Decide what to buy | the Reevoo.com blog, featuring news on TVs, cameras, laptops, mp3 players & other gadgets, shopping tips and deals, reviews and more

If boredom is a big issue for you, especially if you do a lot of travelling, this is the gadget for you. Forget iPods and PSPs, this is the accessory for the summer. It’s the MP4 Film and Music Playing Watch. Think James Bond without the missiles.

Ok, it’s only 4GBs but you can still store about six full-length films or 1000 songs or even 160 music videos on it. Not bad for some wrist action. What’s more, for those of you who are worried about how you could possibly watch your favourite movie on an average tiny watch screen, think again. This watch has an impressive 1.8 inch screen, without looking ridiculous and it comes with earphones and built-in mini speakers to complete your watch-ing experience (sorry, couldn’t resist that one).

If you fancy keeping other files on your watch, you can do that too. Its handy USB port connects to your computer with the cable provided so that you can also carry documents and pictures around with you. And if you have a meeting and you’ve forgotten your pen? No problems, it’s also a voice recorder!

You can pick one up at Paramount Zone for £49.95. The overall watch is black but you can choose from a smart silver screen-surround or a more fun blue.

The best bit is that you always take your watch with you so you won’t have to worry about remembering to pack your MP3 player, USB stick and dictaphone (I’m not entirely sure that anybody even uses dictaphones anymore but if you do, you can relieve yourself of a few grams) and, as one comment on the site says, it’s less likely to get pilfered than an MP3 player which you carry in your bag or pocket.

Has the PSP gone micro pocket-sized? Nope, it’s the new Sony Ericsson F305. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was a mini gaming device because it’s been decorated with the classic ‘O’ and ‘X’ buttons as well as a D-pad. They’ve even mixed in a bit of wii. Nintendo Wii, that is. The pre-loaded games on the F305 are movement-controlled, much like the Wii. You’ve got Bowling, Bass fishing and Jockey – sounds thrilling doesn’t it? But if that doesn’t get you excited, maybe the stereo speakers on the back of the handset, the Bluetooth multiplayer games, the expandable memory or the track ID will?

If you’ve been wondering about what colours the handsets come in, you can chose from polar white or mystic black, which I think may have been so-called to make the phones sound a bit more exciting. If you don’t share my scepticism, you can race to pick one up at the end of the summer. It’ll be aimed at the low to mid-range market so it shouldn’t break the bank – good job, if you ask me…

Some more funny reviews from the shoppers at Reevoo…

"Looks the business, my 3 yr old son thinks it’s a spaceship/Dr.Who machine" Hotpoint VTD60G

"Bit saggy in the crotch area for the females it was obviously made for a well endowed man" Borat Mankini Swimsuit

"If you put 5 ants in each glove the heating effect is the same and you dont need any batterrries!" Black Battery Powered Heated Gloves

"Big enough to hide a dead body" Beko TLDA628

"Great video quality, you can even use the back as a mirror to admire your good looks" Dane-Elec Meizu Media Player

Are you in the process of re-doing your lounge? Have you just moved into your first place? For whatever reason, if you’re looking to kit out your living room but you’re a bit short of cash, you’ve come to the right place. This is the first in a series of posts about kitting out your rooms on a budget. As you might have guessed, we’re starting off with the lounge.

Everyone says the centre of a home is the kitchen but quite frankly we all spend far more time in front of the TV than the oven – unless you are a) a chef, b) a mum or c) you’ve just stepped out of the 19th century and you don’t have a TV.

So first up is the television - probably one of the most important items in your house. We’ve gone for a 32 incher as that’s the nation’s most popular size and fits in to most living rooms.

The Hitachi L32H01 is HD ready, has an LCD screen and comes in at £395. Quite reasonable and equipped with two scart sockets and two HDMI connections so you won’t be short of places to plug your consoles, DVD players and digital set top boxes into. This TV gets 9.2/10 on Reevoo. Janet, a reviewer from Derby says “It is good looking, easy to set up and use. The sound quality is excellent and it’s an expensive product at a very good price”.

Now you’ve got a TV, you’ll be needing a DVD player. We’ve gone for the Samsung DVD-R155 which is a very reasonable £104, especially as it’s a DVD recorder as well. You can also play all of your own-burned DVDs so those holiday videos can be ‘enjoyed’ over and over and over… The most popular comment left about this machine was that it was easy to use. 

If you’re worried about where to put your TV and DVD recorder, we’ve taken care of that as well.  This classy looking Alphason AP2-3/80 is £90 and scores 8.8/10. Reviewers loved the design and the fact that it was easy to build. It’s also black so it’ll match the TV and DVD player we picked out earlier.

Every lounge needs a HiFi system. The Philips MCB204 is very reasonable at £47. It has a DAB digital radio, MP3 playback and USB ports so that you can play all of your downloaded music too. Pretty good for under £50! And if you’re worried that the cheap stuff is never the best, this little machine has some cracking reviews. Check them out for yourself. 

You may already have one but if not, we’ve also picked out a cordless phone set. The Philips SE2453S/05 is £59. Included in that price are three handsets. You can store up to 100 phone numbers and you can wonder 300m from the base unit.

So there you have it. A lounge kitted out for under £700 (695 to be exact). If you already had a phone, you’re looking at £636 for some pretty decent kit.

We were thinking about adding a Nintendo Wii in there but you’d be adding £200 to your credit card and you are supposed to be on a budget after all…If you’d prefer to spend the money on a Wii and forego food for a month, you can check out Wii reviews here.

We’ve got some great products in this week’s Green Piece. The first one will save you money on your water and electricity and it will help to save the planet too. It’s a shower head with a difference. The Oxygenics BodySpa Water Saving Shower Head, as well as saving water, also works as a mini spa treatment in your own home. It uses a narrow channel in the shower head to squeeze all of the water out. This squeezing causes negative pressure which sucks air into the shower head. Then the air mixes with the water and creates a lovely invigorating shower.

You save on water because less is allowed through the narrow channel. You also don’t have to worry that you’ll have a rubbish shower because the air and the extra pressure makes it seem more powerful than your ordinary shower. Less water also means less heat to warm it up so you save on heating too. Bonus. There’s also no need to worry if you’re in a hard-water area as the inside of the shower head are made of high-tech, corrosion-resistant plastic with an extremely smooth surface that prevents the build-up of lime scale. Did they think of everything or what?

The only thing to note is that it won’t work with low pressure water systems e.g. Electric or Venturi Showers. If you’re up on your shower speak, you’ll need minimum water pressure of 20psi (that’s pound per square inch). You can pick one up for £39.95 from Green Warehouse.

The next handy device is called an Ecobutton and it attaches to your computer with a USB cable. Every time you have a break to make tea, pop to the loo or answer the phone, you just press the Ecobutton and it will power-down your computer for you.

According to the guys over at Nigel’s Eco Store, when your average computer goes on standby automatically, it’s programmed to use a ‘level 1’ standby which means that it still uses 50 per cent of the energy. Apparently the Ecobutton saves even more energy by using a ‘level 3’ standby. They estimate it’ll save you around £50 and 135kg of carbon a year.

Last but not least is the Eco Stapler. This is a stapler…without staples. This neat little device will perform some cutting and folding magic in the same time as it takes you to operate a normal stapler. Waste online  say that “If everyone in UK offices saved just one staple a day, we’d save 72 tonnes of metal a year”. Not bad for a £4.99 product. You can only staple three pages at a time, mind. So if you’re planning on producing a document that will easily take out a few trees, I’d suggest using a proper stapler or more importantly, ask yourself if you really need to use that much paper.

With these lovely hot summer evenings we’ve been having of late, I hope you’ve all been making the most of them. Unfortunately, it’s the mornings afterwards that prove a problem. I’ve been making full use of the coffee shop down the road but having added up all of these trips, the outcome was a little scary. It made me think about the prospect of buying a coffee machine. They’re a little pricey but surely it’s cheaper than getting them from coffee shops?

The top coffee maker on Reevoo at the moment is the DeLonghi EN660. It’s got 9.0/10 with 93 per cent of people recommending it. It’s around £174 which is a lot less than I thought it would be.

For those of you on a tighter budget, the Krups KP 2000 DOLCE GUSTO BLACK is only £74 and it has some good reviews too. It gets 8.8/10 and looks a bit like a duck.

If you fancy splashing out, the Siemens TK68E570B is pretty sleek and comes in at a impressive £1,029. It looks the business but you may not be able to afford any coffee to put in it!

Design-wise, I do quite like the look of the FrancisFrancis X1 Almond. It’s around £300 so it’s still pricey but the almond colour gives it a great retro look…and they’re made in Italy so you can’t really argue.

Going all Italian, I’ve also been looking for some tasty recipes for biscotti so that I can impress people with a proper coffee-house experience. I came across this one from the food geniuses over at Yumblog. While you’re there, check out the other amazing recipes but make sure you don’t do it before lunch because you’ll only be bitterly disappointed with your ploughman’s.

Triple Chocolate Biscotti

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Skill level: Easy - medium
Makes: 50ish
Ingredients
• plain flour - 200g
• cocoa powder - 60g
• caster sugar - 150g
• baking powder - 3/4 tsp
• dark chocolate - chopped - 60g
• 3 eggs - beaten
• vanilla extract - 1tsp
• blanched almonds - toasted - 100g
• white chocolate - chopped - 100g
• salt - 1/2 tsp

Peheat the oven to 180C (gas mark 4)

Put the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, dark chocolate and salt into a food processor and pulse until powdered. Add the eggs and pulse again until a dough is formed.

Tip out onto a floured surface and knead in the almonds.

Divide into 4 and roll out into 25mm x 300mm flat logs. Place onto a paper-lined baking tray and bake for 25 minutes. Cool.

Cut the baked dough diagonally into 15mm thick pieces. Put onto a baking tray and bake for a further 15 minutes. Cool.

Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and drizzle over the biscotti in a Jackson Pollock style.

Eat … or store in an airtight container for up to 10 days.

It’s all about kitchen gadgets today. First up are the indestructible Grab-it oven gloves. Made of plastic, they withstand temperatures of up to 250 degrees. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the misfortune of getting traditional oven gloves wet and then tried and pick up a hot baking tray but if you have, you’ll know it’s not on the top-ten list of fun pursuits.  These laugh in the face of water. And grease. And oil. There’s no need to stick these in the washing machine and then have to wait for them to dry as they just wash under the tap or in the dishwasher.

You’ll also never be in a situation where your apple crumble is burning and you can’t find the oven gloves because these handy fellows stick to most surfaces with their clever suction cups. I suggest sticking them on the front of the oven for maximum convenience.

They fit every size of hand and can be used by righties and lefties alike. You can pick them up from the Orli Shop for £9.99. My only issue is that they only come in packs of one which isn’t too handy for the weak wristed among us…

Next is a gadget that’s not technically for the kitchen but it’s a kitchen appliance on tour. Wavebox is the world’s first portable microwave and it’s now available in the UK. It costs around £135 and can be powered three ways: with a standard plug, direct to 12-volt battery or via any vehicle power socket rated at 20 amps or higher. It’s aimed at people with mini-vans, trucks, boats etc and classy builders who fancy a change from the humble sandwich. It also comes with a cool bag so that you can keep everything cold before you nuke it. Check out the Wavebox website for more info.

And just for fun, some mood toast. Unfortunately, it’s not bread that senses your mood and spreads itself with the appropriate topping. It’s a pack of nice stamps to leave messages to your fellow toast lover in their toast. You can pick from “Good morning” or “I love you”. For those who have a more sinister message, I suggest using a sharp implement.

GeekySpeaky: Submit Your Site!

It’s been a fairly miserable week. These have kept us going…

"It’s funny to hide the vibrating part under the dogs bed and set it to go off" Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock

 

"its the dogs danglies of tumble dryers" Miele T 7734

"maps and speed limits aren’t accurate. Apparently my local tescos is in a field" Tomtom GO 520 UK&IRE

"you would have to be a child or an emancipated adult to fit in it" PC Line Riga Chair

"extra scews needed to stop back splitting due to fat people"  Auckland 4 Seater Patio Set   

In a surprise piece of research from Reevoo, Dyson were left off of the top five vacuum cleaners.

Consumers rated Numatic’s Hetty as the number one machine:

1. Numatic Hetty
2. Bissell 3760E
3. Sebo Automatic X4 Extra
4. Numatic Henry
5. Miele S5260
6. Miele S4211
7. Miele S 5210
8. Miele TT5000
9. Miele S5280
10. Dyson DC14 Hepa

(You can look closer into the different category results below)

Who would have thought?! This must be a pretty big blow for Dyson, who have been market leaders for the past decade or so. Although, it might be a great way for them to identify the areas in which they can improve to make their machines even better.

I have to say that I’m rather proud of the fact that I own a Henry. I’ve had him for around 10 years and he’s been great. Wouldn’t change him for the world. I’ll even forgive Hetty for coming in above him.

So where do Dyson need to improve? It seems that a lot of shoppers have trouble moving them around. There are lots of reviews complaining about their weight and the height of some of the models. Other people find their hoses too short, that they are too noisy, that they have a short life-span and that they have to be emptied too often. Although the last point may be because they pick up a lot of stuff.

Going on the positives, consumers did like the designs of the Dysons and the fact that they were very powerful.

We also need to mention that Miele did really well here too. They got five products in the top ten and almost all of the reviews for both the models mentioned the fact that they had superior suction.

So it seems that Numatic and Miele are the vacuums to go for. If you don’t agree with the Dyson comments I’ve picked out, you can check out all the other Dyson reviews.

In a shocking piece of research from Reevoo, Dyson were left off of the top five vacuum cleaners.

Consumers rated Numatic’s Hetty as the number one machine:

1. Numatic Hetty
2. Bissell 3760E
3. Miele S5260
4. Numatic Henry
5. Miele S5210

Who would have thought?! This must be a pretty big blow for Dyson, who have been market leaders for the past decade or so. Although, it might be a great way for them to identify the areas in which they can improve to make their machines even better.

I have to say that I’m rather proud of the fact that I own a Henry. I’ve had him for around 10 years and he’s been great. Wouldn’t change him for the world. I’ll even forgive Hetty for coming in above him.

So where do Dyson need to improve? It seems that a lot of shoppers have trouble moving them around. There are lots of reviews complaining about their weight and the height of some of the models. Other people find their hoses too short, that they are too noisy, that they have a short life-span and that they have to be emptied too often. Although the last point may be because they pick up a lot of stuff.

Going on the positives, consumers did like the designs of the Dysons and the fact that they were very powerful.

We also need to mention that Miele did really well here too. They got two products in the top five and almost all of the reviews for both the models mentioned the fact that they had superior suction.

So it seems that Numatic and Miele are the vacuums to go for. If you don’t agree with the Dyson comments I’ve picked out, you can check out all the other Dyson reviews.