Decide what to buy

We’re onto DVD recorders this week. I know that most Christmas telly is awful but you do get the odd great film that’s worth recording. They’re also really handy for recording series of your favourite dramas and sitcoms so that you have your own set.

Top ten DVD recorders

1.       Samsung DVD-R155 - £101

2.       Sony RDRHXD890 - £160

3.       Panasonic DMR-EX78 - £205

4.       Panasonic DMR-EX768 - £171

5.       Panasonic DMR-EZ28E - £115

6.       Sony RDR-HXD870 - £100

7.       Toshiba RD-17 - £100

8.       LG DRT389H - £103

9.       Panasonic DMR-EZ27 - £100

10.     Sony RDR-GX350 - £80

The Samsung DVD-R155 has some impressive reviews, despite its lack of a tuner which means that you won’t be able to record two programmes at once:

“Good solid recorder, easy to use, very impressed with the upscaling.”

“Does what it says on the tin. Great quality recorder/player for the money and looks slick.”

“Not multi regional but you can re code it for all regions easily from the internet”

If you want a good all-rounder that’s great value for money, go for the £155 Panasonic DMR-EZ28E. It comes with built-in a Freeview digital tuner and it will play and record on most discs.

When you’re looking for a DVD recorder, make sure it has the functionality you require. If you like recording the odd episode of Eastenders quickly, make sure it has a hard drive so that you don’t have to fiddle around with discs before you can record anything. Also check for how many tuners the machine has. If a DVD recorder has more than one tuner, it will let you record more than one programme at the same time. Do you need a recorder with built-in VHS so that you can still watch all your classics? And finally, make sure it will play and record on the discs you’ll be using.

We’ve been talking about saving money and budget buys recently so we had to share the ultimate triple-use product. Save even more money by buying one product that works as three - like this HDTV which houses a Blu-ray player and a PC!

Named Allio, it has just launched in the US and comes in 32 and 42 inch models. The PC doesn’t have a bad spec at all - Intel Core Duo E8400 processor, 1TB hard drive and 4GB of RAM. It also comes with Windows Vista Home Premium and there are plenty of USB ports and wired / wireless network options.

The HDTV isn’t terrible either. It’s a 1080p panel with 2,000:1 contrast ratio, 400 cd/m2 brightness and twin 12-watt speakers. You can even watch your Blu-ray content as Picture-in-Picture or split-screen.

It’s not available in the UK yet but we’ll keep you posted. In the US, the current prices are:

32″ - £950

42″ - £1800

Low-cost versions are also on the way - even better!

More info here

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.