Have you ever wanted to give a thoughtful gift, but couldn't think of a good one? Ever told someone in your family how much you love something only for them to surprise you with… the wrong one? What if you snagged the perfect gift ever for your spouse, but so did your Grandma? Ever had someone ask you what you wanted, but you couldn't think of anything? With a gift registry:

• It's easy to add things you like on a list through the year as you think about it. Then, when someone asks what you want, just show them the list. They can pick from there or use it for ideas.
• Friends and family can "claim" things on your list so others don't buy the same thing — all keeping it secret from you so the surprise isn't spoiled.

My family has used this site for 12 years in various forms and it's been a huge help. If you're not already using a gift registry in your family, now's a good time to try!

Tags: Birthday, Christmas, Families, Gift Registry, Gifts, My Stuff, Sites

Newegg is one of those sites that just doesn't seem to have a downside. Check out these pluses:

Great Search and Sorting Function

In this case, I wanted a laptop so I clicked that category. Now I can choose filters that will narrow the results by brand, screen, hard drive, processor, memory etc. This way I never waste my time on options with tiny screens or that are way out of my price range.

Even better, I can go to power search where I can add multiple filters from the same category! Now I can choose anything from EITHER Sony or Toshiba and within three price range categories.

The main reason I love this feature so much is that I don't care if a screen is 15 inches or 20, but I definitely don't want anything smaller! I also am very picky about brand while maybe in this case any graphics card is fine as long as it's an Nvidia and not a Radeon type. Power Search lets me do that!

Great Prices and Shopping Options

I have found Newegg to consistently have some of the best prices on anything around. Even if they're no lower than anyone else, they often offer free shipping or other deals. Even if there's no particular deal at the moment, they have a "Price Alert" function where you can enter a price to watch for. If the item goes to or below that price, you'll get an e-mail.

For the alert, enter any price you want, but note you'll get no response if the price never goes to that level. You can also set other conditions like if it goes to free shipping or has a rebate (I recommend checking both).

The Best Research Tool of All

Nothing beats direct feedback from users who have purchased products before. Newegg's community is very good about giving feeback both positive and negative and you will learn the best from the experiences of others.

In this comment, the user tells us how much he loves this laptop, but also mentions that it has trouble going into sleep mode. By scanning the other comments or doing some research online, it's easy to verify if this is an isolated issue with just this user or something real to worry about.

Now there was that one completely negative comment that seems out of place. Reading it, you see that the user is not complaining about the product, but about Newegg itself. And even then, it's not a very credible complaint. This kind of review can be disregarded.

The point is that you have a lot of good information from other users about the pros and cons of any product. In some cases, the reviews one after the other said that the power supply unit I was looking at was cheap, but wouldn't likely last more than a year. That was really good information to have before I purchased.

Great Service

Besides fast shipping that is often free, Newegg both in my experience and as can be seen from the other shoppers on the site, provides excellent service consistently.

While researching products I often find ones that mention that there was a problem of some kind, but that Newegg fixed it, refunded, replaced, etc. No matter how nice a site seems otherwise, without good service, it's no good, but Newegg is an great example of how websites should be.

Summary

So there you have it. Not only do I use Newegg all the time, I love the site and I recommend you try it out too. Click the logo below to visit them:

Tags: Computer Store, Computers, Electronics, Newegg, RPS, Sites