For best value on electronics, skip pricey, cheap products

Next time you shop for a computer pretend you are ordering a bottle of wine at one of those fancy restaurants that give you more than one fork.

Today we’ll talk about a system for buying consumer electronics — computers, HDTVs, digital cameras, camcorders — that will let you enjoy your purchase without feeling like a sucker.

We’ll start with the best buying tip I know. My friend the rich guy taught it to me one night at a restaurant. I was ordering some wine and, before I could say Chateauneuf, he stopped me.

He said the top-priced bottles are there for people who want to show off. The cheapest bottles are there for folks willing to forgo quality to save a few bucks.

The sweet price spot with both wine and most consumer electronics is at the same place — generally in the middle. Unless you are designing a nuclear submarine in your basement, the fastest machines are usually overpriced and over-equipped. The cheapest computers are underpowered. For ordinary users, the best buy comes in the middle prices.

It’s the same story with digital cameras, printers and scanners. The law of diminishing returns starts to kick in when you get to the highest-priced models. The cheap stuff is, well, cheap.

I know how to save a buck or two on gadgets. There’s a lot you can do to make sure you get a good buy.

The secret is to go slow. When you get ready to buy your next gadget, keep your wallet in your pocket for a while. Don’t even read the ads.

Instead, sit down with old-fashioned paper and pen. Make a list of what you want to accomplish with the new gadget or computer. Also, come up with some sort of a budget figure that lets you know how much you can spend.

Having a good idea of what you want to accomplish makes reading the reviews of the gadgets competing for your dollar a lot more sensible.

For instance, if battery life for your laptop computer is a big deal, you’ll be able to eliminate all those machines that have average or poor running time on a single charge. By doing this with each attribute you care about, you can narrow your list considerably.

Now it’s time to eliminate even more of the competition. Cross out all the gadgets that exceed your budget figure. You’re not going to enjoy that new computer or HDTV if it means dining on pork ‘n’ beans. Well, I happen to like pork ‘n beans but you know what I mean.

The number of items that remain on your list of possibilities is a lot smaller now. You’ll have time to carefully read through the reviews of the remaining prospects.

My favorite spots for computer product reviews — along with many other consumer electronics items, including HDTVs — are CNET.com (www.cnet. com) and PC World magazine (www.pcworld.com). I find that the reviews are honest and untainted by influence from advertisers.

For digital cameras, there’s the excellent Digital Photography Review at www .dpreview. com.

Besides offering advice that strikes me as unbiased and sound, the information on each camera goes really deep. It would be hard to read a complete review — usually including photographs taken with the camera — and still have questions

The three sites mentioned are precise enough for knowledgeable shoppers but easy enough to understand for a beginner.

So far we’ve figured out what we want the gadget to do and how much we can spend, and checked what the experts think about the devices that made the cut. There’s a final step. That’s to put everything aside for a week or so. After the week, when you’ve cooled down a little, decide whether you want to make the purchase. The delay has another virtue too — prices can drop dramatically at times, so monitor the price of the item you select for a bit before buying.

Now you can order gadgets — and wine if you like — like a pro.