From the best MP3 players of 2008 to the best laptops of 2008. We look at the most popular in the run-up to Christmas and the most highly rated to help you decide what to buy.
There’s no surprise to see that MacBooks dominated the highest rated list. People are very impressed with their speed, design and reliability but they don’t escape negative comments completely - owners say that they’re pricey, could do with better battery life and that they scratch easily.
What may surprise some people is that the 10″ Samsung NP-NC10 KA pips the MacBooks to the post. It has a fantastic score for battery life and owners love its size and weight. It has a 160Gb hard drive, 1GB RAM, Bluetooth, integrated webcam, WiFi and it weighs only 1.3kg.
Check out some of the reviews:
“it has almost everything that a standard entry level laptop has, but it is smaller and lighter. it is a good looking notebook, the wi fi and bluetooth also go along way to make the laptop a true portable work tool”
“battery life really good, as is speed for size. Brilliant to carry around. keyboard good”
“it would been better if it came with 2gb of ram, now i need to upgrade the ram”
Also flying the flag for the small guys was the Advent 4211. It’s the laptop most people are checking out at the moment. Also coming in at 10″ and a little lighter at 1.12kg, it has an 80GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, Bluetooth, WiFi and integrated webcam.
There’s a lot of love for this laptop:
“This little PC is an absolutely top notch system.”
“It’s just fantastic. The best money I ever spent. You can use it anywhere. I wouldn’t be without it.”
“No CD/DVD drive is the only downfall but not really a problem as I bought an external CD/DVD drive and the problem is solved.”
There are loads more laptops to look through. Just read the reviews before you purchase anything to make sure you get the best one for you.
Last week we looked at the top digital cameras of 2008 and this week we bring you MP3 players. There are plenty of them around but which ones are any good?
We’ve looked at the most popular ones - the ones that get the most attention on the web and the highest rated to see how they fare when people get them home.
At the moment, everyone’s after the New 16 GB Apple iPod Nano. It gets great reviews for its design and size but, as with most Apple products, consumers would like more battery life.
Here are the MP3 players getting the most attention at the moment:
The Creative Zen 8GB MP3 Player gets great reviews. Consumers hardly have a bad word to say about it and praise its design, battery life and sound quality.
Here are some of the things reviewers had to say:
“excellent all rounder sound, vision, size and value for money” Debs, Co. Durham
“i absolutely love it, the sound and vision quality is exceptional” Nicola, Whitley Bay
If you’re strapped for cash but want to invest in something decent, the Samsung YP-T10J is an absolute bargain at £30. It’s rated 9/10 and seriously impresses reviewers:
“this MP3 player has just about everything you could possibly want and very user friendly. The sound is clear and crisp and the photo/video mode is excellent.” Denise, Norwich
“its awesome, looks good, good sound and battery life, cute, not too common like an ipod” Anonymous
“This MP3 player is capable of superb sound reproduction (though not perhaps with the supplied headphones). It’s easy to find your way around the menu and I think it must be one of the slimest MP3 players around.” Eric, Perthshire
If you’re not impressed with any of these, there are loads of other MP3 players to choose from.
Just in time for Christmas, Reevoo has launched its own iPhone web application. This means that all you lucky folks who own iPhones will be able to take Reevoo with you to the shops. If you’re looking to buy an MP3 player, camera, laptop or any other product that is available on Reevoo.com, you can check out what people have said about it before you buy. Not only that, but you will also be able to see how much it is online! Very useful for saving some valuable pounds over Christmas.
If you’d like to have price comparison and helpful reviews in your pocket this Christmas, just follow these three simple steps and Reevoo will guide you through all your Christmas shopping.
To add the Reevoo iPhone app to your home screen just take your iPhone:
1. Open Safari
2. Go to http://www.reevoo.com/iphone
3. Tap the + button in Safari and choose ‘Add to Home Screen’
And to use it:
1. Simply tap on the Reevoo icon on your home screen
2. Tap search and enter the product name - you’ll get a list of search results with scores and the cheapest price available online from over 100 retailers
3. Tap on the product itself and you’ll be taken through to read the 10 most useful reviews (as voted by our community) on the product.
We’d love to hear your feedback on this app. If there’s anything else you’d like to be able to access or if you’d like to see something done differently, just let us know at feedback@reevoo.com.
Following on from our Christmas present guides, we’ve decided to focus on a popular gift - mobile phones. There are so many on the market these days that it can be a nightmare to read up on each one. But don’t worry, we’ve done it all for you.
We’ve read all the reviews for over 200 mobiles and picked out the most popular - the ones people are looking at in the run-up to Christmas, and the most highly rated phones of 2008 - focusing on what people think after they have bought and tried out their phones. We’ve also got our recommendation for the best value for money mobile.
So, I bet a lot of you will be thinking that the iPhone must be a key player in this year’s favourite mobiles but surprisingly, it’s not in the top 10. Problems with application crashes and battery life meant that people rated this year’s 3G iPhone lower than you might have expected. It gets a score of 8.2/10 which is even beaten by its predecessor, the original iPhone, which scores 8.3/10.
The UK’s favourite phone of 2008 is actually the BlackBerry Bold 9000. Here’s what some reviewers had to say:
+ Great keyboard for e-mailing and texting. Cracking screen which is nice and bright and videos look lovely on it. The sound from the internal speaker is really good. Just a great phone overall.
- Out of the box battery life is bad but gets better with regular charges.
+ The Bold is undoubtedly the most impressive Blackberry yet. One of its greatest advantages is that in spite of many new features, it feels very familiar. Web browsing is almost broadband speed.
But what about the most popular phone? The phone that everyone’s looking at in the run-up to Christmas this year is the Nokia N96. But although it’s created a lot of hype, it actually gets marked down by reviewers for poor battery life and software problems. It’s also a little expensive at around £500 for Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) customers, but it does do the business with its design and features. One reviewer writes “great picture and video quality, very easy to find your way around, fantastic features…looks good”.
So let’s take a look at the most popular phones, which are getting lots of atention, and those that actually get rated the highest when consumers take them home:
TOP TEN MOST POPULAR MOBILE PHONES IN LAST 30 DAYS:
If you had your heart set on buying someone, or yourself, a stylish yet affordable phone this Christmas, we think the Samsung F480 Tocco is the one to go for. Whilst other phones with similar features tend to get poor scores for battery life, the Tocco impresses with 7.7/10. Here’s what some other phones score for battery life:
Nokia N96 - 5.8
iPhone original - 6.8
iPhone 3G - 5.6
BlackBerry Bold 9000 - 6.3
The Tocco also impresses with its design and features and is £150 for PAYG customers or free on some contracts.
If you’re bored of the iPhone already, be a little different and get your hands on a BlackBerry Storm. You can pre-order one from Phones4U from tomorrow and they’re officially released on Friday, exclusively on Vodafone. But if you really want one, just beware of the potential crowds you might encounter on Friday because it’s rumored that newly crowned champion, Lewis Hamilton, will be making an appearance.
If you’ve forgotten what the BlackBerry Storm is all about, check out the details:
Features Available
Wireless email
Organizer
Browser
Phone
Camera (3.2 MP)
Video Recording
BlackBerry® Maps
Media Player
Built-in GPS
Corporate data access
SMS
MMS
Size and Weight
4.43″/112.5mm (Length)
2.45″/62.2mm (Width)
0.55″/13.95mm (Depth)
5.5 oz/155g (Weight)
Data Input/Navigation
Touch Screen Navigation, with ClickThrough for user selection
On screen keyboard: portrait SureType® and Multi-tap, QWERTY landscape
Voice Input/Output
3.5mm stereo headset capable
Integrated earpiece/ microphone
Built-in speakerphone
Mono/stereo headset, hands-free, phone book access profile and serial port profile supported (Bluetooth® technology)
Media Player
Video format support: MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.264, WMV
Audio format support: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WMA ProPlus
Display
High resolution 480 x 360 pixel color display
Transmissive TFT LCD
Font size (user selectable)
Light sensing screen
Notification
Polyphonic/MIDI ringtones
MP3 ringtones
Vibrate mode
LED indicator
Approximate Battery Life
15 days (Standby time)
5.5 hours (Talk time)
Memory
Expandable memory - support for microSDTM card
1GB onboard memory
128 MB Flash (flash memory)
Modem
RIM® wireless modem
Tethered modem capability
Email Integrations
Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange
Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM® Lotus® Domino®
Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Novell® GroupWise®
Integrates with an existing enterprise email account
Integrates with existing personal email account
Integrates with optional new device account
Device Security
Password protection and screen lock
Sleep mode
Support for AES or Triple DES encryption when integrated with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server
It’s time for another installment in our What to buy series. We looked at What to buy Dads last week and this week it’s the turn of another tricky customer…the teenage boy.
If you need inspiration, just take a look at these:
For the music lover - Everyone loves music. Get them an MP3 player and they can take music with them wherever they go. The top rated MP3 player on Reevoo at the moment is the 8GB iPod Touch. It’s currently around £100. If you were looking to spend a little less than that, the second highest rated player is the £70 Sony NWZA816 4GB. And for a complete bargain buy, grab some CDs. Prices start from as little at £2.
For the gamer - Why not go for a games console like the PlayStation 3 (£289)? If they already have a console, they might like a gaming chair (£100). It’s comfortable for extended gaming sessions and you can feel the action through it. It can also be used to listen to music and watch films. There are also lots of console accessories, like this PS3 charging station for £15. For smaller gifts, you could go for a video game (prices start at £2).
For Mr Sociable - A mobile phone so that they can keep in contact with all their mates. For a phone packed full of features, how about the Nokia N95 or N96? Or for a more classy option, how about the Samsung Tocco or the new iPhone? (All phone prices vary according to contract)
For the sporty ones - Some tickets to a football or rugby match will make a great gift. For something more original, why not try this Garmin Forerunner 405 (£169) GPS-enabled sport watch, which tracks your training and sends the data to your computer or for trips to the coast this fishing starter kit (£32)?
For all you original iPhone owners who’ve been fed up with your battery life, this new product may ease the pain a little. The iPow, although it sounds like something out of a Batman comic, is actually an external battery case for the original iPhone (3G version on the way).
It can be charged up at the same time as your iPhone and will apparently double the battery life. It also provides a leather top which closes with a magnetic clasp and mini stereo speakers which are twice as loud as the ones on the iPhone.
It’s not the prettiest of things and in my opinion, makes the iPhone look a little clumpy. It’ll also add 98 grams to your handbag or pocket but if you’re after more juice, then I suppose it’s not so bad. You can pick one up at twistedcarbon for £49.99.
Rumors, rumours. They’ve been flying around the last few days. Here are two that should interest you:
Last week, at the Future of Web Apps expo in London, Kevin Rose, Digg founder extraordinaire, predicted that Apple will unveil their MacBooks packing Blu-ray drives tomorrow at their special event which focuses on notebooks. Exciting stuff? So could this be the beginning of a beautiful relationship that will see all MacBooks with Blu-ray as standard? If you have any thoughts, let us know. In the meantime, if you’re still trying to decide on a MacBook, check out the MacBook reviews.
The other juicy rumor that seems to have come around faster that we’d thought is the release of the Firefox mobile. Firefox’s first mobile outing will be on the Linux-running Nokia N810.
It will be a little like the iPhone, with the N810’s touchscreen but we’re promised that the software will be pretty nifty with tabs, smart URLs and browser extensions. As it’s still early days, this release is intended for testing but check out the video below for a sneak peak.
We?ve been looking into design here at Reevoo. Good product design is becoming more and more important and clever and innovative designs are what consumers look for to save time and make their lives a little easier.
So we looked into which brands were coming up with the best designs. When a shopper buys something from one of Reevoo?s 55 retail partners, they are sent an email asking them to rate it. One of the categories they rate is the design of the product.
Looking at 22,000 products, with over 15 reviews, we took these design scores and ranked all of the products in terms of their score for design ? the product with the highest score at the top.
What we found was pretty impressive for one brand in particular. In the top 100 products for design, a whopping 51 of them are from Samsung! It?s a real result for the brand that has put a strong focus on design in recent years.
LG in second place and Sony and Apple in joint third made up the top 3.
If you?re a regular reader of Decide What to Buy, I?m sure you can guess at which product Numatic had in the top 100? Hetty! She?s had a stonking 2008, already topping the best vacuum cleaner list back in June and in March.
But we wanted to look deeper into the data so we split the products up into categories. We looked at Home Entertainment, Mobile Phones, White Goods, Computing and Home and DIY in more detail to see which brand?s products performed the best for design in each category.
If you want to be cool, drive an Aston Martin, play Nintendo and wear Agent Provocateur…not necessarily all at the same time. These are some of the coolest brands around according to the annual Coolbrands survey.
Voted for by the Coolbrands council and 2,500 members of the public, Aston Martin receives the award for the coolest brand for third year running - certainly aided slightly by a certain Mr Bond who is rather partial to their vehicles.
Relative newcomer, the iPhone is in at second place, preceding the mother ship ? Apple, in third.
There?s no doubt that brands and celebrity go hand in hand. With Bond helping out in the car department and constantly-in-the-press Daisy Lowe being the face of Agent Provocateur, there?s a healthy little partnership of which somebody can be very proud.
But it?s not all down to the celebs. With brands like Apple, Nintendo and Bang & Olufsen it shows that brands who constantly lead their field in design and innovation are worthy recipients of the accolade.
Congratulations should also go to the Tate Modern who have managed to get onto the list at number 10 - pretty impressive with all those super-brands on there.
You can check out the top 10 coolest brands below:
Top 10 Coolest Brands 1. Aston Martin 2. iPhone 3. Apple 4. Bang & Olufsen 5. YouTube 6. Google 7. Nintendo 8. Agent Provocateur 9. Rolex 10. Tate Modern
Decide What to Buy RSS feed
