Decide what to buy: the Reevoo.com blog

Since our last post on what Panasonic TV model numbers mean, Panasonic have changed the way they use model numbers.  Here is a quick guide to decoding the new product numbers, part of our ongoing series on understanding TV model names.

The first two letters are no longer a simple guide to the type of screen.  In the new system, both plasma and LCD screen model numbers start with TX.  Older plasma screen models start with TH.

- TH is used for older plasma screens (pre-2009)
- TX for LCD screens and newer plasma screens (2009 onwards)

The third letter refers to the type of screen

- P for plasma
- L for LCD

The first two numbers refer to the screen size in inches.

The next numbers and letters are the series. Full details of the newly launched series can be found at Panasonic’s website: click here for information on Panasonic’s new LCD TVs or click here for information on their new plasma TVs.

Finally, the B that’s sometimes included in the product name stands for region B – the UK.

Our friends over at Sharp are undergoing a mammoth task in aid of the Prostate Cancer Charity. For the next year, the folks at Sharp HQ will be putting themselves through various challenges such as The Great Wall of China Challenge, the 2010 London to Paris bike ride and the huge Race Across America (RAAM), to raise awareness and money for the charity. The RAAM itself is an arduous 7 day ride from the west coast of America to the east, covering 3014 miles, at an average of 430 miles a day. The team, including Sharp Managing Director Paul Molyneux (below), will ride for 24 hours a day, passing through 14 states and climbing for a total of over 100,000 feet.

Prostate Cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. 35,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in the UK and one man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK. There’s not enough awareness about this illness. People need to spread the word so that everyone knows what to look out for and can hopefully get treated before it’s too late. For more information the disease, symptoms and treatment, take a look at The Prostate Cancer Charity website.

You can get involved by helping Sharp towards their goal of £50,000 by June 2010. Either donate what you can at www.justgiving.com/sharpUK, or, you can join Sharp at some of the challenges throughout the year. Check out their events diary to find out more.

Read more about Sharp4Prostate

Off to a festival in the next few months? Take a look at our festival survival gadgets to make sure you avoid all the usual festival pitfalls.

Don’t lose your tent or your friends this year, use Google Maps with Latitude to keep track of both. Go for the popular Nokia N97 or the new Apple iPhone 3G S and, while you’re at it, download the Shazam app which will recognise a tune within a few notes and then helpfully take you to iTunes to purchase the track.

Grab yourself a wind-up charger too, to make sure your mobile never runs out.

If you’re after a festival-proof camera, the Olympus MJU 1050 is tough, waterproof and shockproof so it should last the summer. It’s 12x digital zoom and 30fps video capture mode will keep your festival memories for ever. Owners love this camera and it receives a score of 8.6/10 with one reviewer labelling it “virtually indestructible”.

Going to the loo is a mission at festivals but there’s no need to miss out on all the action while you’re in the queue. This Roberts Solar DAB radio is, as the name suggests, solar powered, so running out of batteries is not an option. It’s rated 8.9/10 by very impressed owners.

After the artists have finished, the music doesn’t have to stop with the Sony NWZ-A816 Walkman which scooped gold in the Reevoo Customer Choice Awards earlier this year and scores 9.3/10. But if you want to share your music, go for the iMode Boombox dock which is rugged and a steal at only £25.

If you have to queue for the loo, at least avoid queuing for the shower. Take the Super Solar Shower in a bag and have a leisurely soak under a branch at your convenience. It can be refilled time and time again and the solar panel will heat the water. An absolute bargain at just £5!

Finally, a festival kit bag wouldn’t be complete without a wind-up head torch. £15 will get you the Uni-Com wind up head torch – hours of fun without running out of batteries.

Family Photos

Be Natural!

Children only sit down to eat food and even then you could do with some superglue on the chair, so don’t make them sit down or do anything they wouldn’t want to. The best way to capture children is in their element – playing! For that reason have some props like bubbles or a favourite football at the ready

The kids Are in Charge!

If you want to capture your child’s attention you’re going to have to let them take you down a peg or two. There are some great perspective tricks you can use to do this such as getting the adult to stand in the distance and lining up your perspective with the horizon so that the child looks bigger than the parent. After one attempt at this, be sure to show the kids the result and they’ll be churning out hundreds of similar ideas begging you to photo them holding a tiny version of Mum in their hands.

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   The above photo is courtesy of Bazoomba_lol on Flickr.

The Whole Family!

Photographs of the whole family this summer will look best when you’re out and about. That’s great because it means you don’t have to worry about lighting. With this in mind use your portrait mode setting on your camera and turn your flash off. Without flash you can really capture the lighting of your surroundings. Take a slightly wider photo so that the location your family are in is obvious. That will make for a much more memorable photo when you look back in years to come.

Once you’ve managed to herd your whole family together, the adults have stopped gossiping and the kids have paused, but briefly, from their mud-slinging competition, you’ve got to make the most of it. Have a joke lined up to make everyone relax. If it is a light hearted comment about someone in the group it will be great as you can press the trigger when everyone looks round and laughs together. Much better than a static ‘all eyes forward’ photo that doesn’t tell much of a story!

About Turn!

Usually when you think of photographing the family you think of what they look like, their faces. Try turning this idea around, literally. Instead of photographing them straight on get them looking at something. If your troopers have spent the day fortifying your beach position with sand castles and moats, make their creation your subject and photograph over your children’s shoulders as they look at what they’ve made. Photographing like this will capture their emotion more than just a normal forward facing head shot and helps to give context which, once again, means the pics will be far more fun to look back at in the future.

The Right Stuff!

Tripod: Almost all digital cameras have a built in timer setting. With a handy Gorilla Pod you can rest your camera, put it on a timer and get yourself in the family portrait too.

Camera: All modern digital compact and SLR cameras will handle portrait photography well in brightly lit situations. Some cameras, such as the Fujifilm Finepix Z10FD come with face detection which help to focus quickly on a tricky subject such as an active child.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 is a great compact choice. It has HD video recording for when one frame is not enough to capture all the action. It also has a 25mm wide angle lens, great for capturing the whole family, and a powerful 12x optical zoom making it just as versatile for distant photos.

The Sony Alpha 350 is a brilliant entry level DSLR, and with the 18-70mm lens provided it’s great for documenting a whole family holiday. It helps that it’s extremely well priced too!

A full range of cameras with Face Recognition can be viewed here

With the sun at last seeming to be showing signs of being here to stay, we thought it would be a good time to highlight some MP3 players that you’ll be able to take with you as you enjoy various sporty activities.

To be a truely go-anywhere MP3 player, the most vital feature is that the memory - where the songs are stored - is a solid state flash drive, rather than than a hard disk. If you’ve ever tried to go jogging with a hard drive-based MP3 player, like an iPod Classic, you’ll know that it doesn’t take long before skipping becomes a problem. Flash-based memory is a lot more durable, but the disadvantage is that it costs more per megabyte, so storage sizes tend to be between 2 and 32 GB. For the active listener that’s a trade-off that’s worth making. Check out the Sony NWZS639F or Apple’s new iPod Nano.

Another key item for allowing you to get on with your run without worrying about your MP3 player is a clip so you don’t need to bother having the device knocking around in your pocket. And of course the smaller the better. The Apple iPod Shuffle is very compact, with a durable clip built into the aluminium body. The latest model is voice activated too, making it easier to control on the go.

Or for true comfort on the go, take a look at this wearable MP3 player/headphones combination from Sony:

Depending on what your favourite activities are, you might also want to look out for a waterproof model. You probably wouldn’t want to go swimming, but from mountain biking to waterfights, it’s as well to be prepared. Swimsuit specialists Speedo have entered into the MP3 player market with their Aquabeat Waterproof MP3 player, or you could try SwiMP3 player (geddit?).

Whatever you’re up to this summer, there’s no reason you won’t be able to bring your favourite music with you!

Summer’s officially here and it’s holiday season. If you’re planning on trips closer to home this year, we’ve picked out a few sat navs to help you on your way. From the traditional in-car sat navs to handheld GPS trackers, you’re sure to find something to suit you.

For an in-car system that’s a bit different, check out the Navman S30 3D. You can see all landmarks in 3D and you can upload all the info about them and local attractions via the Navdesk on your PC so that you have all the interesting facts with you as you travel.

If you’re planning a road trip, Che Guevara style, you’ll want a rider sat nav. The TomTom Rider 2nd Edition UK & Ireland has a 3.5″ glove-friendly touch screen, helmet connection and Secure RAM mount. It’s also waterproof so you can splash though as many puddles as you like.

For the treckers amongst you, check out the Garmin eTrex H. It’s built for tough conditions, it’s waterproof and it only has five buttons which can be easily operated with one hand. It will last up to 17 hours on just two AA batteries and will store up to 500 waypoints in its memory for easy retrieval. There’s also the TrackBack® system which will take you back to your starting point by reversing your track log.

If you’re not sure where to start, take a look at our sat nav buyers guide.  or look through the best sat navs on Reevoo.