Their prices aren't even competative most of the time. Look for yourself! If the price is low the shipping is high .. it's the eBay "low price vs. high shipping game"

The "publishing" crap is nothing but a roose to lure in the unsuspecting impulse buyer to their site. Get it RIGHT about "Publishing" The Reg!! Writing Articles is publishing, ... having a blog or BBS is NOT!

Internet shopping is a tricky thing. Finding the best price for something usually means a lot of fiddling around, but in general Newegg are pretty good.

They are certainly a lot better than places like Best Buy, CompUSA and most of the large PC clone manufacturers.

It all depends on what you're looking for. I don't shop for desktops at Newegg, I shop for components to build desktops.

Processors, ram, video cards, that sort of thing. Sometimes I find a better price elsewhere but not often. It depends on the day, and if another website is offering a deal on a particular product I want.

The thing that people often don't remember to do is factor in the shipping cost. Cheaper products on a site that will only deliver by fedex or UPS can mean it's cheaper to shop elsewhere if the site charges a few bucks more for the product, but will ship via priority mail.

One thing I wouldn't consider would be to use an online store's chat site. Call me cynical, but if signing up for this doesn't result in either a lot of sales chat and a lot of spam I'd be astonished.

...that the people that use it write better than they do their product reviews on Newegg. Sometimes when I feel like maybe humanity isn't all that bad I go for a read on their customer reviews and reinsure myself that the Internet is really filled with completely incompetent morons.

I that doesn't work I just google for random myspace pages.

Contrary to blogs, user reviews generally concern people who have bought the thing and are giving an informed opinion on how well it holds up to their expectations. Thus, on the usefulness scale it normally doesn't score too badly - trolls are more or less uninterested and the illiterate make minimal efforts to get their point across.

Of course, as soon as you get a Wiki environment, you get people who think "ruse" is written "roose", then you get the guy who corrects that, then you get the original author correcting it back, then you get someone posting a goatse link, and then it all gets shot to hell as far as usefulness is concerned.

Wiki is the triumph of the uninformed, much like democracy today. Oh wait, that makes it okay, doesn't it ?

In the US shipping costs are invariably horrible, ordering a $5 item from Newegg will almost always incur a $5 shipping fee, moral is don't order small stuff. I use Newegg almost exclusively for PC components and it is difficult to get a better service/deal combination online. Not too long ago I bought a couple of 500Gb Seagates which came with 2 free 250 Gb Seagates, nice. Generally you can probably get stuff slightly cheaper but not with the ease of mind that Newegg gives. If something does go wrong, and it happens occasionally they will bend over backwards to put it right. Mate of mine recently had an order for an LCD monitor go astray, Newegg said UPS had it UPS said they hadn't received it from Newegg, contacted their customer support, they immediately dispatched a new monitor on a different order number with overnight shipping with a cost of -$30. My mate had his monitor the following day with a 30 dollar refund on his credit card.

There is one thing I have to say about user reviews. I look at them with more of a keen eye than published reviews. Sure the paid author may be more tech savy and the site's resources offer more of a standard baseline, but there is always a nagging feeling that their reviews may be skewwed to reduce potential advertising losses from the company they're reviewing product for or just to make sure that the editor doesn't sack him/her for trashing a product. (Reg HW not included)

Users don't get paid for posting and offer real-world results with every part of the product from purchase to use. I just picked up a Saitek x52 flight system, friggin impressive rig and a little pricey. The first place I hit before buying it anywhere is newegg to see what others think. I still ended up paying $10 more and getting it at my local Best Beast, but that was to simplify any possible issues returning the thing if I didn't like it and reducing the wait time for shipping. (instant gratification is a curse and a blessing) Depending on the product, there's usually dozens of people posting opinions on products from the common to the essoteric. Newegg's prices aren't always the best, but they do have a steal every now and then and it still beats the crap out of paying retail for a limit product selection at a BB or CompUSA. Half my current system was bought from the egg, the other half from other vendors that undercut Newegg's price greatly or offered a better package deal.

Is it just me, or do the comments on this page resemble the user reviews of Newegg? Some of them are well-thought-out and informative, or at least decent arguments, while others are OMG SUX. With typos.

Of course, I should be careful what I say, or I'll make a horrendous slip-up later with my spelling/grammar and someone will make me eat my words...