If you're comparison shopping for office equipment and services, check out our joint venture with BuyersZone first. If you still need more information, point your browser to Product ReviewNet.

The site, created by a group of reference professionals, has meticulously cataloged media reviews of hardware, software, and other business essentials by product type, bringing a level of organization that's rare on the Web. It makes no value judgments about the products themselves. Like any good reference librarian, it points you to the reviews and lets you read. You can use the site's quick-search function, which directs you to predetermined categories like PCs, Internet service providers, or Zip drives. Or you can ask for very specific tech tools, like "Compaq Presario," which produces a list of reviews from places as diverse as PC Magazineto Popular Mechanics to Business Week.

Drawbacks? The most obvious is that the site is for a general audience, not just business execs, so you have to wade through categories like "bread makers" and "fishing equipment" on the quick-search menus to find what you want. And for all its diligence, the site misses a few reviews, including some from BW and BuyersZone (a search for "Telephone Headsets" turned up no articles at all, but you can find that topic in our archives).

Still, Product ReviewNet is well worth the visit, saving you hours or days of research in return for three minutes of clicking. In other words, it's beyond compare.

By Rick Green in New York
rick_green@businessweek.com