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)