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

Time to brush up!  Got this great deal on a Philips HX6731/02 electric toothbrush, £58 with free delivery at John Lewis.

Getting smart today, with this bargain top of range Philips GC4630/02 iron, £49 from 247 Electrical, down from £75.

We had credit crunch busting laptops last week and this week we bring you TVs. If you’ve needed to replace an old one or if you just want to treat the family at Christmas, we’ve checked out over 550 televisions to find you the best ones for under £400. In fact, most of them are even under £350!

Top 10 TVs under £400

1.       Goodmans LD3265D - 32″ - £330

2.       Goodmans LD1945WD - 19″ -  £170

3.       Sony Bravia KDL20S3030 - 20″ - £280

4.       Samsung LE32A436T - 32″ -  £358

5.       Sony Bravia KDL20S3000 - 20″ - £285

6.       Sony Bravia KDL26S3000 - 26″ - £375

7.       Sharp Aquos LC20AD5E - 20″ - £300

8.       Philips 19PFL5602D - 19″ -  £279

9.       Sony Bravia KDL20S3070 - 20″ -  £295

10.   Philips 19PFL5522D/05 - 19″ -  £257

If you’re looking for a bigger TV, I think that 32″ LCD Samsung LE32A436T is great value for money. With three HDMI ports and two scart interfaces, you won’t be short of places to plug in all your home entertainment bits and pieces.

One reviewer wrote:

“Great TV for the price point. I was quite surprised at the quality of both picture and sound. Definitely worth a go if you’re watching the pennies. Terrific value for money.”

And if you’re into gaming:

“sleek design, dust magnet though! Quality of picture when playing games on my xbox 360 is fantastic.”

It’s also praised for its image and sound quality so a pretty good all-rounder.

If you really want to save money though, the £170 19″ LCD Goodmans LD1945WD is a bargain. With great scores for design and image quality, if you don’t mind buying a little smaller, you can really save the pounds here.

Whichever TV you go for, just be sure you read the reviews first. You may be able to save money on the price but if the TV isn’t right for you, it’ll be money wasted.

Now all you need is a TV stand : )

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.

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.