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Thinking of buying a new laptop or mobile phone? You have many brands and products to choose from. Should you get the item on sale, or spend more for a reliable brand? Should you get the product packed with features, or the one unit with better mobility, size and looks?

Since you want to get the best product for what you can afford, shopping for great gadgets is often a long process for many people. However, it can be simplified into three steps: research, shop/compare and buy. Consumers start off by researching the category to learn more about important features. They then compare brand and products as each item offer different features. Finally, consumers shop for item and buy it.

With this in mind, we’ve come up with a list of 14 awesome websites that will help you with each stage. Each website provides information on more than just gizmos, and you can really educate yourself, shop and purchase electronics on each one. But by highlighting the key features of these services, we know we can help you make an educated purchase and get the best bang for the buck.

Research

1. CNet Reviews. Since CNet is known as a Technology News site, a section on electronics makes good sense. The company leverages its tech-savvy staff of reporters and editors to build a library of gadget reviews. The site stands out with its Editor’s Choice and its video reviews. Check out this Editor’s Choice product, the Canon EOS-1D, and the video review on the Apple iPhone.

2. Mpire. Mpire represents each product like a public company on a stock exchange. It shows you whether a product’s price is going up or down. See this Xbox example. Mpire does this by using 17 million historical sales pulled from the major shopping sites. Other interesting features include the Mpire browser plugin and Mpire Labs.

3. Wize. Wize indexes product reviews on the Web and summarizes the ratings with its WizeRank. Their WizeRank is an objective point score that takes feedback from users, experts and Internet buzz. While Wize does not host the review itself, it might be a good place to start your research.

4. Shopwiki. Shopwiki leverages the power of a wiki to create buying and gift guides. Y allowing anyone to create and edit these guides, Shopwiki aims to use collaboration to build an un-biased and in-depth guide to shopping for products. This is their biggest asset and should be featured in the front page.

5. Retrevo. Retrevo shows you the usual product reviews and prices; its advantage is giving you access to a product’s technical manual. While this information is used to troubleshoot your new hand phone or laptop, you can also use it to take a deep-dive into understanding the gadget you want to buy.

6. HowStuffWorks.com Consumer Guide for Products. HowStuffWorks.com was started by North Carolina State University Professor Marshall Brain (yes, that’s his real name) to explain how the world works. In line with its core mission, HowStuffWorks has a guide on products. More than just reviews for each electronic item, the site also has buying guides for entire categories (see digital cameras and MP3 players) and a section on Autos.

Shop & Compare

7. Shopping.com. Shopping.com, an eBay company, collects the products and prices that other sites are selling into their website. More than just being a central information hub, they allow you to compare these items by putting them side-by-side. In this format, you can easily compare features, specs and prices. Ready to buy? View their list of online shops, complete with its own set of ratings. Need an alternative? Try Shopzilla or Froogle.

8. Become.com. Combine Google search and Shopping.com and you get Become.com. Become.com offers the same functionality as every other comparison shopping site; its main strength is in simplicity and speed. Search for a Macbook and see your search results in less than a second. The interface is very minimal – no extraneous or useless information included. An interesting feature: ‘Find by color’ (see this iPod example).

9. Pricefight. Wize gives you a score on the product; Pricefight gives you a score on the store. Shop for your gadget in Pricefight and the website makes two important recommendations: a) the store with the lowest price and b) the shop that people where people prefer to buy. The insight? Don’t buy on price alone; the store might not deliver your purchase as you’d expect it.

Buy

10. Amazon. You don’t need an introduction to Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com – it’s the largest online retailer. However, there are two features why we like this service: the one-click purchase and recommendations based on your past purchases.

11. Buy.com. Buy.com is an alterative to Amazon. It has the same reliability and choice, so if you find yourself going direct to Amazon, you should consider looking up the same product on this site. Buy.com also has a video section called Buy TV; you can find their marketing director and overall hottie Melissa Salas here.

12. eBay. Again, no introductions required – eBay is the global online marketplace where products are sold in auction. Although bidding can be a hassle (because you have to wait until bidding ends and someone can outbid you), it can get you a very low price. To win the items you want to buy, try auction snipping.

13. Jellyfish. Jellyfish differentiates from the other shopping sites by giving you cash-back on purchases made through their website. Jellyfish also has Smack Shopping where a product sold by dropping the price until all the units (an undisclosed amount) is bought.

14. Direct from the source. Far too often people overlook the advantage of cutting out the middleman and buying direct from the source. You can outstanding deals at Apple, HP, etc. In fact, many of these websites will offer even bigger savings on factory reconditioned items that work as good as new. If finances are tight, this is an excellent alternative and may just prove to give you the most buying power of all.

BONUS: Three (3) More Interesting Sites

For the serious gadget connoisseur there are other sites to consider for excellent prices or products that are a little outside the ordinary. For recommendations on great gadgets that are a ton of fun, try ThinkGeek. See these LED faucet lights and their caffeinated shower soap.

Woot offers one product each day at an exceptionally low price. Like Jellyfish’s Smack Shopping, the number of units on stock is not disclosed making it a shopping free for all. It is well worth checking out everyday though – you’ll never know what will be sold next (and the write-ups are very entertaining). Check out this interesting Wikipedia article on the website.

You can’t really buy gizmos on Like.com but it’s a cool website nevertheless. Like.com uses cutting edge technology to allow you to shop by using an image; the site can return search results of products similar to your picture. It’s a great service for shopping for clothes, shoes and apparel. Want to be like Brad Pitt? Use Like.com to see and buy the shoes, watches, etc that he wears.