Following on from our dodgy designs story last week, I came across more catastrophes in the MP3 department. The poor people that purchased a 2GB Matsui MAT120 definitely had a few negative things to say about their purchase.
From a massive 248 shoppers reviews on Reevoo, this MP3 player only receives an overall score of 5.3/10. Complaints seem to focus on the fact that the player deletes all of your songs on its own, its terrible battery life and how long the player actually lasted without breaking. Not good news here.
Although it seemed like a bargain – you can pick one up for around £25 - Paul from York pretty much sums up everybody else’s experience when he says “Doesn’t last more than a month. Bought 2 of these both did the same thing, after a month the memory goes, and you are unable to switch it on… You get what you pay for in the end”.
And just when I thought this was a one-off, I came across the 6GB Logik HDD60. This may have a higher score of 5.7/10 from 51 shoppers who bought it but it also had its fair share of negative comments. The biggest problems seemed to be that it’s pretty useless when you try to put music onto it – not great for an MP3 player - and that the battery life is also useless.
So if you want a MP3 player that works this summer, here’s two wasy to save you some money. If you want to find a quality MP3 player, make sure you read MP3 reviews first so that you can avoid the problems these poor shoppers had. At the moment, the top MP3 player is the 7GB Sony Walkman NWZA818. It has 49 reviews and a rating of 9.1/10.
This week’s Green Piece sees three handy gadgets that will save you money on heating, electricity and batteries and will help the environment too.
First up is the wind-up remote control. It spells the end for those awkward sized batteries that nobody ever stocks and for that crucial moment when you go to use your remote and discover that the aforementioned batteries have run out.
According to WRAP, around 600 million UK household batteries (22,000 tonnes) – the equivalent weight of 110 Jumbo Jets – are sent to landfill unnecessarily every year, so this remote is definitely something to take seriously. It needs 30 ‘winds’ which will then last for seven days, which is pretty good going. It’s £24.95 but if you think about how many batteries you would go through, it’s not so bad.
The next product is something you can use in every room in your house to save you money on heating. It’s called a Radiator Booster and was once on Dragon’s Den. It sits on top of your radiators and takes all of the heat that gets released at the back of the radiator and uses clever fans to redirect it back into your room. It means that your house gets heated faster and that the heating can be switched off sooner.
At the moment, they’re £14.99 over at Nigel’s Eco Store and best of all, running costs are only about 30p a year.
Last is the waterproof torch that is charged up by shaking it. You shake it on down for 45 seconds and then you get five whole minutes of light…it does seem like a lot of work for five minutes but I guess it’s all part of the fun…and the energy saving, of course.
If you’re into science, the torch works with the help of a magnet. As you shake the torch, the magnet moves back and forth and generates an electric current. This current is then held in a holding cell so that you can still use the torch even if you haven’t wiggled it for a while. It’s a bargain at £5.99 and it has some good reviews too.
So there we have it, three great ways to help the environment and your wallets, especially useful now that energy costs are on the rise.
If you’ve succumbed to the iPod craze you’re either blissfully happy living in the land of the follower or you’re trying desperately to make it that little bit different to so that you can feel better about copying millions of other like-minded shoppers. There are plenty of things you can do to set you and your iPod apart from the crowd. We’re going to start off looking at iPod docks (but for those of you that don’t have an iPod, most of these will still work wonders on the other MP3 players out there too).
iPod docks are a necessity in any self-respecting trendsetter’s pad but how can you make yours unique? Well the guys over at the Japan Trend Shop have one idea (see above). The Zumreed Drop Speaker looks different and can be transported anywhere, including the bathroom as your iPod is tucked up nice and safe in the acrylic container. These come from overseas and are priced at $79 but they deliver to the UK. There’s a pretty good exchange rate at the moment so you could pick yourself up a bargain.
You may think I’ve gone slightly crazy with this next dock but I’m not the only one. They’re continually sold out so you have to get in there quick (may be something to do with the fact that they’re only £12.99 and they have some pretty good reviews). They’re called iPals and they’re an interesting way to house your iPod or any other MP3 player. They’ve got two speakers in their ‘ears’ which can be bent and rotated for maximum listening pleasure and they come in different colours and patterns.
If those two are a little too ‘out there’ for you, how about the stylish JBL Radial dock? It’s sleek and classy and has a stereo mini jack connection so that you can listen to most other MP3 players too. It’s £169.99 at the moment.
If retro’s your thing, maybe this iPod alarm clock that plays your favourite tunes to get you out of bed will interest you? It charges your iPod while you’re asleep and saves you from unwanted morning crooners. At £39.99, I think that’s a bargain.
At the opposite end of the scale, this next dock comes in at $1299.99! But it is a dock with a difference. The Miuro Robot can either hold your iPod inside it or just transfer everything from iTunes. It’s remote-controlled so you can press a button on the remote and your Miuro Robot will find you and bring all of your music with it . You can also control it with a joystick – much more fun. You may have already heard of it but if not, here’s a video so that you can see it in action. These guys also ship worldwide, should you be interested…
In today’s what to buy, we’re looking at home offices. Whether you work from home or you just need an office at home, there’s no need to spend a fortune on some decent kit.
We’ve looked at laptops and desktop computers, shredders and fax machines and a lot more to help you furnish your office.
Let’s start off with computers. For those of you who prefer laptops, we’ve picked out the 15 inch Hewlett Packard 530. It’s got an 80GB hard drive, an Intel Celeron M 520 1.6 GHz processor and a DVD re-writer. You can pick one up for £267.97 with an increased 120GB hard drive. A bargain, I’m sure you’ll agree.
If you’re more of a desktop computer fan, you can try the Compaq SR5219. This has a 250GB hard drive, a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processor and a DVD rewriter. It also comes with a 17inch Tft monitor and is around £360. It has some good reveiws too. Comments in the reviews include “Everything is spot on” and “very easy to set up, nice touch sensitive keyboard, looks smart”.
You’ll be needing a desk to house your bargains. Why not try the Dakota Workstation. It’s simple but stylish and most importantly, it’ll only set you back £20.
For a printer, we’ve gone for the £75 Epson Stylus DX8400. It doubles up as a scanner/copier so you can save some more money there. We’ve also gone for an Epson because you tend to get cheaper ink cartridges, so there’s the potential for long-term money saving. One shopper left this review “the product give me exactly what I was wanting at the right price”.
You can’t do much without the net these days so if you’ve been unfortunate enough to get an internet provider who doesn’t supply you with a router, you can get the 54 Mbps Belkin F5D7231UK4 for £44. It’s got a stonking 200 meter wireless range so you can work in the house or even in the garden (unless you live in a mansion/palace, in which case, I’d checkout your distances before you embark on any ’off-piste’ activities).
They’re not used much these days but if you do need a fax machine, the Brother T104 is £67.
So there we go, under £500 if you go with a laptop and just over £500 if you chose a desktop computer, although there may be other elements there that you don’t need.
Reviews for all of the items can be found on Reevoo, along with lots of other reviews from shoppers.
In this week’s Green Piece, we’re looking at the Green Cone Food Waste Digester System - sounds tasty, doesn’t it? It’s quite a handy little addition to your kitchen and your garden that claims to make your organic waste disappear – almost.
The 4 litre Green Cone Caddy sits in your kitchen, which you fill up with all of your organic kitchen waste such as tea bags, bones, stale bread, vegetable scraps or even raw and cooked meat. Whenever you need to, you can then go and empty the caddy into the Green Cone, which sits in your garden.
The Green Cone needs to be placed in a sunny spot in your garden to work properly. It is solar powered and has a double wall which makes things nice and toasty for the micro-organisms that break down the food. The cone actually sits in the soil so that worms and other creatures can move in and out of it freely to promote further break down. But don’t worry, this part of the Green Cone always stays in the garden so you won’t be taking a zoo back into the kitchen with you.
If you’re worried about smells and those pesky flies and rodents, the fact that the cone sits in the soil allows it to filter out the smells and keep the flies and rodents at bay.
When it gets to winter time, decomposition naturally slows down so they’ve got some natural Green Cone accelerator powder to sort that out.
Household food waste is converted into water, carbon dioxide and small amount residue that will apparently only need to be removed every few years. It’s been designed to take three-quarters to one kilogram of food waste each day, which is apparently the typical amount for a family of four - a great way to save on plastic used in bin bags and space in your bin. If you fancy making your organic waste virtually disappear, you can find a Green Cone at Green and Easy.
Have you ever considered that all of the appliances in your home may have been designed by people who have never had to use them? For example, that your fridge was designed by someone who still kept things underground to keep them cold? It would certainly seem so, going by some of the reviews we’ve been reading.
As we’re on the subject of fridges, we’ll start there. The Bosch KGU30605 fridge has been designed by a genius who thought an egg tray with space for five eggs was revolutionary. The unfortunate sixth egg that almost certainly is included when you buy a standard pack of half a dozen eggs, will have to find its own home amongst the jungle of jars and leftovers.
How about the Elba C96DF 90 gas oven that gets nice and hot on the inside but feels the need to heat up its surrounding area by getting dangerously hot on the outside too? I guess we could all start frying our eggs on oven doors to save energy. Maybe that’s what the designer had in mind here.
We talked about the amount of energy you can save by not leaving your appliances on standby last week but what if your TV wouldn’t turn off at all? The LG 37LF66 can only be turned off by switching it off at the mains. And there’s even a washing machine that insists on washing cotton and synthetics at 60 degrees - all in all, just great for your energy bills.
If you feel your life isn’t inconvenient enough, why not purchase a couple of dishwashers? One won’t fit standard sized cups on the top shelf and one won’t fit standard sized plates on the bottom but by buying them both, you can be sure that your crockery will be squeaky clean…one way or another.
And for those of you looking for something to amuse the kids over the summer, you might want to check out the reviews for the Easy Store Large Slide. It seems to be multipurpose - a slide and a bug collector. It’s all kitted out in bright yellow so that hundreds of insects are attracted to it as soon as you set it up. I wouldn’t advise sliding on it but it could be great for a wildlife project.
These are just a few of the dodgy designs we found by reading through reviews. We’ve compiled a list of the top ten so that you can take a look. If you’ve got something that you think must have been designed by wild monkeys, let me know and we’ll add it to the list.
1. Bosch KGU30605 Fridge - the egg tray which only holds five eggs instead of the standard six.
2. Zanussi ZWF14581 Washing Machine - The default temperature when you choose cotton or synthetics is always 60 degrees. But almost all synthetics are labelled 40 degrees or less.
3. LG 37LF66 Television - that doesn’t turn off. You have to pull the plug out of the wall to turn the TV off.
4. Easy Store Large Slide - the bright yellow colour attracts thousands of bugs in summertime.
5. Kenwood DW12CFE Dishwasher - Normal sized plates stacked as design suggests in the bottom tray stop the spray arm spinning, and thus the top layer does not get washed. Trays are non removable so the dishwasher won’t run without the top tray in. Hard to fit standard sized dinner plates.
6. LM Tech Battery Powered Heated Gloves - the heating element doesn’t get warm, and doesn’t cover the fingers.
7. Carlton CTD1W Table Top Dishwasher - doesn’t fit standard mugs on the shelf
8. Elba C96DF 90 Gas Oven - the knobs heat up when the grill is turned on
9. Hotpoint RLA21 4.6 Cu.ft. Larder Fridge - there is no light inside so it is impossible to see all the food at the back.
10. UNI MEDIA 22/1 IDTVDVD 22” HD Ready digital television - It is impossible to adjust the picture when the picture adjustment box pops up in the middle of the screen and covers most of the picture.
If boredom is a big issue for you, especially if you do a lot of travelling, this is the gadget for you. Forget iPods and PSPs, this is the accessory for the summer. It’s the MP4 Film and Music Playing Watch. Think James Bond without the missiles.
Ok, it’s only 4GBs but you can still store about six full-length films or 1000 songs or even 160 music videos on it. Not bad for some wrist action. What’s more, for those of you who are worried about how you could possibly watch your favourite movie on an average tiny watch screen, think again. This watch has an impressive 1.8 inch screen, without looking ridiculous and it comes with earphones and built-in mini speakers to complete your watch-ing experience (sorry, couldn’t resist that one).
If you fancy keeping other files on your watch, you can do that too. Its handy USB port connects to your computer with the cable provided so that you can also carry documents and pictures around with you. And if you have a meeting and you’ve forgotten your pen? No problems, it’s also a voice recorder!
You can pick one up at Paramount Zone for £49.95. The overall watch is black but you can choose from a smart silver screen-surround or a more fun blue.
The best bit is that you always take your watch with you so you won’t have to worry about remembering to pack your MP3 player, USB stick and dictaphone (I’m not entirely sure that anybody even uses dictaphones anymore but if you do, you can relieve yourself of a few grams) and, as one comment on the site says, it’s less likely to get pilfered than an MP3 player which you carry in your bag or pocket.
Has the PSP gone micro pocket-sized? Nope, it’s the new Sony Ericsson F305. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was a mini gaming device because it’s been decorated with the classic ‘O’ and ‘X’ buttons as well as a D-pad. They’ve even mixed in a bit of wii. Nintendo Wii, that is. The pre-loaded games on the F305 are movement-controlled, much like the Wii. You’ve got Bowling, Bass fishing and Jockey – sounds thrilling doesn’t it? But if that doesn’t get you excited, maybe the stereo speakers on the back of the handset, the Bluetooth multiplayer games, the expandable memory or the track ID will?
If you’ve been wondering about what colours the handsets come in, you can chose from polar white or mystic black, which I think may have been so-called to make the phones sound a bit more exciting. If you don’t share my scepticism, you can race to pick one up at the end of the summer. It’ll be aimed at the low to mid-range market so it shouldn’t break the bank – good job, if you ask me…
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