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

I’ve been looking at the prices you can expect to pay if you buy a TV from the top brands. This will help if you’re shopping for a TV by brand - how much can you expect to pay for a Sony these days?

This data comes from thousands of purchases from Reevoo’s retail partners in 2008.

There’s no suprises at the top and bottom of the table - you can expect to get a Matsui TV for just over £200, while the average price forked out for a Pioneer set is over £1000!

Here’s the full list:

Matsui - £209
Goodmans - £250
Hitachi - £282
Philips - £522
LG - £547
Samsung - £578
Sony - £627
Toshiba - £639
Panasonic - £717
Sharp - £841
Pioneer - £1,258

This list tells us a lot about the screen sizes where manufacturers are selling the most products. For example, Matsui make televisons from 14-42″, with prices ranging from £60-550, but on average people are paying around £200, so I’d be cautious if I was looking at a £500 Matsui - not many people are buying them.

While that’s helpful, it’s also really valuable to look how the average cost for each brand varies within a particular screen size. Here’s how things pan out in 32″ TVs:

Toshiba - £414
Hitachi - £418
Philips - £445
Sharp - £455
LG - £456
Samsung - £458
Sony - £538
Panasonic - £600

Overall the average price paid for a 32″ TV was £465. Within a screen size, you’d expect to pay more for extra features, like 3 or 4 HDMI ports rather than just 2; higher picture or sound quality; or perhaps just to get a shiny logo on the front.

Of the top manufacturers, it’s interesting to see that only Sony and Panasonic sets are selling for above the average price. Although both manufacters produce models available for around £400, they stand out as the premium brands at this screen size.

On the budget end, few manufactuers are selling 32″ for much less than £400, but Hitachi and Toshiba’s low end models are very popular, making them the value-for-money pick of the 32 inchers.

Which brand do you think offers the best value-for-money? Who do you think is just charging for their logo? Share your thoughts with other shoppers.

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]

Are you in the process of re-doing your lounge? Have you just moved into your first place? For whatever reason, if you’re looking to kit out your living room but you’re a bit short of cash, you’ve come to the right place. This is the first in a series of posts about kitting out your rooms on a budget. As you might have guessed, we’re starting off with the lounge.

Everyone says the centre of a home is the kitchen but quite frankly we all spend far more time in front of the TV than the oven – unless you are a) a chef, b) a mum or c) you’ve just stepped out of the 19th century and you don’t have a TV.

So first up is the television - probably one of the most important items in your house. We’ve gone for a 32 incher as that’s the nation’s most popular size and fits in to most living rooms.

The Hitachi L32H01 is HD ready, has an LCD screen and comes in at £395. Quite reasonable and equipped with two scart sockets and two HDMI connections so you won’t be short of places to plug your consoles, DVD players and digital set top boxes into. This TV gets 9.2/10 on Reevoo. Janet, a reviewer from Derby says “It is good looking, easy to set up and use. The sound quality is excellent and it’s an expensive product at a very good price”.

Now you’ve got a TV, you’ll be needing a DVD player. We’ve gone for the Samsung DVD-R155 which is a very reasonable £104, especially as it’s a DVD recorder as well. You can also play all of your own-burned DVDs so those holiday videos can be ‘enjoyed’ over and over and over… The most popular comment left about this machine was that it was easy to use. 

If you’re worried about where to put your TV and DVD recorder, we’ve taken care of that as well.  This classy looking Alphason AP2-3/80 is £90 and scores 8.8/10. Reviewers loved the design and the fact that it was easy to build. It’s also black so it’ll match the TV and DVD player we picked out earlier.

Every lounge needs a HiFi system. The Philips MCB204 is very reasonable at £47. It has a DAB digital radio, MP3 playback and USB ports so that you can play all of your downloaded music too. Pretty good for under £50! And if you’re worried that the cheap stuff is never the best, this little machine has some cracking reviews. Check them out for yourself. 

You may already have one but if not, we’ve also picked out a cordless phone set. The Philips SE2453S/05 is £59. Included in that price are three handsets. You can store up to 100 phone numbers and you can wonder 300m from the base unit.

So there you have it. A lounge kitted out for under £700 (695 to be exact). If you already had a phone, you’re looking at £636 for some pretty decent kit.

We were thinking about adding a Nintendo Wii in there but you’d be adding £200 to your credit card and you are supposed to be on a budget after all…If you’d prefer to spend the money on a Wii and forego food for a month, you can check out Wii reviews here.

Seeing as it’s April and the weather still consists of snow, gales and floods, I bet a load of you can’t wait to get into hotter climates and have already planned your escape. Looking for a nice, new, shiny mp3 player to while away the hours on planes and sunny beaches? Look no further. We’ve been ploughing through the reviews from shoppers at Reevoo to find out which mp3 players have made it into the top 5. We have to admit that what we did find was a little surprising - no iPods until fifth place and no Creatives in sight. Check it out for yourselves…

Top with a score of 9.8/10 is the Sony NWE016BC Black with top marks for value for money, design and sound quality. Funnily enough, this system beat the Apple hands down in the design stakes with shoppers rating it’s design 10/10 compared to the iPod’s 9.2/10!

Coming in a close second is Sony’s 3GB NWZA816 with 9.7/10. One shopper comments “The sound is brilliant…The size is perfect”

Middle of the pack is the Hitachi DMP20 2GB Black. Scoring 9.4/10, people praise its ease of use and battery life.

With a rating of 9.2/10, the Samsung YP-P2JCB 8GB Black wins over customers with its design, extra features and its portability but it loses points on value for money.

In at number five is the first and last Apple appearance. The New Green Apple iPod Nano 8GB scored 9.2/10. One customer sums it up as “nice shape and colour easy to use and sounds good” but comments about the lack of a carry case, the fact that you can only use itunes and scores on battery life push it into fifth place. 96% of shoppers would recommend this product, compared to 100% for the Samsung.

If you still haven’t seen one you fancy, there are a load more here.