how these sites can help you when you’re considering new technology.
Retrevo’s mission statement is “matching people and electronics.” The site collects hot deals on technology products, which are updated every day, and lets you evaluate products by categories, such as laptops and multifunction printers. Take a look down the left rail of Retrevo’s laptop adviser page, here. You can shop by brand, by targeted price range, and even shop only for laptops that have a certain display size or CPU that you demand. If you scroll down the page of netbooks listed here, you’ll find community ratings for various netbooks.
Notably, Retrevo also collects manuals for over 100,000 technology products listed on its site. Here, you can find manuals for many models of printers from most major printer manufacturers, for example. How many times have you lost the manual for a product you still use? You can also peruse the manuals before you make a purchasing decision, if you want to see what the capabilities of a particular product are.
Wize is a startup, and is in beta, but it already does a good job of letting you pull up automated lists of user reviews and recommendations for products you’re interested in. The site is focused on both technology and non-technology products. Wize lets you get easy-to-scan summaries of reader reviews for many products in a given category. For example, look at this page of products and reviews for wireless routers. The reviews are pulled from Amazon, Dell, TigerDirect and many other forums, then they’re aggregated, so you usually get quite a large sample of opinions.
Give these sites a try if you’re in the market for new technology products. They let you get at many angles from which you can view products you’re considering.
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/03\/05\/two-top-notch-sites-for-evaluating-tech-purchases\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_c08a43b58e2caad05b60356419e3b23f","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}