Posts on my hunt for a cool MP3 player-plus-Web-access that was also less expensive than the iPod Touch brought in comments suggesting other ways to shop. Knowing that the appetite for shopping tools is near-insatiable in these precincts, I have now gotten around to checking those suggestions out.

For my trial runs on all the sites I have searched the Archos 605, an MP3 (and video) player with Web access and a touch screen that has gotten splendid reviews but lists for $200 less than the comparable Touch. (It appears that I am getting one for my birthday because this morning my SO asked for the model number. Goody.)

John wanted me to try out the shopping site he co-founded, Bountii.com, which covers electronics and accessories for same. On the basis of my one tryout, this seems like quite a nice place to shop. It found all the retailers of the 605 that had turned up on Google and CNET, and then some.

I was devastated when I saw that one of them was selling the 605 for a dollar less than the best price I had found. But a lovely feature of Bountii.com is that it lets you compare taxes and shipping costs as well as the item's price. So it was easy to tell that, with taxes and shipping, the "low" price was actually several dollars more. Whew!

Bountii.com is a clean design, well-organized and intuitive to use. A big section of the site covers price drops, and you can track them easily by adding it to your feed reader. I am too ignorant to comment on what powers the searches, but - whatever it is - it's clearly excellent. Oh, and one last bit of praise: Bountii is very fast. I plan to come back.