Decide what to buy: the Reevoo.com blog

It’s summer time! Well, it’s a little hotter than usual. Anyway, it’s definitely time for us to be reaching for our cameras and taking snaps of our holidays, family and friends. If your camera is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, chances are you’ll be looking around for a new one. We’ve taken all the stress out of the process by having a look at what consumers think about the cameras they’ve bought. After someone buys a camera through one of Reevoo’s partners, they get an email questionnaire to fill out about the product. They’re asked all about image quality, features, ease of use and so on.

We’ve taken these scores and comments and compiled a list of the top 10 compact digital cameras, as rated by consumers who have bought them.

So here are the results:
1.    Sony Cybershot DSC-W130
2.    Casio Exilim EX-Z1200
3.    Sony Cybershot DSC-T9
4.    Sony Cybershot DSC-T2
5.    Fujifilm Finepix F100
6.    Kodak Easyshare M1033
7.    Canon Digital IXUS 80IS
8.    Kodak Easyshare Z650
9.    Casio Exilim EX-S600
10.  Canon PowerShot A640

And here are the scores for all the categories:

Top of the bunch is the Sony Cybershot DSC-W130. It has great reviews and at £114, it seems to be the best all-rounder for the money. But if you want to pay a little extra, the Casio Exilim EX-Z1200 has top scores for both image and build quality and its 2.8 inch screen did prove very popular with owners.

The most expensive camera was the Kodak Easyshare Z650. Consumers loved that it looked like an SLR but they did say that the lens cap pops off all the time.

Every camera has good and bad points so have a look at the scores and then check out the reviews to see if you can find the best camera for you. You can find digital compact camera reviews, SLR reviews or simply just browse through all of the camera reviews over on Reevoo.

Here’s a gadget for those of you that need a little help in the kitchen department. This digital pasta timer spoon will make sure you produce a perfect plate of pasta, every time. You key in the type of pasta you’re cooking - from one of its 11 pre-programmed varieties - the weight of the pasta you’re cooking and even your preferred texture. An alarm will sound when your pasta is coked and then Bob’s your uncle - Perfect pasta! (well, in this case, Roberto’s your uncle, if we’re being authentically Italian ‘n all).

You can pick one up for £16.20 from Premier Cutlery, who ship globally.

If you think this is a cool gadget, you can vote for it in Coolest Gadgets’ weekly competition.

It’s Sony to the rescue this week. It seems Sony Ericsson need a little help in the shape of the Bravia brand. Much like branding previous handsets with the Walkman and Cybershot labels, Sony Ericsson hope that Bravia handsets will have the same success.

However, rumour has it that Sony chiefs fear they may have made a big mistake by letting the brand go so quickly - especially as the new Sony PSP phone is in the pipeline.

Whether it was a mistake or not, only time will tell but it’s a little too late for regrets. Bravia handsets have already been launched in Japan and will soon be available in India where the exponential growth in mobile usage will be favourable for the brand.

[techradar]

It seems us Brits are baffled by modern technology that was sent to help us. According to a poll of 2000 people (by the folks over at Reevoo), mobile phones, SatNavs and even TV remotes send us into panic and rage when we can’t figure out how to use them. In fact, a whopping 32% of people admitted to throwing a complicated gadget across the room when they couldn’t work out what to do with it.

Digital cameras were voted the most complicated with SatNavs and mobile phones close behind. Interestingly though, people are obviously happy to live in confusion with their SatNavs, as only 6% actually read the manuals!

More alarming is that the same numbers of us are as baffled by our laptops as our ovens (the nation’s health crisis suddenly makes sense now…). And people are more inclined to read their TV manual over their oven’s. Hmmmm.

And even when a device goes wrong, more than a quarter will try to fix it themselves, or even buy a new one, instead of turning to the instructions.

Here’s the full list of things we find complicated:

1.    Digital Camera - 26%
2.    GPS navigation    - 21%
3.    Mobile phone - 19%
4.    Washing machine - 18%
5.    Camcorder - 17%
6.    DVD player - 15%
7.    Games console - 13%
8.    TV remote control - 13%
9.    MP3 player - 13%
10.    Microwave - 12%
11.    Computer - 12%
12.    Digital photo frame - 12%
13.    Scanner - 11%
14.    Laptop - 10%
15.    Television - 10%
16.    Modem - 10%
17.    Oven - 9%
18.    Printer - 9%
19.    Answer machine - 9%
20.    Freeview box - 8%
21.    Broadband - 8%
22.    Sky - 8%
23.    Dishwasher - 7%
24.    Digital TV - 7%
25.    Hi Fi system - 7%
26.    Tumble dryer - 6%
27.    Iron - 6%
28.    Telephone - 6%
29.    Clock Radio - 5%
30.    Smoke alarm - 5%
31.    Electric timer - 5%
32.    Smoothie maker - 5%
33.    Alarm clock - 4%
34.    Blender - 4%

…and how many people bother to read the manuals for these items:

1.    I don’t read manuals - 46%
2.    Mobile phone - 19%
3.    Washing machine - 17%
4.    Television - 16%
5.    Digital Camera - 14%
6.    Microwave - 11%
7.    Oven - 10%
8.    DVD player - 10%
9.    MP3 player - 9%
10.    Laptop - 9%
11.    Computer - 8%
12.    Printer - 8%
13.    TV remote control - 8%
14.    Broadband - 8%
15.    Telephone - 7%
16.    Tumble dryer - 6%
17.    Iron - 6%
18.    GPS navigation - 6%
19.    Camcorder - 6%
20.    Dishwasher - 6%
21.    Hi Fi system - 6%
22.    Scanner - 5%
23.    Freeview box - 5%
24.    Answer machine - 5%
25.    Alarm clock - 5%
26.    Modem - 5%
27.    Smoke alarm - 5%
28.    Clock Radio - 5%
29.    Games console - 5%
30.    Sky - 4%
31.    Digital TV - 4%
32.    Digital photo frame - 3%
33.    Electric timer - 2%

If you’re one of the thousands shunning holidaying abroad this summer, chances are you’ll be swanning around the UK instead. This being the case, we can all imagine how much fun the roads will be. And no road trip is complete without the “why can’t you read a map properly argument”. To ease the pain a little, we’ve gone through all the sat nav reviews on Reevoo to see if we can’t save you a few hours of sitting in traffic and some disagreements with your fellow travellers.

It was pretty clear that shoppers love TomToms. They nabbed four places out of the top five highest rated devices.

Here are the results:
1.    TomTom One GB V3 - £95
2.    TomTom ONE XL – £169
3.    Garmin Nuvi 760T - £210
4.    TomTom One Explore - £110
5.    TomTom ONE WE - £116

Reevoo sends review questionnaire emails to shoppers who have bought products from one of its retail partners. In the sat nav questionnaire, owners are asked to rate design, size, accuracy, value for money, ease of use and then give the product an overall rating. You can see all of the category results below.

For value for money, the TomTom One GB V3 is a pretty good all-rounder but shoppers rated the Garmin Nuvi as the most accurate sat nav of the bunch. It depends on your priorities but they all got very good reviews.

If you can’t see one you’re impressed with, you can see all of the other sat nav reviews here.

We hope you all have lovely holidays!

Possibly the strangest gadget ever. It’s got a rating of 9.1/10 on Reevoo from a whopping 67 reviews and everyone raves about it. But what is it??

It’s a Zoundz. An “Interactive Fusion Of Light And Sound”. Well there you go then.

For those of you who are still none the wiser, it’s a base unit that comes with a variety of figures. Each figure, when placed on the unit in different positions, plays a different beat or riff – so you can create your own classic tunes.

You can then use your tunes to wake you up by using its alarm function or you can play your iPod through its built-in speakers. It’ll even give you a nice light show at the same time.

People really are quite literally raving about this thing. Here are some of the reviews:

“Quite simply the best present I have ever purchased for anyone ever!”
“it is simp[ly], the best fun you can have with your clothes on”
“Very cool addictive gadget - a must have”
“A very silly way for even the most ham-fisted numpty to make music”

There are more Zoundz reviews here, if you want to get caught up in the madness. You can pick one up for around £15 but funnily enough, they’re out of stock in both the Gadgetshop and Firebox and Amazon!

We’ll let you know when they’re back.

Did you think that moving text and photos on magazine covers were only possible in Harry Potter? Well they’re so last month. Esquire magazine have already decided to mark their 75th anniversary edition (in October this year), by using E-ink.

The technology includes a tiny battery that has to last until the magazine is sold. It currently lasts for 90 days and will also power a moving Ford advert (Ford will be sponsoring the issue), inside the magazine.

The batteries won’t be the greenest things on Earth; they will have been made in China, assembled in Mexico, via Texas and then distributed in refrigerated trucks but I guess it was all about the novelty with them.

But it doesn’t end there. If you thought that was cool, they’ve also come up with moving mobile phone covers. The Hitachi W61H (above) has a load of moving images on its cover. Its 2.7 inch E-ink display switches between 96 different images when you receive a call or message or when you open it up. Japanese designer, SeKiYuRiO, designd the phone with a perfume bottle in mind. The Casio Model G’zOne, which also uses E-ink, will be released this summer.

All this moving business is great news for loads of other technology: we could see fridges that tell you what’s empty without you having to open them up, pictures of callers that flash up on mobile phone covers or cars which can display different designs. The possibilities are endless!

[Wired]

So the iPhone was released on Friday. Some people love it, some people say it’s a disappointment, what’s a person to think? Well I looked to the reviews on Reevoo to see what people were complaining about on the old iPhone and then compared it to the new version so that I could make up my mind and see if Apple listened to the people that matter most - the users.

Here’s what people who bought the original iPhone had to say about it. I’ve also looked into what Apple have done about each issue and put it in underneath. Be prepared, this is a long’un…

Speed
Original iPhone owners complained about internet browsing speed, with many citing the absence of 3G as one of the biggest opportunities to improve iPhone

The new iPhone has 3G technology so that browsing the net is much faster

Battery life
From 107 reviews, the original iPhone only scored an average of 6.8/10 for its battery life. As well as improvements in the battery life itself, iPhone owners also wanted to be able to change the battery

Apple says that it has increased battery life to 300 hours on standby, 10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk and 7 hours of video playback. However you still cannot change the battery

Text messages
Original iPhone users were very frustrated with its SMS functionality. People were unable to carry out the most basic functions such as forward text messages, send messages to multiple contacts and send pictures and business cards. Users also would have liked to be able to navigate more easily through words and letters in text messages

Apple has now improved the iPhone’s messaging features so that you can now send messages to multiple contacts. However, you still cannot send multimedia messages

Camera
Consumers thought the old iPhone’s camera was another of the worst features. They wanted to see a camera with a flash, more megapixels, the ability to zoom and video functionality

Apple has kept the original specs for the camera on the iPhone 3G, which will disappoint many consumers. There is still no flash or video capability and it is still only 2 megapixels

Synchronisation
People wanted to be able to sync up their email, calendars and other Microsoft applications with their iPhones

Apple has now made sure that the new iPhone is compatible with Microsoft products

Memory
Owners would have liked to have had more memory in the original iPhone

Apple has so far kept to the same 8GB and 16GB capacity phones. There are still no memory card slots

Connectivity
Some users noted that the Bluetooth on the original iPhone didn’t work as they would have liked it to

Bluetooth on the new iPhone is still limited

GPS
Many consumers wrote that their iPhone would have been considerably better if it had GPS

Apple has now incorporated GPS into the new iPhone which will be gratefully received by users

Speaker quality
Users commented on the poor sound quality for both music and calls on speakerphone

Apple has improved the iPhone’s speakers so that music playback and calls can be heard much more clearly

Ringtones
Users wanted to be able to set their own music as ringtones

This is now possible, however it is a bit fiddly for the average user, requiring manual reformattinf of music files

Handset
Original iPhone owners found the handset slippery and difficult to hold without pressing something unintentionally

The new iPhone has a plastic back, instead of the original aluminium, which may make it a bit easier to hold and grip without activating functions

Radio
Users would have liked an FM radio incorporated in their iPhones

There is still no FM radio but you can listen to radio over the internet

Headphone jack
Original iPhone owners were frustrated at having to pay for specific Apple headphones or having to use a chunky adaptor as standard headphones wouldn’t fit in the sunken jack

Apple have now rectified this so that standard 3.5mm headphones can now be used

Third party software
With so many features missing from the iPhone, users wanted to be able to use third party software more easily

Apple has now opened up the new 3G iPhone so that third party software can be easily accessed and used through the App Store

So there we go. I think we can all agree that some great changes have been made to the new iPhone - 3G, GPS and third party apps, to name but a few.  But it does seem that Apple mainly listened to the more tech-savvy user when it came to these improvements. For the average user who just wants to share media with their mates and take some decent pictures, it might be a bit of a let-down. Saying that, I bet you all buy one anyway. For me, I’m happy with my more than capable Nokia 5310.

Following on from our fun iPod docks post, we’ve got a cracking set of iPod skins and cases for you today.

I had to start with the iFrogz Tadpole iPod Case, which is meant to be for children but I was semi-tempted. It’s bright and extra shock absorbent so that you don’t have to worry about little ones (or slightly larger ones), dropping them. It also means that you’ll never lose it in your handbag…It’s 100% coated silicon so that it repels dust and lint.  This is compatible with 30, 60 or 80GB iPod Classics and will set you back £24.99.

If you’re a more stylish individual, may I suggest this leather case for your Classic? Toro’s Treo leather case has a clear plastic screen protector so that you never lose sight of your music and a rotating belt clip that (I didn’t write this bit) “lets you experiment the best fit to look as snazzy as possible”.  They’re £12.99 and come in pink and brown leather.

If you like a patterned case, there’s bunch of cool cases called Gelaskins. They come in different sizes for different types of iPod. This one is the Red Robot design but you can be as bold or as understated as you like because there are loads of different designs. This 2nd Generation Nano case is £9.99 and available over at iPod World.

For flashy types, the Griffin Technology disko is the case for you. As well as the protective, tough polycarbonate shell, the LEDs flash and swirl away in motion-activated light sequences. Forget disco balls, this can control a party all on its own. They’re £16.95 from MacHeaven.

For the cautious amongst you, why not keep your iPod from thieves by disguising it as a…hymn book? The case is designed for 30, 60 and 80GB Classics but if you have any other make that’s about the same size, it should work for them too.  For £15,’cherishing’ your music has never been so easy. (sorry).

If you’re debating over whether or not to get an iPod or another brand of player, you can read the MP3 player reviews to help you decide. If you’re set on getting an iPod, check out all of the iPod reviews so that you can find the best one for you.

It’s official. Women may like to spend money on expensive handbags and shoes but when it comes to the living room, boys shell out the most cash.

According to the latest research from Reevoo, kitting out a bachelor pad with huge plasma TVs, top of the range laptops, games consoles, high-end stereos and other gadgets puts the bill up to £4,678.97.

Reevoo looked at the highest rated products with over 30 reviews to compile the research. According to shoppers, the best wide screen plasma HD ready TV is the Panasonic TH50PZ70B which can be nicely accompanied by the top DVD recorder, the Sony RDR-HX510. Just these two cost over £1,500.

Every man’s need and desire to put as little effort into living as possible has been accounted for. There’s the Proline TTR 65 P mini beer fridge which can be plugged in right next to your sofa so that cold beer is only a short stretch away, the Hewlett Packard Pavilion DV9605 laptop, so you can check up on your stocks and shares while you’re watching the footie and an Xbox 360 Elite for when you run out of DVDs.

Other items to complete the perfect bachelor pad include the Philips HD7810/60 coffee machine, the Blackberry Curve 8310, and the Miele G1222SC
dishwasher, so that you don’t have to get involved in any of that mucky washing up.

So girls, next time you get an earful off him indoors, direct him to this handy bit of research before you head for the shops.

Here’s a full list for those who want to create the perfect pad:

Panasonic
TH50PZ70B 50 inch HD ready plasma screen TV £1,351.00

Xbox 360 Elite
games console £250.00

Panasonic FZ50 digital
camera £306.00

Sony DCR-SR 32E handycam
camcorder with 30GB hard drive £259.00

Blackberry Curve
8310 mobile phone £274.99

Denon D-m 35 DAB hi-fi
mini system £150.00

Apple iPod touch 16GB black
£229.00

Wharfedale
Diamond 9.1 bookshelf speakers £129.00

Hewlett Packard Pavilion
DV9605 laptop £699.99

Pure Talksport DAB
radio £40.00

Proline TTR 65 P mini
fridge £69.99

Philips HD7810/60
Coffee Machine £50

Miele G1222SC
dishwasher £493.00

Philips HQ8150 electric
shaver £78.00

Sony RDR-HX510 DVD
Recorder £299.00