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

First we brought you vouchers integrated into the price comparison tables, now we’ve gone one better.

We’re very happy to have the first Reevoo-exclusive voucher code - save 5% on everything at Advanced MP3 Players, like this Sony X series walkman mp3 player.  You’ll find this discount all over Reevoo and at the bottom of our Advanced MP3 Player voucher page.

We’re hard at working looking for more exclusive discount codes for Reevoo.com visitors, so watch this space.

Georgie Law is currently Reevoo’s Sales and Marketing intern. This week she’s taken some time away from her top-quality interning to interview Richard Anson, Reevoo’s CEO and co-founder, on the origins of Reevoo, his own background and what makes him tick.

Georgie: What was your first ever job?

Richard: Aside from the usual school holiday weeks here and there, my first job was selling burglar alarms in Hong Kong for six months during a gap year between school and university. It was a mixture of door-to-door selling and cold-calling from the Yellow Pages.

G: What sort of training did you get?

R: There was no training, no preparation. I was handed a telephone directory and told to get on with it.

G: Straight in at the deep end! What do you think the experience taught you?

(more…)

3D video is a hallmark of futuristic technology for any film set in years to come - remember Jaws 19 3D in Back to the Future II? - but recent announcements by Sky, Channel 4 and TV makers mean that 3D TV in your living room could be a reality in a matter of months.

This week Channel 4 revealed they’re going to broadcast a week of 3D TV this autumn. The mini-season will include a magic show by Derren Brown, 3D movies, 3D footage of the Queen’s coronation shot back in 1953 and (because this is Channel 4 after all) a clip show of the “100 greatest 3D TV moments”. Sky recently announced their plans to broadcast a 3D channel next year, concentrating on live music coverage, films and sport. Sky has already recorded 3D footage of Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, sprinting 150m earlier this year.

In fact, Sky has already experimented with 3D broadcasting: in December last year it was the first UK TV company to broadcast in 3D to a home television, and this April it also acheived another first, broadcasting the first live event in 3D.  3D films are already available on Blu-Ray, coming with a handful of the familiar cardboard 3D glasses.

3D signal is all very well, but it would be absolutely no good to home viewers without the equipment to display it. Sky is at the forefront in the hardware arena too: Sky+ HD set-top boxes are already 3D ready.

3D-ready TVs have been a niche market in previous years - and a struggling one, as manufacturers have tried and (largely) failed to acheive the nirvana of 3D TV: a TV that displays 3D signal without needing viewers to wear those silly glasses. Channel 4’s one-off 3D series will require viewers to wear these glasses, which will be made available at Sainsburys stores across the country.

There have already been 3D TVs on the market: anyone who bought a Samsung plasma PS50A476 a couple of years ago already owns one. Philips mothballed its 3D TV division this year but Panasonic, LG, Sony and Samsung all had 3D TVs to show off at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (a big electronics industry event in Las Vegas). No word yet on exactly how soon these could be available in the UK, but Sky seems to be banking on there being enough viewers with 3D-ready TVs in 2010 to make its 3D broadcasts worthwhile.

Industry pundits have predicted 3D becoming widespread in home entertainment set-ups in as little as 3 years. 3D broadcast and technology is likely to be no more than a novelty for years to come, so don’t despair if you’ve just upgraded to an Full HD model.

If you can’t wait this long, you’re in luck. The next 12 months sees the release of the biggest crop of 3D films ever, pretty much one from every studio. Everything from a family-friendly 3D sequel to Ice Age, to the much-hyped sci-fi blockbuster Avatar will be popping out of IMAX screens across the country.

For those of a more Eeyore-ish disposition, T3 magazine is happy to remind us of past 3D blunders.

Images:
3D glasses: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/ / CC BY 2.0

Our friends over at Sharp are undergoing a mammoth task in aid of the Prostate Cancer Charity. For the next year, the folks at Sharp HQ will be putting themselves through various challenges such as The Great Wall of China Challenge, the 2010 London to Paris bike ride and the huge Race Across America (RAAM), to raise awareness and money for the charity. The RAAM itself is an arduous 7 day ride from the west coast of America to the east, covering 3014 miles, at an average of 430 miles a day. The team, including Sharp Managing Director Paul Molyneux (below), will ride for 24 hours a day, passing through 14 states and climbing for a total of over 100,000 feet.

Prostate Cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. 35,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in the UK and one man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK. There’s not enough awareness about this illness. People need to spread the word so that everyone knows what to look out for and can hopefully get treated before it’s too late. For more information the disease, symptoms and treatment, take a look at The Prostate Cancer Charity website.

You can get involved by helping Sharp towards their goal of £50,000 by June 2010. Either donate what you can at www.justgiving.com/sharpUK, or, you can join Sharp at some of the challenges throughout the year. Check out their events diary to find out more.

Read more about Sharp4Prostate

Freesat - the free to air satellite TV service that allows you to get HD programming without shelling out for Sky’s premium service - has gained a small but significant following.

If you’ve been investigating getting Freesat (you’ll need a dish), then you might be interested to know that two of the big names in personal video recorders, Panasonic and Humax, are preparing to release hard drive recorders with Freesat tuners installed.

Humax have recently annouced their forthcoming FOXSAT-HDR which will feature twin Freesat tuners alongside a stonking 320GB of hard drive storage. The PVR will be compatible with the new Freesat+ recording platform, with both due for release next month. More information is available from Hummy.org.uk

Meanwhile, it looks like Panasonic won’t be far behind. The folks at PVR Junction have done some digging, and it looks like Pana will be releasing a Blu-ray recorder and Freesat PVR combo, the Panasonic DMR-BW500, sometime in 2009.

But I think it will take a little more than Freesat PVRs, or even Freesat+, to get Freesat competing seriously in the Sky/Freeview dual - dish installation needs to be cheap and really pushed by someone who cares.

In the meantime, you can check out the latest PVR reviews at Reevoo.

In light of the credit crunch, you would have thought that we’d all be being a little more careful over our spending but new research from Reevoo has found that we not only still spend a fortune on electrical devices but we are also still shopping for middle of the range brands, rather than cheaper ones. But it must be said that we are at least reading more reviews so that we can be sure we’re spending our money on worthy goods.

The poll of 3,000 households revealed that 77% of Brits are now opting to read customer reviews before selecting items such as televisions, washing machines and dishwashers. And 69% of people are taking more time over choosing electrical products.” – very wise.

The research also showed that over our working lives, we will spend a massive £48,940 on electrical devices alone. And what is the item we’ll have to replace the most? The humble kettle. We will buy one every three years, costing us £1000 over our lifetime.

But that’s small fry compared to the amount we’ll spend on PCs, TVs and ovens over the years. The table below shows how often we’ll replace items and how much they’re likely to cost us.

Spending patterns differ in different regions. Click on the map below to see how much you’re likely to spend in your area:

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.

And here are the results:

Home Entertainment:
1. Toshiba 46XF355D (television)
2. Samsung LE37A656 (television)
3. Toshiba 40XF355D (television)
4. Samsung LE37A436T (television)
5. Samsung YP-K3JAB 4GB (MP3 player)
6. Samsung YP-P2JCB 8GB (MP3 player)
7. LG 32LG5010 (television)
8. Sony Bravia KDL32W4000U (television)
9. Pioneer Kuro PDP5080XD (television)
10. Samsung PS50Q97HD (television)

Mobile Phones:
1. Samsung F480 Tocco
2. Apple iPhone 8/16GB
3. Nokia 8600
4. Motorola PEBL U6
5. Samsung P520 Armani
6. Motorola W375
7. Sony Ericsson W890i
8. Sony Ericsson T650i
9. Motorola ROKR U9
10. Nokia 7500

White Goods:
1. Bosch KTR18P20GB (fridge)
2. Miele GT 316 ES (freezer)
3. AEG-Electrolux Santo 75348KG (fridge-freezer)
4. Baumatic BF207SLM (fridge-freezer)
5. Kenwood GT/AL17 (microwave)
6. Samsung RSA1DHMH (fridge-freezer)
7. Daewoo ERF336MB (fridge-freezer)
8. Samsung RSH1DTMH (fridge-freezer)
9. Miele KFN 8762 SDed (fridge-freezer)
10. Samsung RSH1DBBP (fridge-freezer)

Computing:
1. Apple MacBook MB403
2. SONY Vaio VGN CR31Z
3. HP DV9646EM RECON
4. ACER M1100
5. Dell Inspiron 1525
6. HP DV9702EA
7. Compaq Presario V6642EM
8. HP V6630EM
9. HP DV9705
10. Toshiba Equium P200-1ED

Home & DIY:
1. Numatic Hetty (vacuum cleaner)
2. Neff B1442NO (oven)
3. Neff B1442S0 (oven)
4. Neff U1322N1GB (oven)
5. Electrolux Insight EKT6045X (oven)
6. Bosch HBN1315 (oven)
7. Prestige 47433 (steam cooker)
8. Bosch HBN131251 (oven)
9. Aeg B41014 (oven)
10. Neff B1422 (oven)

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

At the moment, projectors are a pretty niche product. There’s a certain appeal to being able turn your living room into a drive in movie theatre, and to pull a dramatic image out of the bag without having a huge TV dominating the room. But to date only big screen junkies seem to be considering them as an option - probably due to an expected £1000 price tag.

I wonder if that’s about to change with In Focus’s latest model, the InFocus X9, an HD-Ready projector that will be available for less than £500:

The new In Focus joins the Optoma EP738 as HD-ready projectors to consider in the sub £600 price range.

There’s no doubt that having a projector that can compete on price with anything larger than a 32″ TV (average cost £465) will be pretty significant, but there’s still a way for these projectors to go before they are competing with standard flatscreens in terms of specs: both have only a single, 1.3, HDMI port - a way below the current minimum of 2 2.0 HDMIs.

And then there’s the fuzzier question of whether people actually like using projectors to watch normal TV, not just films.

Interesting times.

Rumours have been flying around about a Google Android mobile for ages now but it seems that it may all come true sooner than we thought. Earlier today, Reuters leaked a story that Google and T-Mobile are on the verge of releasing the first mobile equipped with Android. The sleuths believe that we could hear news as early as the 23rd September.

Much to my disappointment, the rumours suggest that it will run on an HTC handset – not the most exciting of prospects but we know the technology will be worth it. Let’s hope the handset’s not too clunky.

Just in case you haven’t heard about Google Android, it’s an open source operating system and software platform for mobiles. Among other cool things, it will allow you to combine applications – so you could be looking up a contacts address and need to find where they live. With a simple click, you will be taken to the map application which will show you exactly where to go. You can also quickly switch your view to ‘street level’ so that you can see what the place looks like too. Very handy.

There’s also text chat that shows up at the top of the screen whenever you get a ‘notification’.

There are loads more features and functions – check out this video to see Google founder Sergy Brin and Steve Horowitz talking about Android with a demo:

You can also find out more on the Android website.