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

Big news in the mobile world this week that Orange and T-Mobile will be joining forces to create a mammoth-sized network with around 28.4 million customers combined, covering 37% of the UK mobile market. Currently, market shares for the major players look like this:

Vodafone – 27%
O2 – 25%
Orange – 22%
T-Mobile – 15%

The merger will bring the UK network selection down from 5 to four (excluding mobile virtual network operators such as Tesco and Virgin).

Although the merger will reportedly cost between £400 million and £600 million, it’s expected to deliver savings of around half-a-billion pounds per year by 2014, saving on duplicate shops, base stations and customer service facilities.

But what does all this mean for shoppers? Let’s start with the potential negatives:
- Less choice. We all like to have a good range of products and services to choose from and this will reduce our options considerably
- It’s possible that with less competition in the market, we might be looking at higher prices for handsets and contracts
- Uncertainty for current contract holders
- What on Earth will happen to Orange Wednesdays! I have to admit, this is a huge cause for concern. The midweek bargain pizza and film have provided THE single form of weekly entertainment for millions.

And the good points:
- Hopefully less pylons all over the place
- Better reception
- Potentially better customer service
- A greater range of handsets
- An end to the exclusivity deals with O2? It would be good to share the handset love. So far, O2 has the most anticipated handsets like the iPhone and the Palm Pre.

Of course, none of this is finalised yet. Things should go ahead in November and if they do, each company will keep its individual name for at least 18 months. After that, who knows what they’ll come up with. Any ideas for the new name? I think I’ll be boring and go for Orange Mobile…or maybe Trangbile. Nice!

The only problem with buying yourself a great new gadget, or fitting out your kitchen with up-to-the minute appliances is what to do with the things they replace. Disposing of old electricals can be a bit of a headache and they often end up gathering dust at the back of a cupboard or in the attic.

At the moment, over 75% of old electricals end up in landfills, polluting the soil. Every year Britain produces enough electrical waste to fill Wembley Stadium 6 times over. And this mountain of junk is growing - Britain produces 5% more electrical waste every year.

The irony is that over 85% of the materials that make up electrical goods are recyclable, and recycling them has never been easier. Here’s our quick guide to the right way to get rid of old TVs, kitchen appliances, gadgets and mobile phones.

What can I recycle?

If your product has a plug or a battery it can probably be recycled.  Double check by looking for the crossed-out wheely bin symbol somewhere on the product case or manual.

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Heading to a festival this year? Even if you’re not, the Orange Power Pump can be used for all manner of outdoor parties. It’s a foot pump that powers a tiny generator that will in-turn, charge all your gadgets. No electricity required and with a minute or so on the pump, you’ll have enough charge for a 5 minute call. All that and you’re helping out the environment too.

Watch this space for a price and release date but no doubt it will be available in time for all this summer’s festivals, just head towards the Orange stand.

[Orange]

Currently appearing in [Coolest Gadgets]

Meet the Chairman. We’re talking VIP but Very Important Phone as opposed to Person, because the Chairman is a new phone with a difference.

The clue is in its maker - Ulysse Nardin, watch maker extraordinaire. This phone takes top-of-the-range watch technology and teams it up with a touchscreen giving us a stylish hybrid handset. Its built-in battery is charged by the kinetic energy generated by the moving rotor so that your phone charges without you even noticing, while it’s working.

But if you thought this was a gimmick phone, think again. Ulysse Nardin have created an interesting multi-touch smartphone. Complete with Wi-Fi, 5 megapixel camera and 2.8 inch screen, the Chairman certainly sounds like a phone to look out for. Release dates and price are currently under wraps but we’ll keep you posted.

[Ulysse Nardin]

Featured in the Coolest Gadgets competition.

How annoying is changing phones and having to get all your contacts onto your new handset? Moving all your contacts onto your phone memory or SIM, taking phones apart, swapping SIMS (if your new handset’s not locked), yadda yadda. It’s got a lot quicker with the use of software and a computer but don’t you just wish it could be instant? Well now, thanks to this little gadget, it is. The Instant Cell Phone Backup just plugs into your old phone and at the touch of a button, all your contacts are stored, ready to be loaded onto your new handset.

Then just plug it into your new handset, use the aforementioned magic button and you’re done. In the words of Aleksandr the meerkat “simples”.

Pick one up for £34.00/$49.95

Now here’s a new way to use a phone – with your feet. Aussie inventor, Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen has created a phone that sits in the heel of one of your shoes. So instead of fumbling around to find your phone in your bag, just slip off your shoe and flip the heel. Dr. Paul is frequently seen around his campus in Flinders University, Adalaide doing just that. And the phone has proved so popular that Dr. Paul is thinking of starting selling them online this year.

As soon as you attach a Bluetooth headset, it’ll be a whole lot more viable and a great place to hide a phone from thieves!

But apart from being a cool accessory, Dr Gardner-Stephen’s thought of how it can be used for the good of humankind.  He is confident that his phone in a shoe (I’m sure there’ll be a nice catchy name soon – perhaps a “shone” or a “phoo”?), could be used to monitor patients’ vital stats such as blood pressure and pulse via a bluetooth device which will sit in the other heel. The info can then be automatically sent through to doctors wiithout the patients having to come into hospital.

It will also be used to tell emergency workers when a patient has had a fall by monitoring shocks and orientation changes. The shoe will then automatically call emergency services and put the whole conversation on speakerphone so that the patient can communicate when they’re in trouble.

So why house this genius idea in a shoe?

“Shoes are well accepted by most people, and are simple to put on and take off.”

But that’s not all of it…they’re also ideal for charging the device as “our feet, and therefore our shoes, conduct large forces as we stand and walk, and energy can be harvested to charge the device during ordinary activity.”

So it can all be recharged by walking or even standing still – now that’s my kind of gadget!

Check out the doctor’s demo:

The GSMA Mobile World Congress took place last week and no doubt you’ve been hearing all about innovative mobile handsets ever since. Here’s a round-up of some of the best phones at MWC.

Sony Ericsson Idou

The Sony Ericsson Idou will seriously impress with its camera when it eventually goes on sale. It will be the World’s first 12 megapixel camera phone! Pretty impressive.

The Idou also packs in quality music and video playback in this sleek handset. It will be available towards the second half of this year with a shiny new name. We’ll keep you posted.

HTC Magic

The HTC Magic is the follow-up to the G1 and the second handset powered by Google’s Android interface. However, this time the handset will be exclusively available through Vodafone, rather than T-Mobile. It comes equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and trackball. It’s 3.2” QVGA touchscreen is home to an on-screen keyboard so, unlike the G1, there’s no slide-out QWERTY keyboard, making it a lot slimmer.

Check out this video for a 360 view:

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As the pressure to create a phone as popular as the iPhone continues, manufacturers are just getting it wrong when it comes to touchscreens.

There are a multitude of touchscreen mobiles out there but only a few are actually pushing the right buttons with consumers. We looked into 19,000 reviews for 226 phones in the last 12 months to find out how they’d been rated by shoppers. In the bottom 10, a whopping 50% were touchscreens.

In contrast, only 2 of the top ten were touchscreen models. The top-rated phone with a score of 8.8 out of ten is the Nokia 5220 XpressMusic with a conventional key pad. Apple’s iPhone is the highest scoring touchscreen phone with a score of 8.3 out of ten.

Here’s a look at the top 10 mobiles, launched in the last 12 months, as rated by consumers

1.      Nokia 5220 XpressMusic

2.      Nokia E71

3.      Sony Ericsson W595

4.      Nokia 2680

5.      Nokia 3110 Classic

6.      Samsung M150

7.      Apple iPhone 3G 16GB - touchscreen

8.      LG KC910 Renoir - touchscreen

9.      Nokia 6600 Slide

10.    Nokia 3600

And the bottom 10

1.        HTC Touch Diamond - touchscreen

2.        Sony Ericsson T303

3.        Samsung Armani - touchscreen

4.        Sony Ericsson C702

5.        Nokia 6124 Classic

6.        BlackBerry Storm 9500 - touchscreen

7.        Samsung i900 Omnia - touchscreen

8.        Nokia N96

9.        Samsung U600

10.      Samsung F490 - touchscreen

And here’s what some reviewers are saying about touchscreens:

“Touchscreen is a little hard to use if your fingers are not slender and pointy.”

“The ‘virtual’ keyboards are rubbish, takes ages to type anything…you could always employ a five year old with small fingers. They should have used a stylus.”

“Jerky software, not fluid. Crashes often.”

“If you have nails can be a bit tricky on the keypad as it is heat sensitive and so must be pressed with the finger tip as a nail will not make it work.”

“I found the touchscreen hard work and the physical ‘pressing’ was made more difficult by the fact that your finger, however slim or fat, tends to ’spread’ when you have to press.”

So if any manufacturers are listening, take a look at some of the touchscreen reviews and address the issues shoppers have with current models.

Dick Tracy, eat your heart out. LG has come up with a futuristic treat from the past with the GD910 – a wrist watch phone. But if you thought it was going to be a second-rate mobile, it’s actually packed full of features you wouldn’t expect. There’s a pretty low-grade camera but its 3G HSDPA compatibility, 1.43” touchscreen, MP3 player and text to speech functionality makes it a decent phone and a pretty hot watch.

It also packs in bluetooth (so you can look even more spy-like with a headset), MMS and it’s water resistant. Want one? They’re due to be released in Europe later on this year.

Check it out in action:

Currently appearing in Coolest-Gadgets’ comp

Apple has just released their most recent set of earnings figures, detailing how the MP3 player, phone and computer manufacturer performed over the Christmas season. The answer? Strikingly well. In the middle of a global financial meltdown, Apple managed to turn in record breaking revenues ($10bn) and profits ($1.6bn).

Reevoo’s own figures back up Apple’s success story. Reevoo measured traffic to all Apple products across 61 British retailers’ websites, and saw Apple’s share of the market increase dramatically during the Christmas peak, from 1.3% in September to 3.0% in December.

This has everyone wondering whether Apple can continue to thrive selling high-end electronics while lesser manufacturers fight to survive in a race to the bottom of falling margins and lower sales. Of course, what’s driven Apple’s success over the past few years has been its continuing innovation - think of the iPhone, the iMac or the iPod Nano. So some pundits are asking whether this pace of innovation can continue or whether Apple will soon be running out of ideas.

A closer look at Reevoo’s numbers suggests that it might not be wise to bank on Apple performing as well in future. For one thing, the company’s market share has been pretty flat throughout the year, slipping back through the summer after popularity increased in the spring with the release of new iMac models.

This time around, it looks like Apple has gained most of its increase from the one area where it is truely king: MP3 players.

No-one needs to be told that by far the most popular range of MP3 players is Apple’s distinctive iPods, but amazingly Apple has managed to increase iPod popularity from 60% of MP3 players through the year to 80% during November and December, leaving all other manufacturers to share just 20% of the market over the Christmas peak. Apple released a highly-praised refresh of its bestselling Nano during September and a smaller update of the iPod Touch. Shoppers responded with a thumbs up, giving the new Nano a rating of 9.1 out of 10. But popularity only really rocketed in November, perhaps highlighting their appeal as Christmas gifts.

In addition to their overwhelming popularity, Apple also manage to sell iPods at a premium - only Portable Media Player specialist Archos has a higher average cost per MP3 player sold.

Putting this together suggests that Apple has benefited from a strong run on its impressive MP3 players this Christmas, putting it in position to report those eye-popping revenue revenue figures.

So why the caution? There are two worries about iPods for 2009.

The first is that other manufacturers are improving their products. Samsung and Creative, in particular, saw much-increased ratings from shoppers over Christmas. So if you’re looking for a new MP3 player, it would be a good idea to keep your eye on what these two brands have to offer.

The second worry is that the number of people looking for a new MP3 player seems certain to decrease as smartphones improve and start to reproduce more and more features of MP3 players. With only 4.4m iPhones sold in the last quarter compared to 23m iPods, Apple will have to do a lot of work to make sure iPod fans stick with the brand.