This is all being the case it was vital that Apple delivered the goods with their upgrade of the 4, and in general it seems they have.  Below we are going to take you through the best bits of the best reviews of the new Apple icon, and let you work out for yourself whether it’s time to upgrade.

Appearance

Much has been made of the fact the 4S is just an upgrade of the 4, and thisismynext has this to say:

‘there isn’t anything notable about the exterior of the iPhone 4S in comparison with the company’s previous flagship phone. Really, if you’ve ever seen an iPhone 4 or even looked at photos, you will have a crystal clear idea of what this phone is like.’

It does add the caveat, however, that ‘Compared with most (if not all) of its Android competition, this industrial design looms tall.’

Hardware Improvements

iPhone 4 owners may be able to update the features on their phone to 4S standard with the free i0S 5 upgrade available, but Apple doesn’t just want you to do that. It wants you to spend your hard earned on the brand spanking new!  Is it worth it though?  T3 seems to think so when it says ‘Apple has built its best phone to date’ and that ‘apps launch quicker, web pages load faster, multi-tasking is more fluid.’

Much has been made of the dodgy antennae that was the 4’s principle bugbear.  If the 4S truly wants to define itself as a model in its own right, it needs to see that these problems are fixed and, thankfully this seems to be the case with the antennae being moved to the same place as on the CDMA iPhone 4. Engadget says this should mean that ‘the iPhone 4S can now intelligently and instantly switch between those exterior antennas, in real-time, even while you’re in the middle of a call.’  They say it lives up to this promise when ‘in testing a Vodafone 4S against a 4 we found the 4S to be consistently one bar higher, and did a far better job of holding on to 3G data.’

Siri

The big ace up the sleeve of the 4S is the Siri program, which is what we might term a digital media assistant. Thisismynext describes it thus:

Utilizing a combination of voice recognition, logic processing, and text-to-speech, the software can interpret requests and follow conversations. Through Siri, you can use natural language to get directions, send text messages, schedule reminders or appointments, get suggestions on where to eat, and lots more. Not only does Siri understand what you’re saying to it, it understands the context in which you’re saying it — so for instance, if you try and schedule a meeting on top of another meeting, Siri will warn you and ask if you’d like to change the time of your new appointment, and it’ll listen as you tell it a new time.

Of course, the problem with something like Siri is that it can be seen as more of a gimmick than an essential, especially when it’s the first edition of the program and as such is probably not yet at reaching its full potential.  However, despite this Daring Fireball was pretty effusive with its praise and said:

The best sign I can think of regarding Siri’s practical utility: after a week of using this test iPhone 4S, yesterday, while using my regular iPhone 4, without thinking I held down the home button to create a new reminder for myself, and when the old Voice Control interface appeared, my mind went blank for a few seconds while I pondered what went wrong. I missed Siri already.

I wouldn’t say I can’t live without Siri. But I can say that I don’t want to.

Processor/ Battery Business

Numbers alert!  Pocket-lint give all the rundown of the boomf under the bonnet with:

The Apple A5 chip has a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor clocked at 1GHz. On the graphics front, it’s an upgrade to a dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU and there’s, again, 512MB of RAM in support. According to Apple, what this means in real terms is a chip that has a CPU twice as powerful as its predecessor and a GPU that can work seven times harder.

Cnet goes on to say that the new A5 chip means that Apple have promised a battery life of ‘8 hours of talk time over 3G, 14 hours over 2G, 6 hours of browsing over 3G, 9 hours via Wi-Fi, 10 hours of video playback, and 40 hours of music playback,’ though whether or not the reality of that is going to be different than the promise, only time will tell.

Camera

Positive reaction to the camera runs throughout each review, with Cnet saying that ‘the iPhone 4′s 5-megapixel camera was already great, but it’s about to get better. The iPhone 4S has an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus, flash, f/2.4 aperture lens, and a backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that allows 73 percent more light than the previous sensor.’   Thisismynext then carries on where they left off with the most unreserved praise of all: ‘The iPhone 4S took some of the nicest, cleanest photos I’ve ever seen from a mobile device. If you’ve ever thought about using a phone as a replacement for your point-and-shoot, feel free to start taking that concept seriously.’

Conclusion

As you might expect, reviews have been unanimously positive, but slightly backed up with a sense of caution and/or regret that it isn’t that much of a change from the iPhone 4.  Engadget says: ‘if your contract happens to be up and you want an iPhone and you haven’t already jumped on the iPhone 4 then yes, this is the one you want,’ but goes on to add ‘if you’re mid-contract or haven’t quite yet been wooed by all that iOS has to offer, we’d recommend sitting this one out. The iPhone 4S does everything better than the iPhone 4, but it simply doesn’t do anything substantially different.’

Thisismynext continues in a similar vein when with: ‘The iPhone 4S is a great device for some, but what if you’re thinking of upgrading from an iPhone 4? That’s a tougher call. The phone is faster, to be sure, and has an amazing camera. And of course, you can’t get Siri unless you have a 4S… but I just don’t know if any of those reasons are compelling enough to convince previous buyers to upgrade.’  Saying that, they do go on to finish their review with ‘the iPhone 4S is pretty damn cool.’

http://www.t3.com/reviews/iphone-4s-review

http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/iphone_4s

http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/11/iphone-4s-review/

http://www.pocket-lint.com/iphone+4

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/14/iphone-4s-review/
‘

[Source: iPhone 4S review of reviews]

HTC’s much publicised buyout of Beats Audio, the audio equipment company headed up by Dr Dre, was backed up by the promise of future integration of Beats Audio software into HTC hardware, with the Sensation XE is the first in what will no doubt be a long and fruitful partnership.

First off though, let’s look at the phone itself. The screen is a healthy 4.3 inch gHD with 540 x 960 resolution. Like the Sensation it’s also packing an 8 MP camera, so those pictures of Fit Lyndsey you took in Oceana will upload nice and crisply onto Facebook. It also comes with 1080p HD video capture functionality, so the video of her back at yours could viably find its way into the public domain if you so wanted that to happen. They’ve also upgraded the battery to a 1730Ah, which will be a big relief for all those who had the Sensation and were frequently frustrated by the shortness of its life; It seems you might actually be able to take the XE to a festival and risk using the thing.

It’s got the latest version of Android (2.3) so you’ll be free to whizz around the phone in the way you know best, with what with its Youtube integration. Maps, Apps, Gmail and all the other bits that the seasoned HTC user will want and indeed demand.

But come on, we know what you want to know; it’s all about the Beats with this cheeky litte number. How does it work? What goods will the Dr dish out? Well, the phone comes with some official Beats Audio earphones headphones (not over the ear ones though, unfortunately, so you might want to invest in some for full optimisation of the Beats experience). Every time you plug these in a Beats Audio profile automatically loads up and it is this that synchronises the phone to all the optimum sounds levels that should give you upgraded bass galore. Effectively, it’s a sound equaliser you don’t have to do all that faffy fiddling with. Reviews we’ve read of the XE have stated that there is certainly increased sound quality with the Beats profile and headphones, though so it seems they are doing their job.

The golden touch that HTC might just have achieved with the Beats Audio link-up is the instant credibility it garners. After being nudged down a notch by the Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC needed an ace up its sleeve to make it appear to the teen on the corner or the commuter on the tube. In days where iPhones are lauded (almost) as much for their image as for their functionality, you cannot ignore the relevance of Dre et al in the battle for bragging rights.

[Source: HTC Sensation XE: Beats Audio on your smartphone]

As it’s not released in October we haven’t managed to get our hands on a copy or a review yet, so we cannot comment on performance, but from the pictures we’ve seen it is an attractive little thing, with the 21.7 x 58.05 x 45.74 cm  screen hinged onto a frame like an artist’s easel.  This allows the screen to tilt back, forwards and around for supreme ease of sharing when you’ve just got to show that video with the guys on the treadmill to your nearest and dearest across the dinner table.

Users will be able to access all regular Windows applications, as well as a raft of ones built especially for the touch experience.  In a rather nice touch, the machine also harnessed the divine power of the TouchSmart Magic Canvas with HP LinkUp, which means purchasers of the TouchSmart will be able to use programs from their musty old notebook machines on this super-speeded all-round sexier model.

In a sign that it is making a pitch for all those music-lovers that have got thoroughly bored with listening through tinny speakers the music they’ve lovingly trawled halfways across the web to find Hp will also be incorporating the Dr Dre sponsored Beats Audio software.  The technical wizardy at play with this invention is alien to a philistine such as yours truly, but we are assured that its sole purpose in life is to make music sound the way the artist intended which, as far as we’re concerned, is a pretty good thing.

With a dreadfully decent 500GB of storage, the 520 will also have space for you to store all your non Apple-affiliated tunes on, as well as all those videos in that file you keep well hidden for fear of familial reprisal and/or police investigation.  Priced at £599 it’s an affordable price, and it does come with a wireless keyboard so typing long e-mails and documents isn’t a complete faff/impossibility a la iPad.  Time will tell, but from where we’re sitting the TouchSmart looks like a pretty smart (sorry) choice.

[Source: HP TouchSmart 520: Family friendly All-In-One]

First up is the Nex-7, which is the more expensive of the two at around £1000. The features and specification of the camera would appear to justify such a price, though it is impossible to say for certain as it this point no models have been available for testing.  With 24.3 megapixels and the new Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor that Sony are now rolling out, it will mean users have the opportunity to create professional quality images with a camera that comes in at only 119.9mm x 69.mm x 42.6mm (excluding the lens).

Big noises are being made by the developers about the shutter release lag of 0.2 seconds, apparently a record for a digital camera with an interchangeable lens.  We haven’t seen any proof of this, mind, and therefore cannot vouch for the accuracy of said claim, but we’d like to think them lovely honest people up in Sony PR HQ wouldn’t lead us up a dark alley with claims they can’t substantiate. Because that never happens, right?

Wrong…anyway…this tiny lag mixed with the models new Object Tracking feature means that focus should be easily held onto whatever target the snapper has selected, even when said target is moving within the frame.  If you utilise the cameras speed priority mode, you can also snap action at 10fps; another world’s best apparently, this time the fastest burst shooting speed of any mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.

The other major selling point of the NEX-7 is the ability to produce sophisticated effects on pictures ‘in camera’, basically negating the need to spend hours fiddling with them on your PC.  There’s 11 modes and 15 effects that can be accessed from the camera menu, and not a Hipstamatic in sight.  Modes included are Pop Colour, HDR Painting, Rich-tone Mono and Retro Photo

Of course it’s not just about the stills.  We’re all into home movies these days, with the NEX-7 being a sound option for the next Hilton, Thomas or Kardashian.  Everything is in ‘smooth’ AVCHD, with the device also providing support for AVCHD Progressive 2.0 format, which means you’ll be able to use 25p or 50p  frame rates.

Although exact prices are unavailable at the time of writing, it is assumed that the NEX-5N will come in at £550-£600, and this difference is reflected in the fact in it being a slightly tamer beast.  It has mostly the same features, spec and gizmos as the NEX-7, just with a little less oomph under the bonnet.  The megapixels offered is a not-too-shabby 16.1, and it does unfortunately get rid of the in-body flash, though you can choose to purchase the latter. Other than that it’s essentially the same and it will just be a case if you need, or are inclined to spend the money on, that little bit of professional quality.

[Source: Sony NEX-7 and NEX-5N]

The Wireless Headset synchs up with all your major tablets and phones (iPod, iPad, iTouch, anything with Android) to allow the owner to use all the audio, video and call features of the thoroughly modern gizmo without having to attach said gizmo to a hand/ear/mouth, and instead utilise them at their leisure around the home.

How does it work? You tell us. However, what we do know is that the headsets have what the developers call ‘lazer-tuned drivers” which will apparently dispel rich syrupy stereo sound down the ears of whoever has the headset on. The drivers will also apparently minimise distortion, which as someone that has recently become a regular user of the wondrous Skype, is a marvellous thing. In fact, to our mind, for anybody that regularly uses Skype this product is surely a near must-have, seeing as the only real downside to the telephone program is that you have to be near a microphone (in our case on our webcam). With a microphone attached to this headset, anyone calling a faraway loved one will be able to absentmindedly throw a fragrant stir-fry together whilst still getting the lowdown on Auntie Carol’s new boob-job. A noise cancelling microphone will thankfully ensure that them on the other side of the planet will not have their discourse distracted by the aromatic fizz of soy on pan.

Released in October and priced at an okay-looking-to-us £54.99, the headset gets a definite thumbs up from this end.

Coming out in tandem with the headset is the retro-named Boombox, and it is an antidote to all the docking stations of the world. You can place the speaker 10 metres from your device (compatible with all the same as the headset) and seamlessly stream audio to spice up your situation. Logitech unsurprisingly wax lyrical about its sound capabilities, and evocatively claim that the Boombox uses “eight custom-designed drivers [to] separate sounds frequencies, so you hear crisp, clear high notes [and] a rich , full mid-range and deep powerful bass.” Obviously its ability to pick up the signal will depend on the environment the user is, so if you find yourself in the middle of a gale on the Pennines, don’t expect to be able to keep it the same distance as you would at home. But then that’s pretty obvious really.

It’s not cheap at £129.99 and the proof of its worth will be in whether it breaks down after 9 months. If it doesn’t, however, it can join the Wireless Headset as another worthy addition to the Logitech stable.

[Source: New Logitech headset and boombox]

The screen is (somewhat fittingly) 7.7 inches long, a conveniently compact screen for the weary Facebook-hungry traveller, and a world away from the 10.1 tablet that Samsung have been hawking recently. It’s a Super AMOLED plus display, which Samsung make great play of and so they should with its 1280 x 800 megapixels allowing the machine to deliver what they somewhat bashfully describe in their press release as “brilliant, high-contrast colours and a beautiful, crisp viewing experience.” Fortunately, reception for the screen of the 7.7- which was revealed at the IFA 2011 conference in Berlin last week- has backed up the companies grandiose claims with all hands-on parties at the IFA giving it the thumbs up.

Underneath the bonnet the machine packs a pretty-good 1.4 GHz dual core processor, which we are promised will allow for super fast web-loading and navigation, program multi-tasking and high-quality video and audio playback. Due to the machine having the delicious Honeycomb, the whole internet experience should be much improved, with options such as multiple-tabbing and Flash capabilities allowing for a much vastly superior web-surfing experience to that which owners of the Tab 7 had. It will also give access to the Android Apps store. On a similar note, the 7.7 also gives access to Samsung’s Hub Services, which offer Games, Music and Books to owners to access. With over 15 million songs, 2.3 million, 2,000 newspapers and 3,000 magazines this will be a real boon for anyone who doesn’t yet own a DS, IPod or Kindle.

Aesthetically, it’s a treat; like that lovely Elle Macpherson the 7.7 it really is all about the body. Ultra slick with aluminium casing, dimensions of just 196.7x133x7.89mm and a bird-like weight off just 335g, it’ll slip into the most titchy of palms. Samsung claim that despite these diminutive measurements the battery life of the 7.7 will not be affected, and that it can offer 10 hours of video playback time, though there is of course a chance that this may well be a load of codswallop.

Regardless it’s a sound offering and, whilst the chances of any of these machines ever usurping the iPad in the wider consciousness are essentially zero, is does show that for those out there not always enamoured with Apple there are now viable alternatives

[Source: Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7: Tablets for titchy palms]

Fortunately the similarities end there, as the company have upgraded the old models 12 megapixel to a 16, as they look to position themselves as the market leader in premium travel compact cameras. They’ve also included a brand new illuminated CMOS sensor which should make it easier for happy-snappers to get higher quality results in a range of lighting conditions, with users having the option of 3 different EXR modes, or just an Auto EXR if they want the camera to do the work for them. The real beauty of the CMOS, though, is it will deliver 8 frames per second for 8 seconds, at full resolution, and if you are concerned you about not being able to keep up with the technology you can select the Best Frame feature, which means the camera will start recording images once the shutter release is only half-pressed. Either side of the shutter release the camera will then record 7 frames so you should get at least one perfect picture.

As with any device intended to be used for travelling the size of it is paramount, and the F550 does not disappoint here with dimensions of 103.5×59.2×32.6mm and a weight of just 215 grams. The 15x optical zoom on the front is a 24x360mm. It’s traveller friendly credentials are expanded further by the presence of a GPS function, which means the camera will recognise you and log your longitude and latitude wherever you are in the world. You can then, if you were so inclined, log all these on Google Maps so you can get an exact trail of where you’ve visited, or return to places that you’ve spotted on the map.

As well as stills it provides a HD movie capture format, with full 1920×1080 pixel footage. Videos can be up to 29 minutes long in the 1920×1080 and 1280×720 formats, though this time can increased by switching to SVGA or VGA models. It also has a fancy high speed mode- 320, 160 and 80fps- which mean you can bring out some slow motion footage of you doing the Baywatch run down the beach, if that’s the sort of thing you like to do.

Reaction to the camera has been generally positive if not overly effusive, with its travel-friendly options obviously being a positive for the type of person that intends to bore you to death with a blow-by-blow account of their month in Australasia. It’s price-£270- does position it at the higher end of the market but the features on it justify the price. Basically, if you are in the market for a device to take nice pictures of your holiday and you are a bit handier than your average with a camera, this will definitely do the job for you

[Source: Fujifilm F550EXR review]

Specification

Cnet says:

The cheapest model offers 64GB of flash storage, a dual-core 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics card. If you’re willing to stump up £1,020, you can get a version with 128GB of flash storage.

The 13 inch version, reviewed on the same website is a slight step up in terms of performance with:

1.7GHz Intel Core i5 chip and 256GB of flash storage… You can add a 1.8GHz Core i7 chip for an extra £100. You can also get the 13-inch model with a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5 chip and 128GB of flash storage for £1,100.

Thunderbolt

Much has been made of the new Intel Thunderbolt port added to these updates, a major factor in increased performance , with T3 saying that it can

“carry video as well as being a super-fast data channel. Capable of handling up to 10Gbps in both directions, it’s around 12 times as fast as a FireWire 800 port and over 20 times quicker than USB 2.0. Mini DisplayPort screens can be plugged straight into a Thunderbolt port, and using adapters, you can also connect DVI, VGA and HDMI screens.”

The speed of the Thunderbolt port is clearly a huge bonus for the 11 inch version with its low levels of storage, enabling swifty transfer of data to external hard drives as and when (almost certainly) necessary.

Screen

The 11 inch version has a 1366x 768 pixel resolution. Of this model, The Telegraphl says:

the screen is great: high quality, bright and sharp. It’s better than anything you’d find on a netbook and easily bears comparison with Apple’s larger laptops.”  They also go on to say how well the 11inch syncs up with Lion, the latest version of OS X, with “the new Air really highlights some of Lion’s features. Full-screen apps, for example, were surely designed with the 11” Air in mind.

Of the 13 inch screen Cnet was overwhelmingly positive: “The 13-inch screen is as gorgeous as the rest of the Air. It has an impressive 1,440×900-pixel native resolution and is almost as bright as the sun. Reading small text on Web pages is perfectly pleasant and sitting back in a comfortable armchair to watch high-definition video is a total joy.” It also lauds the return of the backlit keyboard, as do other reviews, and its “ambient light sensor [that] detects visibility is poor, and lights up the keyboard for easy typing.”


Performance

Pocket-Lint, reviewing a 13 inch 1.8 GHz model says:

Unless you’ve bought a brand new MacBook Pro in the last couple of months, chances are this will be faster than older models and that’s an impressive feat given the MacBook Air 2010 model which many felt made you give up performance for that thin design.

Cnet, looking at the 11 inch wasn’t quite so effusive in its praise:

When we ran the Xbench benchmark test, the Air scored 123.50, which is pretty average… [and] despite having a dedicated GPU, the Air’s graphics performance isn’t up to much… Don’t expect this machine to handle games well.”  It did, however, add this caveat: of “On paper, then, the Air’s performance isn’t great. Anecdotally, however, we never found the Air to be sluggish. Swooping around OS X and opening software all proved reasonably swift and, most importantly, high-definition video played really smoothly, with only very occasional stutter.

End Game

As with any Apple, gadget or sexual persuasion, whether or not you’re going to get on with an Air comes down to a matter of preference.  Their weight is a winner (1.06kg for 11inch, 1.35kg for 13),  the thinness (0.68 inches) mindboggling to those of us that can remember our Dad’s Acer 10 years ago and reception across all reviews was positive (at least 4/5 for each model).  It seems that if you want to be using a lot of Final Cut and similarly demanding programs you might still want to stick with the Pro but, according to pocket-lint, “rather than the Pro being the only option for those that want speed, the MacBook Air is now a laptop that gives you speed, style, and slinkiness in one package. The days of having to be penalised for wanting something ultra portable are over.”   Similarly, t3 vaunted its ability to not just be a supplementary machine, adding “over the years it has grown in power until today, it’s more than powerful enough to use as your main machine. It’s not cheap, but Apple computers never are, and given the quality it’s far from overpriced.”

[Source: MacBook Air 2011 review of reviews]

HP Touchpad

The Touchpad is HP’s tilt at the tablet market, the 7.48×9.53 inch device bing an entertainment and office behemoth and able to be used by itself or in conjunction with the other HP products using the webOS system.  You can answer calls on it, send texts and with it’s HP Synergy capabilities you can sync your Facebook, Linked In, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft accounts to your Touchpad.  All your favourite things in one place is the buzz-phrase, with it being able to surf the internet, play games and, along with Quickoffice, offers the HP Quickoffice suite which allows you to view and edit documents in programs like Microsoft and Excel.

There’s also a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera which makes video calls a synch, and it has compatibility with all HP printers so you can wirelessly print documents, e-mails and photo’s.  Unlike the iPad it also has a USB port so, so you can easily load documents and other bits onto it.  Like the iPad it’s got access to thousands of web apps, including Amazon’s special Kindle application, which will give access to over 810,000 titles from the Kindle store.

Prices and release date are yet to be set, but it should land on these shores over the summer.

HP Pre3

Jon Rubinstein, senior vice-president and general manager of Palm Global Business Unit, HP, says of the Pre3: “It enables professionals to accomplish more of their important workday tasks while easily keeping their fingers on the pulse of their personal lives.”

They’ve fitted it with a vertical slide-out keyboard, the widest and largest keyboard on any webOS phone to date, to make typing texts and e-mails particularly straightforward..  E-mail accounts can be viewed in one place or separately, and business-friendly e-mail protection is offered, so critical and/or sensitive data can be encrypted and stored. Like the Touchpad it also offers the HP Quickoffice suite and Adobe and HTML 5 capabilities.

Aside from these it has all the normal features you’d expect from a smartphone; an Apps Store, social networking access, video calling etc. With it’s 3.58 inch touchscreen it appears to have all the bases covered that a modern day businessman could want.

HP Veer

With dimensions of only 2.1 inches x 3.3 inches x 0.6 inches and weighing only 103 grams, the Veer will be by some way the smallest webOS product on the market.  Like the Touchpad and Pre3 it supports everything you’d expect from a modern day smartphone, if a little more market-friendly than the Pre3.

Like the previous two examples, it has HP Synergy which will enable the user to link all their HP devices in one place.  Keeping things in one place is also the theory behind Just Type, HP’s exclusive text feature which combines all your text messages, picture messages and IM conversations with one person into a single view. You can read and write email with ease and view your email accounts together or easily toggle between them.

Obviously there’s all your social networking doo-dah, Adobe and HP Touchstone (though this is sold separately, unlike with the other two new products).  According to the aforementioned Rubinstein, “Veer bridges the gap for a new generation of smartphone users, proving they really can have it all without sacrificing the size they want.”

Basically, size matters.

[Source: HP “double down” on WebOS with Veer, Pre3 and Touchpad]

Playstation Move/ Microsoft Kinect

The Playstation Move is aimed at the hardcore gamer market and a fiddle to start with, but if he’s a died-in-the-wool Call Of Duty type then this might be your best bet.  The Kinect is more of a Wii extension with games intended to be fun and social.  There’s considerable fun to be had in its novelty value too- there isn’t actually a controller and the Kinect sensor just recognises your movements on games like Dance Central, Fighters Uncaged and more.

Move- £41.99 starter pack, £17.99 each additional controller.
Kinect- £129.99

Flip Mino HD and Flie Ultra HD Video Cameras

Reception has been universally positive since these were released.  And what’s not to like?  Quality HD recording, the ability to plug directly into your HD TV for instant Christmas Lunch playbacks and only, in the case of the Mino, 10cm long.   Technical specs between the two are more or less the same-1280p x 720p , Transflective screen.  The main difference is the size of memory- the Mino has 4GB of memory, the Ultra 8GB.

Mino- from £99
Ultra- From £114.99

Amazon Kindle

Despite a certain amount of scepticism, the Kindle is starting to worm it a way into the wider consciousness and, if the makers will have us believe, is going to drastically alter the way we read books. A dedicated book buyer such as yours truly might not be too enamoured with it but for the man who likes to read but doesn’t want the luggage, this is perfect.  Enough space for 3500 books, a month long battery life and a reasonable price clinch the deal.

Price- £109

Nikon P7000 Digital Camera

For the person that wants to take pretty good pictures, but doesn’t want the faff of an SLR.  Small (360g), compact yet with enough bells and whistles to satisfy him with time on his hand it is ideal as a portable.   With its 10.1MP sensor and wide 7.1x optical zoom lens, and a 720p HD filming capabilities its got enough behind it to justify its somewhat steep price.

Price- £489

Boogie Board Paperless Writing Tablet

Bit more of a gimmick this one, but for those of us that remember Etch-a-Sketch it’ll bring back some fond memories…and make us realise that they pail in comparison to this.  Essentially a little black board that you can scribble over and immediately wipe or send the pictures to somewhere else via USB, Bluetooth of WiFi it can double as child entertainment device, shopping list or portable easel.

Price- £39.99

[Source: Top five boy’s toys for Christmas]