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

Here at Reevoo we’re all getting naked in about 10 minutes for the #Nudetech calendar!  You can see reviews on what we’re taking off here.

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.

All week we’ve been running Reevoo’s first ever giveaway. We’ve got one model of the extremely hard to get hold off Tesco Hifi - voted ‘Britain’s Best Hifi‘ in the recent Reevoo Customer Choice Awards.

We’ve had lots of great entries on Twitter, but we reckon the prize should go to the person who went the extra mile and sent us a picture to show us why he needed a hifi so badly.

@reevoo I need to #winahifi because I’m a poor student currently stuck with this tiny little speaker — jamesctaylor

Well James, we’re happy to be able to help out a poor student, with - brace yourself - Britain’s best-rated hifi!

And if that wasn’t enough, we’re also going to throw in a copy of the White Lies album, To Lose My Life.

James, if you let us have your address we’ll send through the hifi, and you can look forward to having to make some room on your bookshelves for this:

Look out for more Reevoo giveaways coming soon!

Reevoo’s First Giveaway

Hours after Reevoo announced that the Tesco Value MC-907 Hi-Fi had trounced the opposition in the first Reevoo Customer Awards the machine was sold out across the Country!

In an effort to prevent enormous public outcry Reevoo are giving away one copy of the glimmering gold champion of music lovers’ eardrums!

There’s a catch though. Not just anyone is worthy of the public’s favourite Hi-Fi, you’ll have to prove it truly deserves pride of place on your mantlepiece this summer, and you’re going to have to think creatively if you want to win.

At Reevoo we want the last remaining model to go to the most deserving person out there so show us how much you need the thumping bass in your life by sending us your finest picture, poem or paragraph showing and explaining why you’re truly worthy of Britain’s greatest Hi-Fi. We expect to see air guitar pictures, romantic song lyrics and at least one person brave enough to dress up like someone from The Archers.

A Hi-Fi is nothing without music so we’re giving away the new White Lies album To Lose My Life too.

How to Enter

Being big fans of all things internet we would like to invite you to use your favourite blog site or Twitter to communicate your passion for this mighty prize to us!
Just answer this simple question:

‘Why do you or someone you know deserve to win a new Hi-Fi?’

Blog entries

If you blog your entry make sure you link directly to this post at http://www.reevoo.com/decidewhattobuy/2009/05/win-britains-favourite-hi-fi

and feel free to use images to accompany your post.

Twitter

If you use Twitter begin your tweet with

@reevoo I need to #winahifi because…

By doing this we can keep track of all entrants. You can also search Twitter for #winahifi and see how you compare to the competition!

If you want to add an image to show how much you need the Hi-Fi you can use the popular Twitter image uploading service, Twitpic.

What if I’ve never used a blog or Twitter?

If you’ve never blogged or used Twitter before don’t worry, it’s easy! Simply visit Blogger to get started blogging or Twitter to start writing your own Tweets.

Closing Date

The closing date for the competition is 3pm 15/05/09. Be sure to check back on Decide What To Buy the following day to find out if you’re the lucky winner.

Please follow this link for full Terms and Conditions.

Reevoo is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Reevoo Consumer Choice Awards! The winning products were found from over half a million reviews written by confirmed purchasers up to 1st April 2009. There were some surprise winners including the £16 Tesco Value MC-907 Hi-Fi which amazed everyone to take gold in the Hi-Fi category.

Big winners included Sony, who were awarded gold and silver in the television category, and TomTom with a clean sweep in the sat nav category. Nikon took the prize for best digital camera and Canon won gold in the camcorder category.  UK-based vacuum cleaner manufacturer Numatic won an impressive silver award for its Hetty vacuum cleaner.

Apple were gold winners the laptop category, but only managed a bronze in the MP3 and iPod category. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the iPhone failed to make the top three in the mobile phone category, with Nokia winning gold and bronze and Samsung taking silver.

For the full details, check out www.reevoo.com/awards or check out the table below.

Winners:

Value for money awards:

At Reevoo we’re about more than just reviews. We’re about the whole process of buying and enjoying something cool and new. With that in mind the three resident Category Managers, Jo, Sam and Jon have taken some time to lay out some helpful tips across three different product categories.

Reevoo Washing Machine Buyers Guide

Jo’s Washing Machine guide should help get you out of a spin and into the right shopping cycle with her top 5 tips designed to help you decide which washing machine is the right purchase for you.

For a full guide of the 5 tips, just click play below or check the video out as you shop on the Reevoo washing machine category page itself.

The Tips:

- Plumbing
- Dimensions, Loading and Appearance
- Capacity
- Usage
- Additional Features

The Video:

In the busy and sometimes confusing market of MP3 players Sam’s Top 5 purchasing Tips should be music to your ears:

The Tips:

- How Will I Use It?
- How Much Storage Do I Need?
- Do I Want To Watch Video?
- Watch Out For Battery Life
- Is An iPod the Best Option?

The Video:

For a full, step by step walkthrough of the above tips check out the video below or on the MP3 Player category page on Reevoo.com

Jon’s camera guide walks you through the features and settings that come into play when taking a photograph. The guide should help you decide what type of camera you want to snap up!

The Tips:

- The Sensor
- ISO Settings
- Megapixels
- Aperture
- Shutter Speed
- Exposure

The Video:

As with the other guides Jon’s can be seen on the Digital Camera Category page whilst looking through the compact and SLR camera reviews on Reevoo. If you don’t want to go anywhere just hit play below!

It can be frustratingly confusing when shopping online as manufacturers like to use fancy words where it might be better to just say ‘portable’. The word ‘Qosmio’ sounds cool but it doesn’t tell you that Qosmio machines are the most powerful in Toshiba’s range of laptops.

So, here’s a breakdown of the Toshiba laptop ranges which should make it easier for you to identify the kind of laptop you’re looking for.

Equium
The Equium range offers laptops for everyday use around the house and out and about such as internet browsing and word processing.
Equium laptops are only available from PC World and Currys.
The U series come with small 13.3 inch screens and Vista Home Premium.
The A series come with a 15.4 inch screen but it is only the same resolution as the U series.
The P series machines have a larger chassis and screen at 17 inches and 1440×900.

View Toshiba Equium customer reviews on Reevoo.com

Portégé
The Portégé range is designed with portability in mind. The Portégés are lightweight, starting at only 1kg, and extremely thin. Some models come with solid state storage which means there are less moving parts and therefore less heat and less power being consumed. This helps to increase battery life, extending the machine’s portability even further. They are also the most stylish of the Toshiba laptops, and I dare say they were influenced by Apple’s Macbook Air. Because some Portégés come with Solid State hard drives, just like the Macbook Air, there’s less chance of damaging your data should you accidentally drop the machine.

View Toshiba Portégé customer reviews on Reevoo.com

Qosmio
These machines are for pure brute power gaming and media use. The top Qosmios come with 18.4 inch, HD ready screens, extremely fast quad core processors and dedicated nVidia graphics cards. Unsurprisingly they are considerably more expensive than other ranges. If you need an element of portability but can tolerate 4.4kg on your lap, then Qosmio is for you.

View Toshiba Qosmio customer reviews on Reevoo.com

Satellite
The Satellite series of laptops are mid-range machines, all equipped with either Intel or AMD Dual Core processors. For most every day, extended use, the Satellite range is perfectly suitable. The machines run Windows Vista Premium and come in a variety of sizes ranging from 13.3 inches to 17.1. As there are a wide variety of laptops in the Satellite range it is easy for you to pick which suits you best.

Optional features include:

A variety of graphics chip solutions – If you play any games consider the ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 equipped models.

Harman Kardon stereo speakers – Most people have MP3 players which means their laptops are used to store music. If this applies to you then Harman Kardon equipped speakers will give you the best sound quality.

Face Recognition – Some Satellite models come with a 0.3 or 1.3 megapixel built in webcam. Not only is this good for making Youtube videos or communicating online but you can also use them for security. If your face isn’t recognised you will get locked out of the system. Just be sure not to set it up just before shaving off a well established beard.

View Toshiba Satellite customer reviews on Reevoo.com

Mini Laptops
The Mini Laptop range are best described as ‘netbooks’. Tiny, with an 8.9 inch display, and only 1kg in weight, they’re built to travel with. They have a 3.5 hour battery life so are ideal if your needs are maximum portability internet access and document editing.
Everything in a Mini Laptop is designed around size so their processor, hard disk space and memory sizes are lower than in other Toshiba ranges. As with certain Portégé models, the Mini’s come equipped with solid state storage and are therefore reasonably durable.

Operating System - As with other manufacturers’ netbook laptops the Toshiba Mini series comes with either Windows XP or Linux. Windows XP is the version of Windows prior to Vista and most people should be familiar with it. Linux is a separate operating system and will not be compatible with your usual Windows software so make sure you take this into consideration when deciding what to buy.

View Toshiba Mini Laptop customer reviews on Reevoo.com

After some great feedback on our Reevoo iPhone app from Graham Charlton at ecounsultancy we jumped at the chance to act on some suggested improvements.

After a few hours of work we’re pleased to say that the Reevoo iPhone app now allows you to compare prices between various retailers!

So now, when you’re out on that spending spree, not only will your shopping choice be empowered by thousands of customer reviews at the touch of a button, you will also be able to see which stores stock the product and at what price!

As well as being able to compare retailers we made even further improvements.
After you’ve read reviews and seen the various retailer prices you can now choose to surf to the retailer store directly on your iPhone.

You can also choose to email yourself, or anyone else, a link of the Reevoo product page you are viewing. This way, if you’re browsing on the bus or wandering through a store, and want to take a bit more time before committing to a purchase, you can send yourself a reminder.

Installing the iPhone App
To add the updated Reevoo iPhone app to your home screen just unlock your iPhone and:

1. Open Safari
2. Navigate to http://www.reevoo.com/iphone
3. Tap the + button in Safari and choose ‘Add to Home Screen’

What’s left to do?
You’re probably now wondering if it could get any better, and we’re confident that it can, with your help.
We love customer reviews, so why not tell us what you think of our iPhone app. Give us good points and bad and one suggestion for an improvement you’d most like to see implemented. We’ll collect your opinions and implement the best idea.
Leave your review in the comments section of this post or email any of the category managers with your ideas to feedback@reevoo.com

In our newsletter last month, we asked you all to let us know how the credit crunch was affecting your shopping. The results are in and amazingly, all of you had the same attitudes towards shopping and money saving:

If you’d like to subscribe to our newsletter, just go to the Reevoo homepage and put your email address in the box in the bottom right, then click “submit”:

Just in time for Christmas, Reevoo has launched its own iPhone web application. This means that all you lucky folks who own iPhones will be able to take Reevoo with you to the shops. If you’re looking to buy an MP3 player, camera, laptop or any other product that is available on Reevoo.com, you can check out what people have said about it before you buy. Not only that, but you will also be able to see how much it is online! Very useful for saving some valuable pounds over Christmas.

If you’d like to have price comparison and helpful reviews in your pocket this Christmas, just follow these three simple steps and Reevoo will guide you through all your Christmas shopping.

To add the Reevoo iPhone app to your home screen just take your iPhone:
1. Open Safari
2. Go to http://www.reevoo.com/iphone
3. Tap the + button in Safari and choose ‘Add to Home Screen’

And to use it:
1. Simply tap on the Reevoo icon on your home screen

2. Tap search and enter the product name - you’ll get a list of search results with scores and the cheapest price available online from over 100 retailers

3. Tap on the product itself and you’ll be taken through to read the 10 most useful reviews (as voted by our community) on the product.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this app. If there’s anything else you’d like to be able to access or if you’d like to see something done differently, just let us know at feedback@reevoo.com.