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

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)?

For gadgety types - A Wind-Up Torch with Mobile Phone Charger (£7) or some travel speakers for your iPod (£9).

And for the boy that has everything? - Give them this Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock (£24) - guaranteed to wake the laziest of teenagers.

All done. Pretty painless, just as shopping should be.

If you’re purchasing online, follow our top tips for online shopping this Christmas.

For all you original iPhone owners who’ve been fed up with your battery life, this new product may ease the pain a little. The iPow, although it sounds like something out of a Batman comic, is actually an external battery case for the original iPhone (3G version on the way).

It can be charged up at the same time as your iPhone and will apparently double the battery life. It also provides a leather top which closes with a magnetic clasp and mini stereo speakers which are twice as loud as the ones on the iPhone.

It’s not the prettiest of things and in my opinion, makes the iPhone look a little clumpy. It’ll also add 98 grams to your handbag or pocket but if you’re after more juice, then I suppose it’s not so bad. You can pick one up at twistedcarbon for £49.99.

This week’s gadget watch is a gadgets-for-guys special. Three great gadgets that any self-respecting man should have…

For anyone who’s ever had the misfortune of looking forward to a nice cold beer, only to find that it’s been swiped out of the fridge by a thieving housemate, this is definitely the gadget for you. The Beer Burglar Alarm will stop crooks in their tracks with either a stern voice alerting them to “Keepa da hands off ma beer” or an intolerable siren that will be sure to send them packing. Spend a fiver, save a beer…

Next up is the Pyramat S2500W Sound Rocker chair. It’s a gaming chair with a difference. For serious gaming sessions, its contours and poly-stretch fabric will ensure comfort throughout and you’ll also feel all of the action through it with its pulsing and vibrating speakers.

It connects up to MP3 players or any system with an audio output and acts as a super surround-sound device with its ARX high performance speakers. So you can enjoy games, music and even movies in this chair of entertainment. It will also fold up for easy storage. You can pick one up for around £100 and read reviews here.

And finally, the Sharp Shootin’ remote. If there’s ever a fight in your living room over watching match of the day or Sex and the City, this will solve the problem and ensure you never have to sit through a girlie programme again.

The Sharp Shootin’ remote will learn all of your TV remote’s actions and makes changing channels much more fun. It even has sound effects and comes with a Sheriff’s badge. For £7, you can’t go wrong.

We love our gadgets but who knew that we were the second biggest gadget lovers in the world? Second only to the US, the UK spends the most on gadgets.

We spend a massive $44.3bn. That’s £24bn or €31bn, making us the biggest gadget buyers in Europe.

The survey was conducted by Euromonitor and covers gadget spending throughout 2007 but unfortunately doesn’t tell us what kind of gadgets each county invest in.

Here’s the top five gadget-buying countries from the survey:

1. US - £91.6bn / $162bn
2. UK - £24bn / $44.3bn
3. Germany - £17bn / $30bn
4. France - £15.3bn / $27.1bn
5. Russia - £13.9bn / $24.5bn

If you don’t feel you’ve lived up to this title, perhaps you should check out all of the other gadgets we’ve written about on Decide What to Buy or you can check out some gadget reviews.

Those shoppers over on Reevoo have been making us chuckle this week…

"
when freshly charged it is bursting with energy like a frisky mare" Picooz Insecta Night R/C Helicopter

"Spent the best part of a month staring at the screen blankly, being totally lost without the "Start Bar" before i finally cracked and spent 10 mins reading the built in help…And poke me sideways with a large mucky stick if its not all starting to make very pure and perfect sense. Apple I-MAC 24

"I have never been attracted to Yoga until I started Wii Fit…I like the personal trainers, (especially when a handsome young man tells me my "form is fantastic"!!!) Nintendo Wii Fit

"
Powerful Blow. Weak suck" Black & Decker GW370 Electric Blower Vac

"
dosn’t like to take ferries" Garmin Nuvi 250

Remember when we told you all about Near Field Communications (NFC) and how it was going to transform the way we do things?

Well the Japanese are now using it to promote movies through movie posters. Japanese mobile carrier, SoftBank has joined forces with Gemalto and NTT Data to develop the "smart poster system".

Information will now be able to be transmitted to mobile users through the posters. It’ll work a bit like our Oyster Cards in London and will send people trailers, screenshots and other free content.  Mobile users just need to stand near the poster and have a credit card application installed on their NFC-enabled phones.

Previously, Japanese mobile users could get information about products and services by using 2D barcodes. However, this new move will enable content to be sent without any effort whatsoever.

The possibilities are endless with this technology. People could receive taxi numbers just by stepping into a bar, supermarkets could push out special offers as you walk past them or you could get song lyrics by walking into a gig. I’m sure you can think of lots more exciting things too…

[Omio]

Did you ever think that the words housework and fun could coexist in the same sentence? No? Well this genius invention is about to rock your world…or just clean it. And you won’t have to lift a finger!! What is it? It’s a vacuum cleaning robot. The answer to all your hovering prayers. The iRobot Roomba, to use its technical name, can be programmed to vacuum even while you’re asleep. You can pre-set it to work seven different times a week to make sure that all of the hoovering is done at a convenient time for you. It will vacuum the whole floor, including under furniture and along walls and will automatically adjust from carpets to hard floors and back again.

Roomba can clean four rooms on one charge and when it feels it’s running low, it will automatically return itself back to its self-charging Home Base to dock and recharge.

Over on Reevoo, you can read the vacuum cleaner robot reviews. Lisa from Morden says “I programme it to start cleaning at 6am every morning and when i come downstairs my floors which are a combination of laminate floor with rugs and kitchen and bathroom lino are spotless, dust and hair and crumb free!!”.

iRobot Roombas retail at (now try saying that after a few!) £221 in the UK or $399 in the US. If this is all a bit too much excitment in one household appliance, you can find a load of other, rather more boring vacuum cleaners here.

There’s no need to worry about being music-less when you’re on the move again. These solar powered headphones with FM radio will run for up to 20 hours when fully charged. And one hour of sunlight will provide one-three hours listening. There are no wires to get in the way of walking, running, or whatever you fancy doing. Just music. The radio has a powerful internal antenna and extended base so you can keep everyone else entertained at the same time – sure to be popular on trains. And it recharges itself even when you’re listening to it, as long as you’re in the company of sun.

Heads big and small will love these headphones because the adjustable headband will accommodate all sizes. Plus you’re doing your bit for the environment at the same time. You can pick up a pair here for £19.95 with global shipping.

Not content with simple maps, Nokia have teamed up with Lonely Planet to create a mobile tourist map extravaganza.  Adventurers can download city guides to their mobiles for over 100 hot tourist destinations so that the “where shall we eat” question need never be uttered again. Among the restaurant recommendations, you can also find where to sleep, shop, visit and boogie. No more heavy books and highlighters to pack in with your toothbrush and sleeping bags.

There was mutual love-giving from Nokia and Lonely Planet with Maximilian Schierstadt, head of media partnerships, at Nokia context-based services, saying: "Lonely Planet is a well-known brand amongst travellers and stands for adventure and editorial independence.

"We are very excited to offer their expert local recommendations and itineraries to our Nokia Maps consumers, which will allow Nokia to continue to innovate and enable compelling location-aware experiences."

Stephen Palmer, CEO of Lonely Planet Publications, added: "This is a genuinely transformational deal, which makes Lonely Planet content available regardless of time or place… Together with Nokia we will help more travellers connect profoundly with their world, everyday."

You can get your hands on the city guides from today. They’re £5.99 / USD 13.99 / EUR 7.99, and can be found in the Guides section in the Extras menu. For more info, head to Nokia.

It seems that the iPhone has won even more fans in the shape of HSBC chiefs. The powers that be over at the global bank have decided to look into using iPhones as their executive weapon of choice. That would mean replacing their fleet of around 300,000 BlackBerry devices.

Now that the new iPhone 3G is compatible with Microsoft Exchange servers, it has become more attractive to business as well as consumers. Its larger screen and applications geared towards trading and accounting are adding to the iPhones capability to become a serious business competitor.

News from the BlackBerry camp is that the BlackBerry Thunder, equipped with a large touch screen, will be released later this year to go into direct competition with the iPhone. Watch this space for a smartphone stand-off…