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

Today we’re continuing our guide to understanding TV model names. At first glance, TV product names are generally pretty complicated, unmemorable and unpronounceable combinations of letters and numbers. To the uninitiated this doesn’t help when you’re trying to find your way around the large television market.

However, closer inspection does often reveal some logic behind the names manufacturers give to their latest gift to the world. Today I’m going to walk through Sharp’s naming conventions, with the help of the friendly guys at Sharp.

- The first letters show the type of screen: LC for LC, which is currently the only kind of TV Sharp Aquos makes

- The first two numbers refer to the screen size in inches

- The next letters and numbers are the series. Higher numbers mean better models. For example:

LC19D1E - 19″ HD ready Freeview built-in
LC26D44E - 26″ HD ready Freeview built-in
LC46D65E - 46″ HD ready 1080p Freeview built-in
LC42DH77E - 42″ HD ready 1080p Freeview built-in 100Hz

- All of Sharp’s UK models end in E.

Grim news today for home cinema fans, as the credit crunch really begins to show its teeth in the AV world. Pioneer, who make the highly-regarded Kuro range of premium TVs, will cease production this time next year in order to focus on in-car entertainment and less competitive home entertainment areas - like DJ kit.

Pioneer will also cut 30% of its workforce - a cool 10,000 jobs - and reduce its manufacturing capacity by 30%. Today’s news comes after Pioneer posted a £1bn expected loss for the year’s operations.

Until last year Pioneer focused exclusively on high quality plasma TVs, which were renouned for their deep black levels. The warning signs came in 2008, when Pioneer stopped making the plasma panels it was so well known for, instead using Panasonic panels, and releasing a new range of LCD TVs.

Pioneer remained a premium brand however. In 2008, Reevoo found that Pioneer was the most expensive TV manufacturer, with an average cost per TV of £1,258. That put the Kuro experience out of range of most TV shoppers, and may have put paid to Pioneer’s TV business.

As I said on Pioneer’s blog, this looks like an instance where the credit cruch has cut both ways. In the notoriously competive television market, the credit crunch has made it harder for Pioneer to manufacture their TVs at relatively small volumes, and it’s made it harder for shoppers to justify the Pioneer premium.

I’m sure there will be more details emerging over the next few days, but for now the message for shoppers is that 2009 could be your last chance to get your hands on a Pioneer TV, such as the Pioneer 5090 or a classic Pioneer Kuro PDP4280XD.

See Reevoo to buy, or just gaze at, the other Pioneer Kuros.

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 was recently asked if I could recommend a 40-50" plasma TV. Pretty easy, you might think. But this person needed their new purchase to be a ‘multisystem TV’.

A multisystem TV is a fancy way of talking about a TV that can not only display the standard ‘PAL’ signals that we get in most of Europe, but can also decode the North American ‘NTSC’ format, and French and Asian ‘SECAM’ signals.

Not something most of us need to know, but hopefully for you globe-trotting types, the following might prove useful:

Most TVs these days can display both PAL and NTSC signals, as they share a lot of similarities. Decoding SECAM signals is a different story however - worth bearing in mind if you are planning to move to France!

The best multisystem TV I’ve come across to fit my friend’s requirements is this 42" LG plasma, which
is compatible with all three formats, and has a score of 9.1 out of 10
on Reevoo.

If you’re not sure which tuner combination you might need, this handy map from Wikipedia might be helpful.

There are 15 days to go before the Beijing Olympic games and this year will be the first time we can watch them in HD in the UK. Pretty exciting stuff. For those of you who don’t know, HD is high-definition and it’s all about more pixels and much clearer pictures for our TV sets.  It makes watching sports events, wildlife programmes - well, anything really - way better.

We’ve looked at all the full HD TV reviews over on Reevoo to find the best ones. TVs are rated on their design, sound quality, image quality and value for money. People are then asked if they would recommend the TV set.

Here’s the top five:

1.    Sony Bravia KDL40X2000 - £999
2.    Panasonic TX-32LZD80 - £724
3.    Samsung LE37A656A - £679
4.    Panasonic TH42PZ80 - £724
5.    Panasonic TH42PZ85B - £864

And here’s how we got there:

So top of the list was the Sony Bravia KDL40X2000 but interestingly, it lost out to the Panasonic TH42PZ80 for image quality and the Samsung LE37A656A for design.

If you’re looking for a top all-rounder, the Sony is obviously the one to go for but it’s also the most expensive. The Panasonic TH42PZ80 leads the pack for image quality, which should be one of the top considerations when buying an HD TV. It’s also over £200 cheaper and it’s been recommended by 96% of the people who bought it. This would be my choice.

If you’re not convinced about HD, there are lots of other TVs around. You can check out all of the TV reviews over on Reevoo.