Here at Reevoo we keep an eye on what’s happening in market so we can make sure we’re helping you make the right decisions when you’re buying something. Here’s what’s crossed my desk in the past month or so:
* 3D TV - Manufacturers and broadcasters seem to be serious about pursuing 3D TV technology in the next few years. Panasonic, Philips, and LG all have prototype consumer 3DTVs, while Sky have hinted at launching a sports-only 3DTV service in the next few months. Panasonic and Sky’s version would require special spectacles, but the Philips and LG versions are goggle free.
Here’s a sample of the Philips 3DTV - of course it won’t look 3D on your monitor!
* New iPod Shuffle - Apple suprised us on Wednesday with the launch of a new iPod Shuffle. The Shuffle claims to be the world’s smallest MP3 Player, and the first one that speaks. Critics have noted that it’s now even harder to replace Apple’s notoriously bad headphones, as Apple have moved all the controls to a bud on the headphones. The speech effect allows you to select a playlist after hearing it read out to you by a computerised voice. It is a potentially nice trick, but it remains to be seen if it can make up for the Shuffle’s lack of a screen. Apple iPod reviews.
* Green entertainment - MEPs are voting this month on whether to extend energy ratings like those found on white goods to all consumer electronics products in the EU. This would effectively ban some energy guzzling products, potentially including plasma televisions.
At Reevoo we’re about more than just reviews. We’re about the whole process of buying and enjoying something cool and new. With that in mind the three resident Category Managers, Jo, Sam and Jon have taken some time to lay out some helpful tips across three different product categories.
Reevoo Washing Machine Buyers Guide
Jo’s Washing Machine guide should help get you out of a spin and into the right shopping cycle with her top 5 tips designed to help you decide which washing machine is the right purchase for you.
Jon’s camera guide walks you through the features and settings that come into play when taking a photograph. The guide should help you decide what type of camera you want to snap up!
The Tips:
- The Sensor
- ISO Settings
- Megapixels
- Aperture
- Shutter Speed
- Exposure
The Video:
As with the other guides Jon’s can be seen on the Digital Camera Category page whilst looking through the compact and SLR camera reviews on Reevoo. If you don’t want to go anywhere just hit play below!
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.
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.
You might not have heard of Blu:sens yet, but the chances are that you soon will. Blu:sens is the top-selling MP3 player manufacturer in Spain, and it now has its eye on the large UK portable player market.
First up to be released in the UK is the Blu:sens KEIA, a dinky sporty player for people after music on a shoestring. Comparisions to the Apple Shuffle are obvious.
Similarly to the Shuffle, the KEIA features a clip so you can attach the player to whatever funky clothing you happen to be wearing. Also included is a standard mini-USB port, a microphone, and a tiny 3-tone LCD display. Hidden somewhere inside is a radio tuner. The casing is a some what tacky-looking plastic, available in a range of colours. Storage capacity on this model is 2GB.
Transfering music to the KEIA is simple enough, a case of dragging and dropping MP3s into the external drive that appears when you plug the KEIA into your computer’s USB port. Mac users should note that M4A files aren’t supported.
When first turned on, the KEIA presents you with music symbol. Pressing left or right presents symbols for the radio, microphone, the folder system, and settings. Pressing the middle button selects the option you’ve highlighted. Working out how to use the KEIA wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, and I’m still not quite sure how to pause it! However, I didn’t have access to a manual for this review, which may well have helped. Once I’d learned how to use it the interface was reasonably efficient.
One big advantage the KEIA has over the Shuffle is the presence of a screen. The KEIA’s OLED screen certainly isn’t going to set the world alight, with a display reminicent of a 90s arcade game, but there’s no denying that it does help a lot with navigating your way around your playlist.
Music quality seemed reasonable, although I wasn’t able to test the headphones that will be supplied with the KEIA. The radio tuner seemed to lack power indoors, with static interupting the signal if I moved across the room.
In summary, the KEIA appeals to the trade-off that dominates most of the MP3 player market today: do you go with Apple, who offer style and useability, or with the competitiors, who offer more features (here radio, a mic and primative screen) and flexibilty (without tying you into iTunes) at a cheaper price?
Apart from the Shuffle, the KEIA is competing with models from Philips and Creative. At £30 from Amazon, the KEIA will face some stiff compeition as it lands on British shores.
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)?
This week’s Gadget Watch is all about trees. Metal trees, that is. This fab looking sculpture will not only be an interesting addition to any room but it will also be your one stop shop (or tree), for charging MP3s, mobile phones, cameras and other small, battery operated devices.
How? Well, each of the leaves is actually a solar panel. These 54 solar panels or photovoltaic panels, to be exact, will store energy that can then be used to charge you favourite gadgets.
Pretty different, hey? Each piece is also movable so you can make it even more original by creating your own shapes.
A fun and great looking product that will save you money and give you that nice warm feeling to know that you’re helping to save the planet too.
It was designed by French genius, Vivien Muller and is not yet on the market but we’ll keep you posted.
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
If you’re a girl who needs everything to be pink; if you’re a guy who’s struggling to find a gift for his girlfriend or if you’re a man who just likes a bit of pink, it turns out you’re not alone.
Research by consumer review website, Reevoo.com, looked at how popular pink products were across its own website and those of its partners. Websites such as Dixons, The Carphone Warehouse and Currys were analysed to find out how pink products shaped up compared to their duller counterparts.
In the last 3 months, the pink JVC Everio GZ-MG330 camcorder has been one of the most popular models on the market and one of the most popular pink products. One in twenty camcorder visits has been to look at this pink camcorder.
To continue the success of pink products, the pink Motorola ROKR U9 has been a great example to all pink mobile phones. Out of all 22,000 products, from TVs to MP3 players and washing machines, it was the 21st most popular product.
A Decide What to Buy favourite, Hetty, also did well to be the 16th most popular vacuum cleaner. There are over 375 vacuums so Hetty did pretty well.
You can see the top 10 pink products below, how popular they are in their categories and how popular they are compared to all the other 22,000 products.
Click on table above to enlarge.
To celebrate all this pinkness, Reevoo has created a page full of the pinkest products around. Fom pink MP3 players and pink laptops to pink irons and pink beanbags, they’re all there. You can find them at www.reevoo.com/pink.
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