Nintendo DS Lite intelligently designed hand-held games console

Nintendo really shouldn't be here now. Its Game Cube console, if you believe some areas of the press, has been a total failure, while the Nintendo DS was all set to be completely overwhelmed by Sony's PlayStation Portable hand-held.

And yet here we are. After the PSP's strong start, Nintendo's DS has shot ahead in sales, the Game Cube has still managed to ship over 20 million units worldwide and the forthcoming Wii console has been garnering the kind of positive buzz that money alone simply can't buy. And it's arriving on time.

Nintendo has, to be fair, been arguing for some time that there's more to games machines than sheer brute force. Certainly on paper the PSP eases ahead of the DS in terms of sheer performance potential.

But in the same way that the original monochrome Game Boy saw off the colour Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, the DS is winning many friends, and rightly so. For Nintendo has focused, wisely, on the software.

And that doesn't mean retreading as many old franchises as you can dig up. It's about games that may not have the best graphics, may not look the finest in the shop window, yet in terms of playability and originality, they're simply fresh.

And so for every Mario Kart or Mario Bros, there's a Brain Training, a Nintendogs or an Advance Wars. Compare that with the PlayStation Portable, where those quirky, interesting little games that lend themselves to handheld machines are notable by their almost total absence.

Yet all that's a preamble to the reason we're here: the DS Lite. This is a beauty of a machine that's a major argument in its own right for clever thinking over packing as much tech into the box as possible. The key selling points of the original DS are all in here: dual screen displays, built-in wireless connectivity (meaning multi-player gaming without a snake of wires), a touch screen with stylus and a microphone for voice control of certain games.

Yet it's two-thirds of the size of the original DS, has better screen lighting and power save functions (to extend the life of the in-built battery, which can easily be recharged via the mains anyway), has been redesigned slightly for easier and clearer use, and aesthetically looks terrific. Several colour choices are available too.

The machine has slots for the DS games themselves, as well as a covered slot to plug in your old Game Boy Advance games too. Backwards compatibility should, in our view, be a must with all future consoles, simply as a common courtesy, not to mention being good business sense.

Priced at under £100 and with a software library that's already featuring several must-have titles with the promise of plenty more around the corner, the DS Lite is a triumph. It's not only cheaper by far than Sony's PSP (which does have plenty in its corner, in case you think we've got a downer on it), it's also got a stronger software base and generally seems to be a more intelligent piece of hardware.

This refined version is more comfortable to use, particularly for longer periods, and proves, refreshingly, that speed and raw power really isn't everything. And given that it's markedly cheaper than its nearest rival, it's one of the finest gaming hardware bargains currently to be found on the market.(itreviews.co.uk)

Canon PowerShot G9 12-megapixel digital camera

Canon's PowerShot G9 shoots still photos at a maximum resolution of 12.1 megapixels. That results in huge file sizes. At the best quality you are looking at about 5MB per file, sometimes more, sometimes less. Shooting at that quality gives you the potential for getting prints at up to A2 size: large enough for you to make posters from your photos.

You can, of course, scale things down in several increments, to 640 x 480 if that's what you want. And you can scale up too, with the camera capable of shooting uncompressed RAW format files.

Video footage comes in at a maximum of 1,024 x 768 pixels and 15 frames per second, or 640 x 480 and 30 frames per second. At these ratings and again at best quality you'll need about 2MB of storage for a second of footage.

Fortunately the camera supports SDHC so you can use SD memory cards with capacities over 2GB. We used a 4GB card in our test camera. You might have a problem getting prints into your permanent storage device of choice though, as older card readers may not support SDHC cards. A USB card adaptor solves the problem, but is a bit of a fiddle.

This is no pocket camera in any sense of the word. It measures 106.4 x 71.9 x 42.5mm and weighs 320g. The metal body provides plenty of protection, but you aren't going to be able to shove this camera in your top pocket on a whim.

The range of controls looks fiddly at first, but isn't too difficult to get used to. An ISO settings wheel is on the top left of the casing, with a wheel for setting the shooting mode on the top right. There are lots of presets, as well as full manual settings and one that lets you fiddle with the shutter speed while setting the aperture automatically (shutter priority) and another that reverses that option (aperture priority).

Meanwhile, on the back of the camera, the main controller is a pad with a central button surrounded by a D-pad of four buttons and outside that a wheel. This combination lets you get at most of the manual settings. There is an optical viewfinder, but frankly the 3-inch TFT screen is so superb that during testing we never bothered with the viewfinder at all.

There are more features here than you can shake a stick at, and the 6x optical zoom is just the start. To give two examples: there are preset modes for Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Sports, Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Aquarium and Underwater shots.

Meanwhile a set of effects under the My Colors heading runs to Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red and Custom Color. These are really easy to set and view on the screen before you take photos.(itreviews.co.uk)

Canon Digital IXUS 960 IS high quality 12-megapixel digital compact

It's becoming increasingly difficult, when buying compact digital cameras off the shelf, to tell one from another, as the standard rectangular silver casing seems to be the norm for the majority of the market. It therefore comes as a pleasant surprise, when removing the packaging from the latest Canon Digital IXUS, to see a more 'battleship grey' tone of titanium and a sexy, indented curve to the front and sides.

It feels solid and comfortable to hold, too, measuring 90 x 57 x 26mm and weighing 165g. One slight annoyance, however, was the frequent appearance of fingerprints on the circular surround encompassing the lens on the front. A side panel houses the A/V out and USB 2.0 connection points, but it's awkward to open and keep open.

The control layout is what we've come to expect from the IXUS range, with the zoom, shutter and on/off buttons on the top, and camera mode, function set, display, menu, playback and print controls on the back. The function set employs a touch-control dial which enables accurate refinement of your settings without moving your thumb around.

Viewing is via the 2.5-inch 'PureColor' LCD which uses 260,000 pixels and is protected against damage and strong sunlight thanks to the anti-glare, scratch-resistant coating. As is generally known, you don't need vast amounts of sensor pixels to take a good photo but the 960 IS has 12.1-megapixels anyway, which ensures that even significant enlargements are pretty much guaranteed to keep a similar degree of sharpness to the original.

The 3.7x zoom lens is allied with Canon's trademark optical image stabilizer technology, ISO 1600 and the Auto ISO Shift option, to make it as easy as possible to counteract blurring. The DIGIC III processor is another standard feature which has consistently produced authentic, crisp images of high quality and at high speeds. Face detection is also in place to automatically sort out focus, exposure and flash settings before taking the shot and to correct red-eye after it's captured.

There are 18 shooting modes to choose from, ranging from Night, Kids & Pets, Indoor and Foliage to Snow, Beach, Fireworks and Underwater (for which you'll need a separate protective cover). In addition there are six movie modes which include Long Play for VGA at 30fps, High Resolution (at 1,024), Compact and Time Lapse.

Speed of set-up is no more than two seconds from the switch-on, and focusing time is also about average, although it sometimes takes a couple of attempts for the face detection system to kick in. The end results, though, for zoomed images and still shots in general, are uniformly top of the class for a compact digital.(itreviews.co.uk)

Pentax Optio S10 stylish compact 10-megapixel digital camera

Pentax has been onto a winner since starting the Optio S series back in 2003, and with each succeeding model the company has been refining, improving and embellishing, so that you feel you own one of the most stylish and versatile compact digital cameras around.

For a start, the all-silver aluminium casing looks ultra-cool, with the camera logo etched into the front and further embossing on the top. It also feels satisfyingly weighty for a compact (130g with battery and memory card loaded) and the controls are designed to make it as simple as possible for you to point and shoot with the minimum amount of adjustments.

As with all the Optio S cameras, the lens is an SMC Pentax 3x zoom sliding lens that fits snugly into the body and takes seconds to become ready for action. Round the back is a 2.5-inch, 232,000-colour screen, a D-pad style control panel, zoom buttons, separate playback and menu plus a delete button.

Less than £150 is good value for a 10-megapixel camera using a 1/1.8-inch CCD sensor. After you've inserted the battery and SD card and set the date, you have a choice of three modes; Auto Picture, Programme and Green. Auto Picture is pretty self-explanatory, as it will automatically choose from four options (Normal, Night, Landscape and Portrait) as you aim at the target.

Programme mode will automatically adjust shutter speed and aperture as you select from one of 11 shooting scenes that include both usual settings like Sport, Landscape and Flower as well as new developments like Natural Skin Tone (which uses soft flash) and Half-length Portrait, for when you just want to shoot from the waist up.

Face-recognition technology has been retained from earlier models and, although there's no mechanical shake reduction, anti-blurring is achieved by using higher ISO settings via the Digital SR option, which records everything no higher than 5-megapixels (to avoid excessive noise).

Finally, the Green mode is reserved for absolute beginners who don't want to make any decisions about shooting options: it just sets everything to auto so you can snap away to your heart's content. Green mode seems to be increasingly popular these days, but when you already have an Auto Picture mode on what is a fairly basic camera, it's perhaps a little unnecessary here.

Focus time is quick and accuracy is high and the resulting pictures, even in low light conditions, are impressive. In addition there's 22MB of built-in memory, AVI movies can be recorded at 30fps with mono audio and there are several playback facilities for cropping, resizing, using filters, movie editing and adding voice memos.(itreviews.co.uk)

Casio Exilim Z1080 10-megapixel compact digital camera with large display

We've been pretty impressed by the consistency and quality of Casio's Exilim range, which has recently been updated with the release of the 10.1-megapixel Z1080. It mimics the rather minimalist design of much of the rest of the family, which is no bad thing, with a small array of effectively laid out controls and a back that's dominated by the 2.6-inch, 479 x 240-pixel LCD display.

There's no viewfinder, so you'll control everything through this screen, but we were particularly impressed by its clarity, colour accuracy and refresh rate. In both bright and low light environments you can still pick out essential details, although the viewing angle isn't particularly generous so you'll need to be face-on to see these benefits.

Accompanying the screen is a simple directional pad and two menu controls which give you access to the wealth of features on offer. We've seen many of these before on previous models in the range, but headline features that stand out on this model include the YouTube video function and some effective face detection/recognition technology.

The former isn't quite as exciting as it sounds; simply a way to automatically create video clips in the correct format for uploading to YouTube and store them in a dedicated folder for easy access. The face detection is an interesting touch, allowing you to not only detect faces but recognise and prioritise certain subjects in a group, automatically adjusting for sharpness and light conditions to help create the best picture.

With these features adding to the already expansive controls available in much of the range, the menu structure can often appear rather weighty, and it may take some time to scroll to the necessary menu or sub-menu to adjust appropriate settings. This is countered somewhat by the side-mounted control interface view on the LCD display, offering quick access to the most important features, such as the flash, focus, face detection and ISO settings.

You can also configure the left/right controls to custom settings, which expands the usability further. Beginners or those averse to manually tweaking settings shouldn't be put off, either, as there are 41 environment or ‘Best Shot' modes here, varying from the YouTube setting to specifics such as ‘autumn leaves', ‘retro' and ‘candlelight' that accompany more conventional 'night', 'sports' and 'portrait' modes.

Verbose menus aside, the Exilim Z1080 really is very easy to pick up and use. Controls are well oriented and the swivel zoom around the shutter button means you can perform quick adjustments with one hand. Unfortunately this is one area that didn't particularly impress. Despite housing an impressively large lens within the slimline casing, the 3x optical limit isn't particularly ground-breaking and doesn't offer much adaptability.

When it comes to performance we were very impressed overall. Colours were accurately represented, pictures were sharp and a maximum ISO of 6400 means you can get the most from night shots with the proper provisions. The environment presets generally behaved very well, although we did think the macro mode was overly sensitive when it came to distance and camera stability.

We haven't talked too much about the extra features here since many are included across the range, but to summarise, Exilim offers an excellent degree of control and adaptability. You'll find a calendar view for logging photos, movie editing to quickly clip and cut video content to save space, anti-shake technology and continuous shooting that snaps about one picture per second at the maximum 10.1-megapixel resolution, and almost ten times this at the lower 2-megapixel setting.(itreviews.co.uk)

Cowon iAudio Q5W Cowon's attempt to steal Archos's crown

There aren't many fields in the tech industry that you could argue are dominated by a particular make and model of hardware, but we believe the PMP (portable media player) market to be one of them. So impressive has Archos's range of players been over the last couple of years that it's difficult to see how someone else could compete.

A high-profile launch into this market would be a ballsy move then, but it's one that Cowon hasn't shied away from with the release of the iAudio Q5W. It's finished in black with a dominating 5-inch display and a nice range of connectivity that includes a full sized USB port - so you can transfer content from devices such as digital cameras or MP3 players - and a proprietary connection for A/V output through the supplied composite/component lead. The latter is a nice touch since it means you can hook the device up to your TV or audio system directly.

On starting it up for the first time we were impressed by the clarity and vibrancy of the 800 x 480 screen, which makes good use of the Cowon Launcher software to offer a nice degree of access and control over your media. This interface actually runs over Windows CE 5.0, which is a bit disappointing considering how long version 6.0 has been around for.

Your media options include video, music, an FM radio and flash player, though you'll also find a photo and text viewer. The range of customisation and control options for playing back all forms of media is excellent: you can adjust everything from the aspect ratio, subtitle size and speed at which a video file plays back, to custom equalizers using the iAudio JetEffect settings and full slideshow control for photos.

When you hook the thing up to an external device such as a TV, you can use the supplied remote control to access the Q5W from a distance. We found it to be quite unresponsive though, with a rather bizarre key layout that involves repeated trial and error to get the Q5W to behave as you'd like. While playback quality is pretty good, the rather complex menu structure doesn't make for friendly operation, at least not with a remote that's as poorly conceived as this.

In addition to standard media playback the Windows CE interface can be accessed directly to view contents, run games and applications and browse the Internet. There's wireless built in, which is fairly easy to set up if you know what you're doing, along with Bluetooth so you can pair with compatible devices such as headphones or external speakers.

Despite an impressive feature set that, at least on paper, might send a chill down the spines of rivals, it doesn't all come together as well as you'd think. From a multimedia point of view everything works nicely, in large part due to the excellent display, but building a front-end on top of an accessible operating system does make things seem a tad clinical.

Specifically, we noticed that application switching was rather sluggish, it's very difficult to operate the device cleanly with your fingers - though there is a built-in stylus to help - and perhaps most damning of all it's very expensive. On the upside the iAudio Q5W is extremely customisable, there's a fantastic degree of media control and excellent format support, making the final verdict a rather difficult one to call.(itreviews.co.uk)

Fujifilm FinePix Z100fd cool 8-megapixel camera with enhanced features

It was only a few months ago that Fujifilm released its FinePix Z10fd digital camera, which was clearly intended to appeal to the young and style-conscious, with its exotic-sounding colour variations, smooth metal appearance and range of menu settings geared towards party, beach and fun living.

The Z100fd is essentially an enhancement of the Z10fd with a little more style, a little more weight and a few more features that should ensure that this becomes the cool accessory of choice. So the dimensions are marginally greater (92.0 x 55.7 x 19.8mm and weighing a comfortable 138g) and there are four new, funky shades to choose from (Shell Pink, Satin Silver, Cappuccino Brown and Tuxedo Black).

There's also a larger sliding cover on the front which moves diagonally from top right to bottom left: this turns the camera on while simultaneously lighting up the ‘Z' on the logo - everybody go “Ooooh!”

Or not.

The LCD display on the back has a reinforced glass coating to keep it scratch-free and has been expanded from 2.5-inch to 2.7-inch in size (there's no optical viewfinder), while the optical zoom lens has increased from 3x to 5x, placing it considerably ahead of its rivals.

The controls on the back are neat and uncluttered and the main menu dial now features one finger rotation as well as ‘arrow' selection, which makes scrolling through the sixteen scene modes a breeze. The scenes are the same as on the Z10fd, which means you can still shoot underwater (with a suitable case cover), on snow, at the beach and take snaps for eBay as well as the useful Natural Light With Flash mode, where two snaps are taken with and without flash for you to compare.

The other similarities with the earlier model are the ISO settings (64 - 1600), the Face Detection facility, which comes with automatic intelligent red-eye removal, and the Intelligent flash system that cleverly balances out how much power to use to achieve a natural looking foreground illumination and background exposure.

The 8-megapixel CCD array provides a significant improvement on the quality of images over the Z10fd's 7.2-megapixel, although there is still a problem with increased noise at any ISO setting over 800. This is partly due to the fact that the Z100fd is the first in the Z range to use CCD-shift image stabilisation to help cure blurring.

The 54MB internal memory is quite generous and the Z100fd is xD-Picture card, SD and SDHC compatible. There's not much in the way of in-camera editing, but the Blog mode survives and you can view up to 100 frames simultaneously in the LCD. Slide shows are a bit slow but the overall quality of the images, especially using the flash options, is considerably above average.(itreviews.co.uk)

Hitachi CP-RX70 budget LCD projector

Hitachi isn't a name that you usually associate with budget products but in the case of the CP-RX70 LCD projector the low price is a headline-grabbing figure.

It's no great surprise that the package is fairly basic, so the black carry case is rather ordinary and the remote control is fairly large and clunky. The only other extras are the power cord and VGA cable, so Hitachi hasn't gone out of its way to spoil us with fripperies. The projector has a silver painted finish that lacks any feeling of luxury and the styling is very plain, but that's just about the end of the sniping that we can level at this projector.

It's clear from the photo that the CP-RX70 bears a strong resemblance to a plain box with a heavily perforated front panel, but it's only when you know the dimensions are 274 x 71 x 205mm and the weight is 1.7kg that you appreciate it's a rather slender and lightweight box.

Setting up the Hitachi is a quick process as it uses two drop-down feet at the front and you can adjust settings very rapidly with the remote control. You have a choice of two menus for Easy or Advanced but we found all of the controls we needed, such as keystone, brightness and contrast, were neatly arranged under the Easy menu.

The CP-RX70 uses Hitachi's triple LCD technology and sports an XGA resolution of 1,024 x 768, which comes as something of a surprise as budget projectors often sneak an SVGA resolution of 800 x 600 into the equation. The use of LCD technology means that the contrast ratio is inevitably rather low at 500:1 compared to a DLP projector, however the brightness rating of 2,000 lumens is par for the course.

That's the brightness rating in Normal mode, which gives a noise level of 35dB and we found that to be a touch on the high side. Switch to Whisper mode and the noise level drops to 29dB, which is a significant improvement, yet the drop in brightness to 1,500 lumens makes surprisingly little difference to the picture, making Whisper mode our preferred setting unless the background light level is very high.

We had something of a surprise when we plugged in an audio cable between our laptop and the projector as the mono 1W speaker worked very acceptably. Most projectors have a pathetic speaker that distorts under the slightest duress, but the speaker in the CP-RX70 did a capable job and was rather louder than the 1W rating would suggest.

In the main we were very happy with the Hitachi and can only level one significant criticism against this budget projector, as the inputs consist of dual VGA, Component, Composite and S-Video without the option of a digital connection. It's hardly the end of the world and is quite understandable at this price point, but even so, DVI would have been nice.(itreviews.co.uk)

HANNSG HG216DP high-res 22-inch HDMI-capable monitor

If you've been holding off buying an HD-ready monitor until you felt the price was low enough for you to afford, then now might be a good time to invest in one. HANNSG has a reputation for producing stylish monitors with a good performance record, and you'd be hard pushed to find many better deals for 22-inch monitors than the HG216DP; it's officially valued at £179 but has been spotted on the Web for as little as £135.

Once you get it out of the box you'll be able to appreciate its chic silver and black design and the cool neon blue logo that lights up when you power on, although it's a lot chunkier than many of its rivals, at 518mm x 230mm x 412mm and 5.8kg.

The controls are discreetly hidden under the bottom right of the display but are easy to operate, with the usual manual and auto settings plus scrolling buttons. The stand, though, took some shoving to fix in place and offers only a 20-degree tilt and no height adjustment.

It's when you get around the back that you notice that - as well as the standard VGA and audio inputs - there's also an HDMI input in place of the usual DVI. For those not in the know, a High-Definition Multimedia Interface is the first to provide uncompressed digital video and audio, so you end up with a ‘pure' translation from the source. HDMI has a 5Gbps bandwidth which means it has lots of spare capacity for future expansion.

With a respectable 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 16.7 million colours and 300cd/m2 brightness, you know the colours are going to be vivid and distinct, but the big bonus is an outstanding top resolution of 1,680 x 1,050. When allied to the quick 5ms response time, games like Hellgate London never looked so devilishly attractive on the PC, and PS3 users should be especially ecstatic that they can make good use of their two HDMI outputs.

DVD films also come out crisp and sharp and Xbox 360 owners will be viewing graphically gorgeous games like Assassin's Creed and Medal of Honor Airborne with new eyes. On the audio side you're supplied with a pair of pretty ineffectual 1W speakers, but it was always going to be inevitable that you'd take your audio feed from elsewhere (ideally a powerful 5.1 surround sound system) to match the visual eye candy on-screen.(itreviews.co.uk)

Nintendo - Wii

A bit of an odd review, this one, and we should 'fess up at the start. We've not had a Nintendo Wii to review on our own testbed. Instead, we were invited to a house in the middle of London that Nintendo has kitted out with its brave new hope. The following is based on the several hours we spent hammering a number of games to death and generally getting to know the new machine.

Arguably, the Nintendo Wii is the most important console launch in some time. The reason? Its ethos is different. While Sony and Microsoft are happy to slug it out for the fast performance crown, Nintendo - as it did with the DS handheld machine - has popped off in the opposite direction and tried something different.

To an extent, Nintendo tried this with the Game Cube too, which it sold as a gaming box rather than any kind of multimedia machine. The result? It was perceived as a kids' toy and the numbers nearly wiped Nintendo out of this particular segment of the console market.

That won't be happening with the Wii, though. The first reason is a resurgent, confident Nintendo, whose persistence with its way of thinking has resulted in the huge success of the DS, where it was tipped to fail against the technically superior Sony PSP. The second reason is that Nintendo has been bolder with the Wii, and it really does deliver good fun.

The specs inside the box are fairly modest and well known, easily eclipsed by Sony and Microsoft's latest console juggernauts. But it's the way you interface with the machine that's won the headlines to date, and rightly so.

The main Wii control looks like a remote control, albeit with a speaker and motion sensors built in. It's a wireless device, and a flexible one at that. Using the Wario Ware Smooth Moves game, at times you need to turn it horizontally and grip it like handlebars, whereas in the tennis segment of Wii Sports you turn side on and swing it like a tennis racquet.

The tanks game within Wii Play and the boxing segments of Wii Sports require you to plug an extra controller into this remote, and the result is staggeringly intuitive. Picture a ten pin bowling minigame where you literally do a bowling motion. Or an air hockey-type game where you wave your controller around, with the movements replicated on-screen by your paddle. It's delightfully simple and yet adds a genuinely fresh perspective to what otherwise would be fairly unspectacular software.

What's more, when we went along, you could barely wipe the grin off our faces. The software titles that play to the Wii's strengths are tremendous fun, accessible for all levels of gamer and contain plenty to enjoy. Multiplayer can be just awesome.

The box itself is small, lightweight and easily expandable. It'll support old Game Cube games and controllers and it'll also sport the Virtual Console, which we didn't get a chance to play with, where you can buy and download old Nintendo classics for a couple of quid apiece.

There are downsides, of course. Much though we enjoyed first person shooter Red Steel - and that works a treat with the Wii controller - the graphical limitations of the machine shone through, against something like Call Of Duty 3 on Xbox 360. We also found that in one or two games the controller can be a little too sensitive, demanding that you point it exactly at the screen. And while the Wii-centric software we've seen is both great fun and exciting, we wonder how third party franchises will fare.

Yet these are minor points. Every one of us who went into the Wii house that day came back out with something new at the top of their shopping list. And that's when Nintendo really plays its trump card, as the machine is selling for a princely £180 at launch, with the excellent Wii Sports bundled in.

That really is the gaming bargain of the season, and Nintendo deserves your support, your custom and your appreciation for continuing to take risks and innovate in a gaming market that otherwise seems a little stale. It isn't the most powerful games console on the planet by any measure. But at this moment in time it's by far the most interesting(itreviews.co.uk)

Olympus - Mju 770 SW

Compact digital cameras vary a bit in design, but generally look and behave in similar ways. The Olympus μ (greek letter Mu) 770 SW is a bit different, though, as it's designed to be waterproof to a depth of 10m. This means you could drop it in a swimming pool without having to claim on insurance, or even take it snorkelling.

The camera is also claimed to be shockproof up to a height of 1.5m, though it's not clear what kind of a surface Olympus dropped it on. We'd be impressed by concrete or stone, not so much by a barrel of feathers or a bath of recently-set jelly. We take the company's word that the μ 770 SW is a sight more rugged than most digital compacts, though.

The styling fits with the rugged but smart image Olympus has set for the μ range, aiming it at the outdoor lifestyle market with a touch of extreme sports thrown in for good measure. It's cased in brushed steel with highly polished buttons and is held together by deftly-placed hex and cross-head screws.

Controls aren't that easy to use, as the buttons are small and don't project far from the surface of the case. There's a separate button for shot mode: landscape, portrait, night shot, even one for taking eBay sale items, and the usual four-way ring for menu navigation.

The 64mm LCD display is the only viewfinder and in bright sun it's not easy to see. The lens offers 3x optical zoom and focuses down to a minimum macro distance of 70mm, and the camera supports ISO ratings up to 1600, designed to give good response in low light.

This is a 7.1-megapixel device, so each full-resolution shot takes around 3.5MB and you'll only get five on the 19MB of available internal memory. The camera uses xD cards for removable storage, but none is supplied as standard. The μ 770 SW is powered by a 740mAh Lithium-ion battery, which showed notable drain after only a few shots. A charger is provided, but takes about five hours to deliver a full charge.

With all this ruggedisation, what's the image quality like? Not bad, but not the best we've seen in this price range. Set to auto, landscape shots on a bright sunny day came out slightly under-exposed and we also detected some barrelling when shooting straight edges near the sides of a frame. When we shot close up, indoors, colours tended to over-saturate.(itreviews.co.uk)

BenQ - DC X725

It was only a couple of months ago that we were admiring the slimness of BenQ's T700 digital camera, which was a shade under 15mm thick. Like the X725, the T700 was about the dimensions of a credit card, boasted 7 megapixels and had a display screen resolution of 232,000 pixels.

The other parallel was that both cameras were geared towards the style conscious, as the X725 - like its predecessor - comes in four stainless steel colours (stern black, pearl white, dramatic red and cool silver) and because of its dimensions (officially 91 x 60 x 14.7mm), slips handily into a pocket or handbag.

However, it's not just in price that the X725 falls below the T700, as there's a mixture of missing elements as well as an unusual array of controls that makes this model inferior to its more impressive brother. For instance, the T700 had a 3-inch touch screen display and the X725 dispenses with the touch system and opts for a 2.5-inch LCD screen.

Both cameras do, on the other hand, capture video at 30fps in MPEG4 format and have three movie modes with resolutions of 640 x 480, 320 x 240 and 160 x 128. While unfortunately both also have an in-built meagre 12MB storage, requiring an SD slot for vital extra capacity, happily both have a Super Shake-Free capability and an SMC Pentax lens.

The ISO limit on the X725 is exactly the same as the T700 (4000) yet surprisingly the image quality suffers severely in terms of colour, sharpness and image noise once you start using anything but the lower ISO settings in low light conditions. Curiously the X725 has no fewer than 29 scene mode settings, including such ultra refinements as Building, Soft Flowing Water, Food and Museum as well as six white balance settings.

There are three additional effects modes (sepia, vivid and black & white) plus the usual variations in sharpness, saturation and contrast, three compression settings and five flash options. There's a good selection of bundled software too, including Ulead VideoStudio 8, Ulead Photo Express 5 and Ulead Photo Explorer 8, and it's Pictbridge compatible.

We can't finish assessing the X725, though, without mentioning the other anomaly which is the arrangement of the controls on the back panel. The zoom control at the top is followed by a large thumb-rest and then two tiny buttons for stills and video, which makes choosing the right photo mode awkward at best. A more meaty square control dial lies below these and then a further two miniscule buttons for menu and delete. These are anything but user-friendly.(itreviews.co.uk)

Sony - NW-A806

Where other companies have attempted to usurp Apple's dominance of the MP3 player market by offering alternative features such as video playback, higher capacities and cheaper prices, Sony is the closest yet to taking it on at its own game.

Traditionally Sony's players are solidly built, stylish and make no compromises over audio, both in terms of quality and control. The new A800 range is Nano-esque in shape and design, and retains the same control system as the popular A1000 series. A directional pad, menu buttons and side-mounted volume control make it as easy to operate as they come, which is a good thing considering the wealth of options available to control your media.

The A800 series is a full-blown multimedia player, with support for video and photo content as well as your music. We already know Sony is at the top of the pile when it comes to audio quality so it'll be interesting to see how it handles the rest.

Just to reassure those new to Sony's game, sound quality in its players is typically top-notch, and it's nice to see that the A806 we have on test doesn't shirk its responsibilities. Audio is superbly crisp and clean at default settings, but the combination of some excellent in-ear bud 'phones and wide range of adjustments available takes things to another level.

In addition to a customisable equalizer and environment presets there's a number of extra modes and sound enhancers that together offer an unrivalled potential for near-perfect listening. You can set up bookmarks and playlists, rate your tunes and include album art in search and display menus to add an extra visual element to proceedings. There's not a lot else to say here other than that Sony has once again proved that, in terms of raw audio performance on these portable players, it truly is the leader in the current market.

As mentioned though, we're keen to see how Sony handles video and photo playback, and it's here that you get to enjoy the quite fantastic, full colour, 2-inch display. The high resolution combines with excellent contrast and colour reproduction to form what is probably the best colour screen we've seen yet on a portable media player. Brightness can be adjusted for different environments and you can view both photos and video in either landscape or portrait mode.

Up to this point it seems that Sony can do no wrong, at least as far as performance is concerned, but there are a few more stones to upturn before we get over-excited with our conclusion.

Unfortunately you won't find support for drag and drop here: all content that is transferred to the player must be done through the SonicStage software supplied. This has the advantage of allowing a massive 30 hours of playback for audio as well as tidying up your ID3 tags and optimising file sizes to make the most of the capacity, but some might find it frustrating to require this to be installed in order to update their player.

You could also argue that the asking price is a little high, varying from around £110 for the 2GB player up to £200 for 8GB. This is more expensive than most rivals, although we expect prices to fall a few months after release.(itreviews.co.uk)

HTC - S730

HTC's S730 updates an older device, the S710. It is a funny thing about hardware updates: when the original is groundbreaking, the update can sometimes appear a let-down. There is an analogy with bands who amaze and astound with their first album and then have trouble with the tricky second one.

Despite the fact that HTC is prolific in the field of Windows Mobile devices, this is the case with the S730.

The original S710 was a Windows Mobile Smartphone which, for the first time ever, had a slide-out keyboard. That might sound like a fairly simple piece of design, but it brought the possibility of speedy text entry to the Smartphone format, and as such made the S710 one of the smallest Windows Mobile devices with feasible mobile e-mail capability.

The S730 has the same design, but its slide-out keyboard is no longer an innovation. Add in the fact that there are several touch-screen Windows Mobile Professional devices with sliding keyboards that can rival the S730 for weight and overall size, and the new device becomes an even less alluring proposition.

At 150g there are Windows Mobile Professional (touch-screen) devices that weigh less, and if you are looking for a thin and pocketable smartphone then, at 101mm tall, 50mm wide and 17.7mm thick, this chunky device isn't it.

On the features side of things the S730 is quite advanced, though. It is quad-band GSM with 3G and HSDPA, and has a front-facing camera for video calls and a 2-megapixel unit on the back.

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are both present, the latter opening up the prospect of mobile e-mail and Web access from free wireless hotspots or your own network rather than on your tariff. There is 256MB of flash memory and 64MB of RAM. Fresh out of the box my review sample reported a little over 120MB of free storage. A microSD card slot is on the right-hand edge of the casing so you can expand on what is built in.

This being a Windows Mobile 6.0 device, you can edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents (though not create them from scratch). The keyboard can come in handy here and mobile e-mail fans may find it particularly useful.

HTC has put its own Today screen onto the device, and this can be used to do things like view a weather report and forecast, get to your speed dials and set alarms quickly and easily. Anyone who has seen TouchFLO on an HTC Touch will recognise the look, although here, without a touch-screen, the feature set is more limited.(itreviews.co.uk)

Creative - Zen Stone Plus

Earlier this year Creative released a simple music player called the Zen Stone, as an obvious rival to Apple's iPod Shuffle. The big advantage of the Zen Stone was its price, but it was quite basic. Now the company has released the Zen Stone Plus, which adds a number of extras including a display, FM radio, voice recording, a watch/stopwatch and twice the memory.

The most obvious addition is the display, and the 64 x 64 pixel, blue OLED screen has enough room to show the current track title, battery status, graphic equaliser (which includes four presets) and time, but disappointingly, it doesn't show album or artist. Can you remember the names of all the tracks in your music collection?

The play function has been moved from the joypad on the front of the Stone to a separate button on the top edge of the Stone Plus, which makes it easier to use, particularly as it doubles as the power button when held down.

2GB of onboard memory is enough for around 500 MP3s or, Creative claims, 1,000 WMAs. The player can handle copyrighted material protected by Windows DRM if you use Creative's downloadable software or Windows Media Player to transfer it.

Music playback quality is good; better than good, if you replace the unexciting Creative earbuds with something better. Bass is still lacking, but mid and high frequencies are crisp and well differentiated. Overall, sound is marginally better than an iPod Shuffle but, unsurprisingly, no better than the original Stone.

The new recording mode is good enough for noting thoughts that come to you when out and about, but sound is fairly muffled and not up to the standard of a dedicated voice recorder. FM radio is better and, assuming you have a reasonable signal level, quite listenable. There's a rather excessive 32 presets available and a frequency scan or manual tuning option.

There's no software CD supplied with the Zen Stone Plus, but if you have a recent version of Media Player it will be automatically recognised and you can drag files to and from its sync list. At the simplest level you can open up a Windows file browser and drag and drop MP3, WMA or Audible files to and from the player. It can also be used this way to transport data files.

Various optional accessories are designed to endear the player to those who jog and drive, as there are wrist- and arm-bands, a key-fob, a number of skins and the TravelSound, which engulfs the Zen Stone Plus with speakers.(itreviews.co.uk)