[CORRECTION] Predictive shopping service tells you when to buy and how much you should spend on your next smartphone

[
Corrected: Fourth paragraph, about Retrevo, plus additional details
added in fifth paragraph] Decide.com, a consumer electronics shopping service that helps consumers decide what, when and at what price to buy their gadgets for, has launched a new mobile phone category on their website.

Decide launched in June 2011 and its existing inventory includes TVs, laptops and cameras and is based on the US market prices.

"Like wristwatches a generation ago, mobile phones are the gadget status symbol of our age and making a bad purchase decision can be devastating," said Mike Fridgen, CEO of Decide.com. "Shoppers can now check Decide.com to know when to buy phones before getting stuck with that two-year contract."

Consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo aims to help mobile phone shoppers in a similar way by pinpointing good buys in the new and emerging, mainstream and good value mobile phone categories.

Retrevo does not predict when a consumer should hold off buying a device because a new model is expected to arrive soon - for example the iPhone 4 is currently tagged as a “Good Buy for High End Users" - but it does provide consumers with an indication that the phone is either “New,” “Reaching its Prime,” “Over the Hill” or “Ready to Retire” (Retrevo currently shows the iPhone 4 as “Reaching its Prime”).

According to an in-house survey conducted by Decide, consumers say they are willing to wait up to five months for a phone to be released. The mobile phone "willingness to wait" factor is much higher than any other consumer electronics category on the site.

Decide also announced that it has added a "No Regrets Filter" to help people find products that are recommended to buy now and a data-driven "Decide Rank" which ranks the "freshest, most popular and highest-rated products." 

The company also launched a Twitter account (@d_iphone) to help would-be iPhone 5 buyers follow the latest rumors and news.