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Fake review stories have been all over the news in the past few months. Whether it’s manufacturers and service providers posting fake reviews about their products to try and increase sales or even the hilarious reviews of things like wolf t-shirts on Amazon. Funny or not, these reviews are not genuine and pose a threat to consumers who could be misled into wasting money on goods and services that don’t deliver.

To see how much of a problem this really is, Reevoo teamed up with YouGov to see how many people were even aware that companies write fake reivews of their products and services online and how many people have actually been misled by fake reveiws.

41% of UK shoppers do not realise that fake reviews even exist online. This moves up to 47% of older shoppers in the 45-54 year group. That’s nearly half of older shoppers who are at risk of falling for fake reviews and wasting their money. In the run-up to Christmas, this could mean bad news for millions of shoppers.

Almost one in 10 people have been misled by a fake positive review and wasted their money on something that didn’t live up to how it was reviewed online.

For more information on the research, check out our Reevoo press page.

Reevoo was born out of our founders’ quest for providing shoppers with real reviews but we think now is the time to really shout about it and try and help shoppers as best we can, all over the Internet.

Even though there are now laws against falsely representing oneself as a consumer (The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008), the Internet is impossible to completely police so we’ve drawn upon the powers of social networking to try to get shoppers to help others by reporting fake reviews.

Join our Shoppers Against Fake e-Reviews (SAFER) page on facebook and find out how to spot fake reviews, report your findings and make online shopping a better experience for everybody.

Say no to fake reviews – shop SAFER

How Reevoo makes sure all reviews are 100% real - from people who have definitely bought the product.

Family Photos

Be Natural!

Children only sit down to eat food and even then you could do with some superglue on the chair, so don’t make them sit down or do anything they wouldn’t want to. The best way to capture children is in their element – playing! For that reason have some props like bubbles or a favourite football at the ready

The kids Are in Charge!

If you want to capture your child’s attention you’re going to have to let them take you down a peg or two. There are some great perspective tricks you can use to do this such as getting the adult to stand in the distance and lining up your perspective with the horizon so that the child looks bigger than the parent. After one attempt at this, be sure to show the kids the result and they’ll be churning out hundreds of similar ideas begging you to photo them holding a tiny version of Mum in their hands.

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   The above photo is courtesy of Bazoomba_lol on Flickr.

The Whole Family!

Photographs of the whole family this summer will look best when you’re out and about. That’s great because it means you don’t have to worry about lighting. With this in mind use your portrait mode setting on your camera and turn your flash off. Without flash you can really capture the lighting of your surroundings. Take a slightly wider photo so that the location your family are in is obvious. That will make for a much more memorable photo when you look back in years to come.

Once you’ve managed to herd your whole family together, the adults have stopped gossiping and the kids have paused, but briefly, from their mud-slinging competition, you’ve got to make the most of it. Have a joke lined up to make everyone relax. If it is a light hearted comment about someone in the group it will be great as you can press the trigger when everyone looks round and laughs together. Much better than a static ‘all eyes forward’ photo that doesn’t tell much of a story!

About Turn!

Usually when you think of photographing the family you think of what they look like, their faces. Try turning this idea around, literally. Instead of photographing them straight on get them looking at something. If your troopers have spent the day fortifying your beach position with sand castles and moats, make their creation your subject and photograph over your children’s shoulders as they look at what they’ve made. Photographing like this will capture their emotion more than just a normal forward facing head shot and helps to give context which, once again, means the pics will be far more fun to look back at in the future.

The Right Stuff!

Tripod: Almost all digital cameras have a built in timer setting. With a handy Gorilla Pod you can rest your camera, put it on a timer and get yourself in the family portrait too.

Camera: All modern digital compact and SLR cameras will handle portrait photography well in brightly lit situations. Some cameras, such as the Fujifilm Finepix Z10FD come with face detection which help to focus quickly on a tricky subject such as an active child.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 is a great compact choice. It has HD video recording for when one frame is not enough to capture all the action. It also has a 25mm wide angle lens, great for capturing the whole family, and a powerful 12x optical zoom making it just as versatile for distant photos.

The Sony Alpha 350 is a brilliant entry level DSLR, and with the 18-70mm lens provided it’s great for documenting a whole family holiday. It helps that it’s extremely well priced too!

A full range of cameras with Face Recognition can be viewed here

Being a Nikon user through and through I was thoroughly excited to get to play with a Canon camera, especially one with such high reviews. It has an average score of 9.3 and a staggering 9.7 for both features and build quality.

Colin, whose review was voted most helpful by Reevoo users, had this to say on the Canon Powershot G10:

Positive: The G10 is extremely versatile for a compact and has many features found on more expensive, larger DSLR’s. As a hill walker, I was attracted to the reported image quality, raw recording and the size/weight compared to a DSLR and have been delighted by the results.

Negative: Pricey for a compact, but you do get what you pay for. The multitude of features and recording options may be daunting to the novice, however, to buy this camera and only use it in “point and shoot” mode would be a crime.

I think Colin’s last point is extremely important. This camera is expensive for its type but is worth every penny, but only if you are prepared to make the most of it. With deep menu systems and a multitude of different settings it has a lot to offer. The navigation is extremely well laid out and intuitive so don’t shy away if you are a novice. Just think about buying it if you want to really progress your photography skills.

Images are sharp at low ISO ratings which means that in good lighting situations you can get photo quality comparable to higher end DSLR cameras such as the Nikon D300. However, when you start to work in low light the quality quickly degrades. This is not something uncommon in compact cameras and is to be expected but I was hoping for more from this little battle tank.

The screen is really bright, clear and easy to use but I was a little disappointed to find that when shooting in RAW format (the best possible quality and a rarity in compact cameras) I was not able to zoom in afterwards at full quality. This is annoying, especially when you are taking photos in tricky situations and want to make sure you’ve got the focus and shutter speed right.

There are many reviews of the G10, especially on its Reevoo.com product page, so I wanted to focus my attention particularly on one ingenious aspect, the panoramic mode.

The Canon Powershot G10 has a panoramic setting that makes taking impressive wide angle photos a doddle. Switch to the panoramic mode and take your first photo. After having done that the camera will display it on its big 3″ screen as well as a live feed of what you’re pointing your camera at. This allows you to move your camera and line up the next shot in the scene where your previous shot finished. You can take as many shots as you want and then use the provided Canon software to stitch them together. Providing you’ve taken your photos well, which is made even easier by an auto exposure compensation as the light changes across your panorama, the stitching software works a treat and produces fantastic results.

Not being one to stick to the rules I thought I’d be clever and do a vertical panoramic. For a first attempt I was quite impressed with how easy it was to do. The only complaint I have is that too much of the screen was taken up by the overlaid previous image so I felt I was taking 10 photos where I could have taken 5. I think with more experimentation I could probably have found a way around that problem.

The Canon G10 looks like it means business, feels like it means business and for the most part acts like it means business. It’s well weighted, sturdily designed, has a great menu system and well positioned button lay out. Its optical zoom function is deceptively good and at 14.7 megapixels a digital crop zoom is definitely not out of the question on any shots taken below ISO 400. After ISO 400 noise is bad but the camera has a much welcomed flash hotshoe built in meaning you can get really professional photos even in low light if you are happy to buy an accompanying flash such as the Canon 430 EX II.

Overall if you are looking for an innovative and sturdy compact with much of the power of a Digital SLR but none of the backpack space then the Canon G10 is worth considering. Just make sure if you’re willing to spend the money that you are going to make the most of it and delve deep into its menu system and plethora of settings.

If you want to look at reviews for Nikon’s answer to the Canon G10, go to Reevoo and look at the Nikon P6000.

Reviews, product information and price comparison on the Canon Powershot G10 can be read Here

A summary of views from around the web of the Pioneer BDP-LX70.

CNet
Pros: outstanding picture quality, 1080p/24fps output, upscales non-1080p content
Cons: not HDMI 1.3, won’t play some discs with Blu-ray Profile 1.1 features

On the one hand, the LX70 deserves to have praise showered upon it for showing just what exceptional picture quality Blu-ray is capable of producing. But on the other, it’s practically impossible to recommend that anyone but the filthy rich consider spending the best part of a grand on it. It not only caters for just one side in an unresolved format war, but it’s also about to go out of date.

Read the review.

Trusted Reviews
Pros: Performance, LAN connection for viewing content from a computer
Cons: not HDMI 1.3, won’t play some discs with Blu-ray Profile 1.1 features, expensive

Overall the LX70 makes us sad. For while a big part of us wants to jump up and down and shout from the rooftops about how unprecedentedly great its HD pictures are, another big part of us tragically has no choice but to accept that unless you’ve got enough money to upgrade from this deck in just a few months time, when more fully specified Blu-ray models start to come along, you’re probably better off leaving the LX70 on the shelf.

Read the review.

TechRadar
Pros: Best performing Blu-ray player at time of release, 1080p/24fps output
Cons: Not cheap, not HDMI 1.3, won’t play some discs with Blu-ray Profile 1.1 features, expensive

In one sense £1,000 doesn’t seem a crazy amount to pay for the best-performing Blu-ray player yet - especially if you already own a recent Pioneer plasma TV and so can get the most from its 1080/24p talents. But it does seem a lot for a deck that lacks an HDMI 1.3 jack and won’t, therefore, play all the features of future Blu-ray discs.

Read the review.

HDTVorg
Pros: Excellent HD performance, build quality
Cons: Ordinary DVD performance, price

Combined with one of Pioneer’s plasma flat panel offerings, the BDP-LX70 is a compelling option, and possibly the finest HD picture you will achieve. The BDB-LX70 is a good player in any context, but at around £1000 it is just too expensive.

Read the review.

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.

Sony’s X4500 and W4500 series TVs were first announced back in August, and have been on general sale for a month or so now. I thought it would be good to round up thoughts from around the web on how these models shape up. If these are helpful I’ll turn this into a regular series of posts.

First up, the W4500 series.

My summary of the reviews:

Pros: SD picture, sound quality, contrast, motion handling, design

Cons: Time to download EPG settings, possible clouding issues, value for money

Definately a mixed bag, as you’ll see below!

What HiFi: Sound and Vision:

The 40W4500 is one of the finest TVs we’ve seen all year. And, if you want a screen that can make the most of high-definition content, you’d be bonkers not to give it an audition.
Read more

Bobby J on AV Forums:

The KDL-40W4500 is absolutely brilliant - it produces a clarity of picture in SD digital which is quite mind blowing whilst in analogue the picture is very acceptable - I now can’t wait for my 1st HD viewing.
Read more

BruceWayneIII on AV Forums:

Got my 46″ W4500. Watched a Blu-ray yesterday - Kung-fu Hustle - and although the movie’s image quality isn’t the best Blu-ray has to offer, I was however very, very impressed by the TV’s way of handling it. Deep black, no judder, smooth and colorful. Just excellent.
Read more

Trusted Reviews:

After the ‘warning shot’ of the 52W4500, the smaller 46W4500 seems to suffer even more distractingly with the picture-ruining light pooling problem that troubled us on the large model. Seriously, the problem is so aggravating this time out that it’s hard to believe these TVs are getting through Sony’s quality control systems. In fact, if I hadn’t now seen the problem on two separate W4500 TVs I might have suspected the 46W4500 was faulty.

Basically, someone at Sony needs to get to the bottom of what’s gone wrong with the W4500 range fast, or the brand’s already dwindling profits this year could be in for even more of a hammering.
Read more

I was having a look today at the top TVs on Reevoo for design - and it might be a slight suprise who takes the number 1 spot for the most beautiful TV…

We took a look at the top 100 TVs in 2008 as rated by genuine purchasers, and took a look in the monster Reevoo database to find out which set scored most highly for design. Although Samsung is the manufacturer with the overall top rating for design, they weren’t responsible for the best designed TV.

Nor were Sony, another classic make with a good eye for design.

In fact, coming top of the list with a massive 9.9 for design was the Toshiba 46XF355D.

This model will be well-known to many, as it features a distinctively thin bezel that seems to be responsible for most of the rave reviews:

I chose this product because of its sleek unobtrusive picture frame design. Most others have a huge amount of frame around the screen which spoils the whole look. It enhances the wall in new room we have just had built.

Apart from picture and sound performance which are top class, the bezel, which is claimed to be the thinest in the world, makes a tremendous difference to the size and appearance of the set e.g. my son has a Pioneer 40” which is actually wider than my 46” Toshiba.

this lcd tv does not look too big dispite the great 46″ screen , this is due to the fantastic slimline pictureframe which toshiba get top marks for !!!!!!

I think that send a pretty clear message to manufacturers looking to get amongst it in the design stakes: thin is in.

If you’re not convinced, you can read more reviews of the Toshiba 46XF355D over on Reevoo.

And it seems like the design eggheads agree with shoppers: the Toshiba was given an iF Product Design Award by German design gurus International Forum Design.

Do you agree? Would the 46XF335 be sitting pretty at the top of your design tree?