When you go shopping for a flat panel TV they can all look pretty good, but how do you find the best one for you at the best price?
"We evaluated 24 HD televisions for picture and audio quality, remote control use, and features," said Jaz Radoncic from Good Housekeeping.
But even with the help of Good Housekeeping and Consumer Reports, there are issues.
Product numbers, such as TC-50PX34, LC60LE633U, or UN46D6050TF, can all become a blur and sometimes the same or very similar TV sets are sold with different numbers.
"So if you are at any store, like Costco or Best Buy and so on, they have their own private model numbers which they use so price comparison is no longer an issue," said co-founder of Retrevo.com Manish Rathi.
It's not an issue for them, but for you, it is still a major hassle. When shopping consumers not only must compare brand to brand, but within the same brand. And that's where the website Retrevo comes in. A new feature there allows consumers to compare models.
"We can tell you the closest model that is sold everywhere else on the web as well. Which is similar, so you can decide," said Rathi.
To test it, I picked out a TV at random and put in the model number. Retrevo.com then does its thing.
"And what it tells you is that this product is similar to the PV400 sold at Costco. It is the PV450," said Rathi.
We found the price is $821.94 on the web. So Costco has a great deal because they are selling it at $699.99.
Retrevo also has a model number decoder so you can figure out exactly what all those numbers and letters mean.
