FAQ

So what is Sparkbuy?

Sparkbuy helps you quickly find your perfect gadget. We hand you off to the pros - guys like Amazon and Newegg - for the actual purchase, but we aim to be the fastest and easiest way to narrow the field.

You mean like <insert one of the hundreds of companies who do things sort of like this>?

Yes, exactly like them!  Wait, no.  Different.
  • First, you can click the features that are important, and we'll find you the best laptop for your precise needs.  Say you want a laptop that's cheap and fast: we'll check the RAM, CPU benchmarks, and hard drive RPMs, then balance all that against price.  
  • Second, we have a ton of extremely accurate data (over a million data points and climbing fast).  We aim to be more accurate than just about anyone - right now, we're 96% accurate and climbing.
  • Third, we use all that data to tell you things that are actually useful. Like, will that laptop run Photoshop well? And is it good for gaming?
  • Fourth, we do search way, way better than the big guys (for the tiny little space that we inhabit). Search for "fast cheap laptop" on Google or Bing and you're going to get laptops where the marketing guy wrote that in the ad copy. Try it with us, and you actually get the best realtime tradeoff between speed and price across the whole market.
How do you use it?

Easy!

  1. Drag the features around until they're in the order that you care about: most important at the top, least important at the bottom.
  2. Click any feature and drag around the slider to refine your choices further.
  3. Or just go old-skool and type what you want in the search box, like "lightweight red core i5".
  4. Your perfect laptop should magically appear at or near the top! Click it to see more details and link to the purchase page.
What order do the results appear?

We look at the features listed under "Your Priorities" in the top left corner. The laptop that best meets your needs goes at the top. You can drag around your priorities - the higher you rank them, the bigger the impact on the score.

If you want us to stop acting like we're all smart and just show you the cheapest items first, thank you very much, then click over next to "Sort by:" and you can have the cheapest items first. Or the spendiest, if that's the way you roll.

When I click on a laptop, I see "Other Options".  What's that about?

We've been watching a lot of people shop for laptops lately. Often, you think you've got your dream laptop, and then see that it doesn't have a DVD drive.  Or you find a perfect laptop, but don't notice a nearly-identical model that's $200 cheaper. 

We know so much about these products that it's easy for us to fix that.  We suggest other products that are similar to the one you picked, but better in one important way, so you've got options.  Click one and see the magic.

How do you make money?

Volume!  That and referral fees from merchants.  We reserve the right to run ads, charge for the service, or sell discount V1a6ra later if the current plan doesn't work out.

So are you a...
  • Store? No, we don't sell stuff.  We hate running to the post office.  We let our retail partners do the hard work.
  • Comparison price shopping service? A pretty crappy one right now, since we only have two stores.
  • Ratings and review site? Not so much... no ratings or reviews here yet.

We just gather tons and tons of data about gadgets.  And then we work really hard to make it all easy to use.  We don't think there's anyone exactly like us at the moment.

So how good is the data?

Right now it's just a shade under 96% accurate. A bit better for laptops, since we've been doing that longer, and a bit worse for TVs, since we're still collecting new information on those.

Where does your data come from, anyway?

We've hired a team of researchers to individually track down the data from manufacturers, stores, even by looking at the products themselves.  Until now, nobody's provided this data in a consistent, accurate way.

What does it mean if a laptop is "Good" for gaming or "Best" for Photoshop?

Sparkbuy automatically cross-references features with the requirements for Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, and a variety of popular games. If it meets the manufacturers' requirements, it's "OK".  If it meets their recommendations, it's "Good".  If it blows the recommendations out of the water, it's "Best".

What is the Sparkbuy Speed rating?

It's a magical blend of eleven herbs, spices, and benchmarks, including:

  • The speed of the CPU, as measured by a third party benchmark
  • The speed of the graphics chip, as measured by several benchmarks
  • The amount of memory
  • The type of memory
  • The hard drive speed

It's a scale from 0-10, where 0 is the slowest laptop currently being sold and 10 is the fastest.  That means the numbers may change over time as new models are released.  We've not yet found a laptop that goes to 11.

How do I get in touch?

Glad you asked!  All our information is on our contact page.