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

Looking to treat the gamer in your life this Christmas but not sure what’s hot at the moment? Here’s a run down of the season’s hottest titles to help you out:

1. The Beatles: Rock Band (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360)/Lego Rock Band(Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, DS)/Band Hero (Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, DS)

2 recently released variations on the popular Rock Band virtual music franchise, one a great gift for any Fab Four fanatics, the other a more family-friendly title that could make for lots of Christmas day fun as granny discovers a new talent for grinding the axe. Band Hero is the latest offering from Rock Band’s Guitar Hero rival, offering a redesigned drum kit and new multiplayer modes.

The Beatles: Rock Band including guitar, drums and microphone is available from £80.

Lego Rock Band (instrument controllers must be purchased seperately) is available from £28 (£19 for Nintendo DS version).

Band Hero game & instrument bundles are available from £125.

2. Wii Fit Plus (Wii)

The updated version of the 2nd best selling videogame in history, this contains all the original Wii Fit games and more, is available with or without the famous Balance Board accessory and is an ideal way to start burning off those extra Christmas pounds on Boxing day.

Cheapest Wii Fit Plus price is £16 for the game on it’s own, £69 with Balance Board (which you’ll need if you don’t have the original Wii Fit).

3. We Sing (Wii)/Singstar: Take That (PS3)/Lips: Number One Hits (Xbox 360)

Lots out for karaoke fans this Christmas, with titles available for all 3 major consoles. You may want to have earplugs on standby for any less enthusiastic family members on Christmas day.

Best karaoke game prices (with/without microphones): We Sing - £24/£18, Singstar: Take That - microphones sold separately, Lips: Number Ones Hits - £35/£30.

4. EyePet (PS3)

Good compromise for wannabe pet owners who may prove reluctant to clean up after a new friend; the EyePet uses the PlayStation Eye camera to create a virtual creature who can interact with people and objects in the real world. One to keep smaller children amused whilst the grown-ups take a post-Christmas dinner siesta.

Current best prices for EyePet are £30 including the camera or £15 on its own (if you’ve already purchased a PlayStation Eye).

5. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

Military fanatics will be in heaven with this, which will let them travel around the world shooting at things, driving snowmobiles & inflitrating terrorist groups. As with previous entries in the series, things get pretty violent, so one for grown-up gamers only (as per the BBFC’s 18 rating).

Current best deal on Modern Warfare 2 is £29.

6. Ghostbusters (Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii, PC, DS)

Looking for the ideal gaming Christmas present for a child of the ’80s? This game offers the chance to join the original cast of the classic comedy-horror film on their spectre-fighting missions.

Prices from £14.

7. DJ Hero (Wii, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3)

Standing in front of the telly playing a plastic fake guitar not your thing? The makers of Guitar Hero are offering an alternative with their new plastic fake turnable, so wannabe DJs can have a go too. The game features over 80 different remixes by a wide selection of artists; and if you’ve already got a Guitar Hero guitar, someone can play alongside you whilst you scratch.

The game comes with the turntable and the current best price is £80.

8. Tony Hawk Ride (Wii, Xbox 360, PS3)

The ever popular Tony Hawk skating series gets physical, including a “skateboard” that players stand on to control their movements in their game.

Skateboard and game are available from £90.

9. Scribblenauts (DS)

Scribblenauts is fun new take on the platform game; instead of finding tools to help you through levels you write the name of the object you want with your stylus and it’ll pop up on the screen- a good incentive to improve your vocabulary and spelling.

Scribblenauts prices start from £18.

10. Dragon Age: Origins (Xbox 360, PC, PS3)

A great gift for a fantasy fan, an epic new RPG adventure game from the creators of classics like Baldur’s Gate & Fallout promising enough hours of sword & sorcery action to last until spring!

Best price is £25.

(All prices accurate as of time of publication.)

A bargain for any budding photographers out there, the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS lens for only £155 from Simply Electronics.

Need some tunes to liven up your week? You can get this Panasonic PM38EB-K hifi system for just £105 from Tesco, £28 pounds cheaper than the next best price.

Need a fresh look at things before next week? This Samsung T220 monitor might help: £130 pounds from Amazon, a saving of £45 on the next best price.

Great laptop bargain for the weekend, just £1,092 for a Sony Vaio TT21M/N from Currys (with a discount voucher that expires at midnight, normally £1,150), over £250 cheaper than the next best price.

Great digital camera deal this, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S950 for only £75 from Dixons, £33 cheaper than the next best price; a whopping 30% saving. Happy snapping!

With Halloween and Guy Fawkes upon us, and Christmas creeping around the corner, there are sure to be lots of memorable party moments or firework displays worth capturing; if you want something a little more specialised than a camera-phone but aren’t ready to spend hundreds of pounds on a camcorder, there are quite a few options these days.

Flip’s range of handheld camcorders gave this area a kick-start a couple of years ago; their current offerings are the Ultra and the Mino, both available in Standard and High Definition versions. Simplicity is everything here: recording is a matter of hitting the big red button, then you can plug it straight into your computer and upload it to YouTube, all without having to install any special drivers or software. “So easy to use,” says Reevoo reviewer Steve from Caerphilly, a comment echoed by many other reviewers. In this price range there are going to be certain limitations, and other reviewers felt that the audio quality was “not fantastic” and that zoom range was “not enough”. Prices for the Flip start at £69 for the standard definition Ultra model (rated 8.8 out of 10 by Reevoo reviewers); if even that’s too bulky for you there are also the slimmer Mino versions, starting at £113 (rated 8.9 out of 10).

Flip are far from the only game in town however: Creative have a similar offering called the Vado, also with Standard and High Definition variations. Again, ease of use is widely praised by reviewers, although an anonymous purchaser points out that it’s “unable to take single pictures”, a feature absent from most of the pocket camcorders available: these are all about the video. Prices start at just £41 for the basic model, rated 8.8 out of 10 on reevoo.com.

Samsung’s entrant into the arena, the HMX-U10, has pushed the boat out a bit in terms of features, offering full 1080p HD video recording as well as being able to take stills. Unlike the other pocket camcorders that have neat USB connectors built-in (there’s endless fun to be had playing with the one in the Flip whilst procrastinating), this needs a cable, which is comparatively cumbersome. Another benefit is that unlike the Flip & the Vado, which have internal memory, video is stored on a removable SD card. Prices start at £111.

Another camera worth a look is the Kodak Zi6HD, rated 8.5 out of 10 by Reevoo reviewers. This shoots high definition video onto removable SD cards; prices start at £102.

General limitations to be wary of are a lack of image stabilisation, which can make videos a little shaky & a digital only zoom, meaning a loss of quality on zoomed in images. But these cameras aren’t designed for shooting your cinematic epic, they’re something to grab out of your bag and capture your friends making fools of themselves or getting engaged. And if You’ve Been Framed accept YouTube videos now, it’ll pay for itself.

“Good points: it will trim your beard. Bad points: it wont make you rich.” Remington MB320C

“Bad points:The incessant flirting I have to endure from gorgeous women despite the fact that I am married.” Mai Tai Glasses

“Bad points: My other kit at this moment in time : Sky box, DVD player and of course the video player / recorder are all old school (SO LAST CENTURY) that they are a warp drive away from HD quality so it’ll be a while before the full quality of the TV can be realised. Keep buying the lottery tickets.” Sony KDL-40Z5500

“Bad points: Being easy to use, now Ive got no excuse not to do any washing (Man!!!)” Indesit SIXL145

“I used to cook my Christmas dinner in it and it was so efficient there wasn’t enough time to go to the pub while the turkey was cooking!” Panasonic NN-A554WBBTQ

“My grandson says it is ‘the best train set in the world!’ and has enjoyed many happy hours playing with it (as has his dad). He loves putting jelly babies in the freight carriages, so when it stops he can eat one.” Hornby Local Freight Train Set

“I lose the will to live waiting for it to be ready!!” New World NW70G

“It isn’t armoured with lasers and grenades and so didnt survive Leeds fest :(” Tesco Value 3 Person Dome Tent

“it does not bring a beer.” LG M197WD

So, another year of new students are getting ready to head to university; they’ve got the cookbook telling them how to make a £4 bag of pasta last two terms, an inflatable armchair with at least one puncture and a tube full of carefully chosen film posters. At some stage they’re going to have to get around to doing some work, and these days that usually means that if they don’t want to join a long queue to use the computers in the college library, they’ll need one of their own. Thankfully for those already watching meagre summer job savings dwindle or preparing to test the limits of parental generosity, this doesn’t necessarily involve a vast amount of money.

Netbooks, the slimmed down cousins of laptops, will handle essay writing and web access (strictly for research purposes, naturally) & are perfect for lugging around campus in a book-bag. They’ve actually scored higher with our reviewers than laptops on design (8.8 vs 8.4), portability (9.1 vs 8.1) and battery life (8.2 vs 6.8). Student shoppers who’ve reviewed them for Reevoo have written about how they’re “light enough to carry around the university campus”, the “right size for taking to lectures” and are equipped with “amazing battery life”. Unfortunately they will still tend to break if you pour enough beer into them.

What is a netbook, anyway?

There’s no universally agreed definition but as a rule of thumb it’s anything that looks like a laptop, but:

- Costs under £400
- Has a screen under 13 inches in size
- Weighs under 1.5kg
- Doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive
- Has a single core processor

The Top 10 Netbooks (According To Reevoo’s Consumer Reviewers)

1. Asus Eee PC 10005HA SeaShell (9.1/10, from £250)
2. Samsung NC10 (9.1/10, from £250)
3. Asus Eee PC 901 (8.9/10, from £300)
4. Asus Eee PC 1000H (8.9/10, from £280)
5. Samsung N110 (8.9/10, from £330)
6. Asus Eee PC 1000HE (8.9/10, from £321)
7. Toshiba NB100-12A (8.8/10, from £250)
8. Asus Eee PC 904HD (8.7/10, from £190)
9. Samsung N310 (8.7/10, from £298)
10. Samsung NC20 (8.7/10, from £350)

There are a couple of things to be aware of when making your choice. The first is that whilst many netbooks come with Windows XP, a few come with an alternative Linux-based operating system. It’ll do the same sort of things but may take a little more getting used to. The second is that netbooks don’t have a CD/DVD drive so installing new software can be fiddly. Thankfully Microsoft offer a few solutions for a student essential, Office:

- Some netbooks come with trial version of Microsoft Office Home & Student which you can then pay to unlock.

- If you buy a boxed copy, Microsoft will let you use your product key to install it onto your netbook from their website.

- Or you can buy it straight from their online store.

Alternatively you can try a free equivalent called OpenOffice; as with the alternative operating system mentioned above it’ll do roughly the same things but may not be as familiar.