I love thewirecutter.com. I like them a lot. They are posting really well-researched reviews about stuff I care about a lot. Headphones, smartphones, TVs, NAS. Some of their articles are based on hundreds of hours of research and they are trying out dozens of gadgets to find the best ones. They save me time, energy and money and I trust them…
Whenever I am looking for something to buy or I need to learn about stuff I will go there. Read their article and learn a lot about the actual topic. After I am done with the reading I am ready to buy whatever they recommend me to buy. Only if, I could buy it.
Recently, I was looking for a new smart tv that is cheap, so I read from start to finish The Best $500 TV on my favorite site. Their pick is Samsung PN51F4500, which seems like an amazing tv, so let’s buy it. Quick google search shows that I cannot buy this tv in the EU.
It turns out I need to decrypt the model number and try to find a similar tv. So PN51F4500 means that it is a P=Plasma TV made for N=North America in a 51-inch size. The model number also tells me that it is an F=2013 model from the 4500 series. Now I know enough, so I will search for PE51F4500 in the EU or one of the variants. I found the PE51H4500AW model which I think is the 2014 year model of the same series.
So the problem is with wirecutter.com is not really a problem for all. It is rather my problem. It is the problem of amazon that they are no delivering to remote places like the eastern part of the EU. It is the stupidity of the TV manufacturers that they give out different model numbers for a product that is the same and I have to spend time decrypting the model number and then translate it to a model that is available in my country.
In the end, it comes down to a lot of factors why this is a problem and the easiest way to fix this if wire cutter.com would start posting the different model numbers for each market – if there are differences. It would make my life easier…