Well, we've been working on it for a while, but it's come not a moment too soon, the Storeminator UK site! Now, if you are based in the UK, you can use the new site at UK.Storeminator.com to compare prices on UK eBay and Amazon (and other stores, coming soon!) and find what you are looking for cheaper!

Introducing the new HD Zune mp3 and video player, available now for preorder, to be released on 15th September 2009! The new device looks great and features HD radio and the ability to play 720p video when connected via HDMI to a suitable device. The new Zune HD will be available in two models, a Zune HD 16Gb Black model (pictured left), retailing for around $220 and the Zune HD 32Gb Platinum model selling for some $70 more at $290.

The new Zune HD is obviously intended to take a slice of the iPod apple pie, so to speak, with its sleek, modern look and multi-touch OLED screen with advanced opacity and lighting effects (read: eye-candy), Wi-Fi, and a version of Internet Explorer Mobile 6 adapted for touchscreen use. It is sure to have its fans, like previous Zune models.

Pre-order now from here (ZuneHD 16Gb Black and ZuneHD 32Gb Platinum) if you want to go the official route, or you could have a look at the accompanying eBay listings. However, we would recommend waiting until the official release date before buying from an unofficial source - if you must buy through eBay, make sure what you buy IS the HD model, not the old non-HD model!

Before the original Kindle, and later the "Latest Generation Kindle", e-book technology already existed and was not really cutting-edge or even unique. However, it was still slow to be taken up by the general reading public - "You still can't beat a real book!" was the general feeling. Amazon took the technology and married it with their own marketing clout and household name in the book-selling industry to produce the Kindle device, together with a huge back-catalogue of e-book titles.

Finally, it seems, the book-buying public are getting the idea that an e-book reader CAN pretty much reproduce the experience of reading a "real" book, and has many other advantages too, not least the ability to store many many titles at once (around 3500 in the case of the new Amazon Kindle DX), as well as display a range of materials, including newspapers, magazines and PDF files.

The new Kindle DX is not necessarily meant to replace the second-generation Kindle (it probably won't fit in your back pocket), but is a device in its own right, offering less portability, but a much larger screen (two-and-a-half times the size of the 2nd-gen Kindle) which may additionally help bridge the gap to those who are still sceptical of e-book readers.

The Amazon Kindle DX starts shipping June 10th, but you can preorder it here for $489. For once we would recommend you do NOT order it from anywhere other than Amazon. Although you may see some results come up on eBay through our Storeminator eBay/Amazon comparison tool, they are more than likely opportunists looking to sell Kindle DXs at a big markup, that they have themselves bought via Amazon on June 10th.

However, you WILL find a fair few first and second-generation Kindles selling cheap on eBay, as well as for a lower price via Amazon itself - check them out here. Whatever model you decide on, it's definitely time to take the plunge, with a Kindle, into the exciting new world of e-books!

However, that needn't stop you buying what you want or need, it just means you will want to be a little more thrifty. And that's where StoreMinator helps out!

In case you are new here, just a reminder - StoreMinator helps you find things cheaper by allowing you to browse products in major online stores and then match them with similar products on eBay. This includes used items, sales of which always take an upturn in a recession - why pay full price when you can have it used, for a bargain price, with perhaps just a few scratches?

However, don't think the cheapest items are always on eBay! You'd be surprised - many times you will see that Amazon has the best price, especially when the item is labelled as "Too low to display".

Why not start browsing the categories on the left, or use the search above to find what you want, buy it cheaper, and who cares about the recession!

With the recession biting, you may thinking about replacing your cell-phone with something a bit cheaper this time. The fantastic-looking Motorola Razr can now be found through Storeminator for sub-$100 prices! Well, not this Dolce&Gabbana Motorola Razr maybe, but check out our Motorola Razr section for plenty of bargains. The bidding is pretty fierce though, so you might just decide to go through Amazon. Either way, you will end up with a very stylish phone for a very reasonable price.

Most popular titles are in stock and can be delivered in a day or two, and the Storeminator will help you find them cheaper by searching eBay for similar songs (still a little hit and miss, but click on the album you want to compare and you will see a much more accurate set of search results). But if you can't wait for your favourite album to arrive by post, then it's time to visit MP3 Downloads for an instant music fix!]]> http://www.storeminator.com/news/New-department-Music_13 http://www.storeminator.com/news/New-department-Music_13 Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Browsershots is a site that showcases examples of design from around the web. Comparison shopping is our first priority, we certainly don't claim to sport the best web design out there, but still, it's nice to get noticed!]]> http://www.storeminator.com/news/Storeminator-on-Browsershots_12 http://www.storeminator.com/news/Storeminator-on-Browsershots_12 Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

You ARE "on" Facebook, right? You do feverishly check in every, say, 20 minutes, to see what your friends are up to? Thought so.

Well, do take a minute to befriend the Storeminator! Go to the new Storeminator Facebook page and click Become a Fan, should be near the top somewhere. Take the time to write on our wall too, or post a review of the Storeminator. Of course, we would also welcome you to Share the page with your friends too, using the button on our page.

This is a more informal way of getting to know our visitors and we'd love to hear from you, especially any suggestions as to how to improve the Storeminator.

Logo by lopagof.deviantart.com.

Valentine's Day strikes fear into the heart of many a grown man! What to get her?! Worry not, it's simple - you can rarely go wrong with flowers! Use the Storeminator to order a fresh-cut bouquet, delivered direct to her door - PHEW! And who says romance is dead?

And if your budget can stretch to it, hit her with this bunch of one dozen red roses for $47.99 (reduced from $99.99 - shhhh...!). Economic crisis? What crisis? She IS worth it, right?

At Storeminator we have plenty up our sleeves for the coming year, in particular we will be significantly branching out into a whole new range of products, including movies, books, auto accessories and more besides. Those bargains are out there, and they're too good to pass up! So sign up for our newsletter if you haven't already and stay in touch.

Happy new year from the Storeminator staff!

It's amazing just how technology is worming its way into our everyday lives! Here's another example - why have a static, printed picture in a photo frame, standing on your shelf? No matter how dear Auntie Jean is to you, a sort of blindness soon sets in and after a few weeks you no longer even notice the photo!

Not if you have a digital photo frame though! These can be loaded up with pictures by connecting the frame to the USB port of your PC and transferring your favourite snaps across. How many you can fit on the frame will depend on how much internal memory the frame has built in, and whether you can add memory cards via a slot for SD, MMC and other types of card. The latter form of storage will allow you to store literally hundreds, maybe even thousands of pictures on the frame. Set it up to change the picture every few seconds, hours or days, and you have a constant, changing reminder of those memorable moments!

Pictures to go!

While we're about it, there is another type of frame you might like to consider, one like the Coby Digital Photo Keychain (pictured here). Can you fit 60 photos in your wallet? Unlikely! But the Coby Photo Keychain let's you do pretty much that! For a very low price (less than $10 at time of writing), you can have a whole album full of memories to carry around with you!

Don't let your photos languish on your PC where no-one can see them! Check out our digital photo frames department and make sure they take pride of place on your shelf or in your pocket!

StoreMinator now features a new Televisions department which compares prices and finds bargains on the top brands of television. This will almost certainly mean buying a flat-panel television, which have practically eliminated the old cathode-ray tube type. But what about all those terms like "high definition", "LCD", "plasma"? If you are still a little confused about it all (don't worry, most of us are!) then read on for our short guide. If you are perfectly happy with all this jargon, then you can go right on and start comparing the prices of televisions!

A short guide to the new generation of flat-screen televisions

First ask yourself what you actually watch on television. This will have a great bearing on the kind of choice you will make when you buy a new flat-screen, high-definition television. For the foreseeable future, will you be watching:

1) Mostly terrestrial or cable/satellite TV?

2) DVD films?

3) Films played on a Blu-Ray player?

Why does this matter? If you answered 1) or 2) to this question, then you are most probably watching a source of video that is not yet fully able to take advantage of full high-definition video capabilities. What it boils down to is "resolution". Your old television displayed a picture by drawing a series of lines on the screen, some 50 times a second. If you are in the US, then your TV used the NTSC system which drew some 480 vertical lines. In Europe it would have been slightly more.

Put simply, the new generation of flat-screen television are drawing a lot more lines than that, making the picture far clearer. And this is where a major bit of jargon comes in:

Full HD or HD Ready?

There are two standards in the new generation of high-definition TV. One is referred to as HD Ready and offers a vertical resolution of 720 lines (a lot more than your old TV!) The second format is called Full HD and displays 1080 lines! Now, let's have a very careful look at some flat-screen TVs that are on sale:

The Panasonic TC-32LX85 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV is currently priced at approximately $515, which seems incredibly cheap when you consider another 32-inch LCD television, the Samsung LN32A550 32-Inch 1080p, which is currently around $800! A good number of people would just buy the cheaper one, but that could be a big mistake! So why would you pay nearly $300 more for your LCD TV?

Well, you probably noticed the numbers in the names of the TVs - 720p and 1080p. The first TV is actually only a "HD Ready" unit - that's why it's cheaper - while the second is a "Full HD" television. So the second offers superior picture quality to the first.

What are you watching?

It boils down to the question we asked at the beginning. If you are only watching terrestrial TV (especially non-digital, though this will to a large extent stop being broadcast in the US in February 2009), or possibly DVD, with no plans to introduce digital TV in the near future, say, 3-4 years, NOR do you plan to purchase a Blu-Ray player, or something similar, which can actually produce Full High-Definition video, then probably you don't need to be looking at a Full HD model, you will be happy with a HD Ready set. The types of video material we have mentioned above are all less than full high-definition.

However, if you want to make the most of high-definition video, if your local cable provider is offering 1080i high definition broadcasting, or you are buying a Blu-Ray player which can play movies recorded in Full HD, then you will want to purchase a Full HD model od flat-screen TV.

Streeeeetching things

One thing we often see is people buying flat-screen TVs and mostly playing regular video or TV material on them, but in widescreen format. This is a little pointless, since a great deal of television broadcast in the US is still in a 4:3 ratio picture format (like our old TVs) which mean the picture is almost square. Whereas the new flat-screen TVs are mostly in 16:9 format, the so-called "widescreen" format in which films are produced, and increasingly, digital TV programs. However, when watching a regular 4:3 broadcast on their 16:9 TV, many people allow the TV to stretch the picture to fit, which looks terrible, as everything on-screen is distorted and everybody looks chubby, round objects look oval, etc! So you need to make sure the TV you are buying can display a 4:3 image in normal proportions, even if it means adding some black either side.

Samsung LN46A650 46-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV, current best-seller.

Plasma or LCD?

Oh no, the question we've been putting off and putting off. If you want a short answer, it's: get an LCD and don't lose too much sleep over it!

If you want the long answer, plasma screens work on a completely different principle to LCD, even though the end result is pretty much the same. Videophiles will probably tell you that plasma screens have a slightly better display quality because they display black better. The viewing angle is also better with plasma and for a while plasma screens were actually cheaper than LCD, though this is fast becoming a moot point.

However, plasma also has a potential problem with burn-in, like old monitors used to get, where a static picture left too long can leave a semi-permanent trace on the screen. Also, people looking for Full 1080 HD have, until recently, usually gone with LCD, though plasma is making inroads here too.

Once again, no-one can really decide for you, but you can't go too far wrong either way. Flat-screen, high-definition TV is here to stay!

It's been forty years since Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute demonstrated the first PC mouse, which in 1968 didn't look all that different to the mice (mouses?) we use today. The mouse is still with us today probably because it has consistently helped us to get around the exponentially increasing amounts of data that we face on our computer screens.

Engelbart claimed that the name "mouse" was one they began using which simply "stuck". Not too surprising given the appearance of the device. His original design had two wheels instead of the ball which later became popular. However, if you are still using a ball mouse (and can still move it for all the gunk that's got inside it!), it's probably high time you moved to a optical mouse or laser mouse, modern designs that use light to track your movement and are smoother, more accurate and less prone to gunking. Also, if you find the cable of your mouse restrictive, or you want to sit much further away from your screen, you are probably ready for a cordless mouse.

Here are the top-selling mouses, er, mice on Storeminator right now (prices correct at time of writing) - by the way, don't be surprised that one brand keeps coming up!:

Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse

(pictured above)

Price: around $60

Manufacturer says: "...scrolls through long documents at lightning quick speeds with the nearly frictionless alloy scroll wheel."

Users rate it: 4/5

Bit pricey, and seems to have some of the limitations that are common to cordless mice, but thousands of customers can't be wrong.

Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks

Price: around $48

Manufacturer says: "Simplify life on the road with the ultra-portable Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks. It's always ready for use, thanks to the world's smallest USB receiver."

Users rate it: 4.5/5

Probably the mouse of choice if you need to use a "real" mouse with your notebook. The USB receiver is really small so you can get away with leaving it in the notebook USB port. Saves destroying your joints with the horrible touchpad on your laptop.

Logitech Cordless Trackman Wheel

Price: around $37

Manufacturer says: "A unique, optical, cordless trackball that works within a 6 foot range."

Users rate it: 4.5/5

In case you haven't considered the alternatives, trackballs are a great option, especially if you don't have much deskbase or you need to move around the screen quickly, without great sweeps of the mouse knocking your coffee over. Trackballs are especially used by graphic and 3D designers for the freedom of movement they allow. Worth considering.

So if you are still wondering where to start, try browsing through all the mice and trackballs on Storeminator, see what's best selling and celebrate the birthday of the mouse with a shiny new one. Oh and by the way, "MOUSE" is supposed to stand for Manually Operated User-Selection Equipment, so the plural should be "mouses"!

We decided to search both eBay and Amazon using the StoreMinator and compare the prices of several popular models of digital camera. This is not supposed to be some complicated bit of research, just a sample of prices that you might find while using the StoreMinator to compare digital cameras.

We took 5 digital cameras at random, of different brands, and used the StoreMinator to find the best price we could both on eBay and Amazon, just by browsing for a few minutes, like a typical customer might. We ensured that the cameras were a fair comparison, i.e. identical models with no bundled accessories. For eBay items, we made sure we chose brand new cameras, mostly on sale from professional eBay sellers, not private individuals - not second-hand, that would be a quite different type of comparison. Of course, items vary in price on eBay, so we tried to settle on what, after a few minutes searching, looked like the best price. Shipping was mostly mostly free to mainland US, but we included this where applicable.

Without further ado, here are the digital cameras we compared on eBay and Amazon, and the prices we found (prices are changing ALL the time, so they are only provided as an example - they were correct at the time the research was conducted):

Nikon Coolpix S60
eBay price: $346.00 (shipping free)
Amazon price: $295.00 (shipping free)

Canon SD1100IS 8MP Digital Camera
eBay price: $199.99 (shipping free)
Amazon price: $171.30 (shipping free)

Canon EOS 40D SLR camera
eBay price: $1149.00 (shipping free)
Amazon price: $1069.95 (shipping free)

Sony Cyber-shot DSCT300 digital camera
eBay price: $265.30 (shipping free)
Amazon price: $271.63 (shipping free)

Olympus SP-570 UZ
eBay price:$330.00 (shipping free)
Amazon price: $351.62 + $9 shipping = $360.62

(this item since out of stock - links refer to value bundle with flash, charger, case etc. included)

Remember, these prices may well have changed by the time you read this! But that's not what we're getting at - rather, we want to see which online shop is cheaper for digital cameras when taking a general average. So what have we found?

Imagine the situation (OK, it's just for analysis' sake!) that you had bought all five of these cameras through eBay. Well, in that case you would have paid a total of $2,290.29.

If you had bought the same 5 digital cameras from Amazon, you would have paid a total of... $2,168.50!

In other words, you would have saved $121.79, around 5%, if you had bought the cameras through Amazon!

Maybe you think that an extra 5% extra discount is not worth comparison shopping for. Well, fair enough, but in these troubled economic times there are probably many of us who would make that extra bit of effort to find a 5% discount. Again, this research was not done by some scientific statistical method, nor do we guarantee that you will find all your digital cameras cheaper on Amazon than on eBay! But hopefully if you are under the impression that "everything is cheaper on eBay", you will think again! The fact is that great bargains can certainly be found on eBay, else we wouldn't include them in our comparison engine! But Amazon is not to be ignored either - so make sure that when you are buying your next digital camera you make full use of the StoreMinator!

The prices of USB flash drives and memory in general have really plummeted of late. But still, can you believe that this 2Gb Kingston Data Traveller flash drive is only $2.09 (at time of writing)!?

For that money you can get a whole bunch of them, to give out to friends for Christmas! You may as well grab a few for yourself in any case - at that price it would be silly not to...!

Though still in the beta phase, StoreMinator is working very well, comparing prices between top online retailers eBay, Amazon and others and finding bargains you might have missed! We do this using a special algorithm we developed for StoreMinator that discovers items other comparison stores might not dig out.

If you are wondering what it's all about, go and check out Introducing StoreMinator and make sure you don't pay more for Christmas presents this year than necessary!