Available from mid-February, the recorders come with either 2GB or 4GB (VN-713PC) internal storage. That’s enough space for 34 or 67 days of audio – or enough to never need to delete a file. If you do run out of space, the VN-712PC and VN-713PC come with a microSD card slot to add even more capacity.

The battery life is also excessive, offering 72 hours of LP recording. We find that pretty incredible – hit “record” and it’ll still be going in three days. No wonder stalkers are getting excited.

The sound-quality has also been tweaked, starting with the inclusion of an integrated low noise microphone that delivers a higher S/N (signal-to-noise) ratio than the old editions. While all models can save files in WMA (ugh), the two top-ends (VN-712PC and VN-713PC) can also save in the much more useful MP3 format.

A “Scene Select” function comes as standard, allowing you to match your recorder’s settings to your environment for the best possible recording. Other software benefits include a low-cut filter to further enhance recording quality.

The VN-713PC also features voice-activated recording, as well as noise cancellation to help cut out unwanted background sounds.

On the play-back side, there’s a voice filter for the VN-712PC and VN-713PC that improves the sound quality of human voice. You can also control playback speed to suit your listening preferences.

These two models also feature the new Calendar Search function, which lets users locate files from the recording date using a dedicated file search button. On all devices, up to 99 index marks can be set to flag important places in individual recordings.

Oh, and did we mention they all have built-in stands?

[Source: New Olympus VN-713PC, VN-712PC and VN-711PC recorders]

Powermonkey-eXtreme Portable Charger

The powermonkey-eXtreme certainly lives up to its name. It’s got a massive 9000mAhcapacity Lithium Polymer battery – 6x the size of the one you’ll find inside the iPhone. Speaking of, the unit is capable of recharging most 5V devices – which includes the iPhone and Garmin Edge 800. It can power standard mobiles 12x over.

It’s also got two ports – standard USB for phones and a DC outputs (at 2.1Amps max) to support the Apple iPad and other tablet computers. It’s also IPP67 rated, so it’s waterproof for 30 minutes up to 1 metre – and shock resistant.

And the eco bit? It has a huge solar panel built-in, which you can connect via Velcro to a rucksack to keep you charged on the go. Perfect.

Water Powered Atomic Clock

Buy here

Do you remember opening a present only to be disappointed by a need for batteries? Well, fear not, because here is a clock powered by water. That’s right, just H2O. Pour in some water and the hydrogen cell will react, turning the water into power.

The clock then synchronises via radio to the atomic time centre, so everything stays on-time as well as being power-free. There’s an alarm, thermometer and calendar as well, but who needs those bits?

Chameleon 6 in 1 Solar kit

Buy here

The Chameleon is a six in one solar toy set that’s perfect for indoctrinating the youth with green ideals.

You can create six different solar powered models that come to life when exposed to sunlight – a boat, car, windmill, plane, dog and a standing fan (see? It’s practical, too.).

Water Pressure Powered FM Scan Shower Radio

Buy here

Instead of relying on high-tech hydrogen conversion or the power of the sun, the water-pressure FN shower radio is powered by thrusting, surging water. From the tap.

Simply hook it up to the faucet of your shower and the water will pump through, turning a turbine and generating enough power to listen to your favourite tunes.
It’s also got a built-in rechargeable battery so it keeps playing even after the shower stops – perfect for drying yourself off while dancing. It also means that the last station and volume level are automatically stored after use ready for your next shower.

Santa Eco Torch

£3.99

Buy here

Squeeze the handle to generate light. What? It may not be the latest gadget, but it’s Christmas-sy.

[Source: Eco-gadgets to fill your Christmas stocking and your heart]

Looking beyond the quilting, the Kobo Touch interface is both simple and simply beautiful. Turn it on and you’re greeted with the covers of your most recent books, so that you’re just one tap (it’s touchscreen!) away from your stories.

Opening a book will take you to your last opened page, with tabs to the left or right of the screen scrolling you through the pages. You can also make a swiping gesture to change page, if you’re fixed on the tablet experience.

The fact that the Kobo uses a touchscreen means that, combined with the unit’s matte -white finish, you’re faced with an extremely unobtrusive reading experience. You’ll only find two buttons on the device – and only one on the front. It boats a 6″ Pearl e-ink display – the very same one you’ll find on the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader series, so there’s no disparity there.

Hold your finger on a word and you’ll bring up an iPhone-style selection cursor, which then allows you to save your highlighted section, add a note, look up the definition, translate the word or search the book for another occurrence. We found that this was much better that using the Kindle’s d-pad to look up words, but the touchscreen was sometimes unreliable and highlighted the wrong area. Annoying.

You can also share it on Facebook, although we didn’t feel inclined to share our reading progress.

A tap on the centre of the screen brings up the options menu, where you can access the built-in dictionary, translation tools, search the book, view your annotations or jump to the table of contents. You can also access the device’s settings and – uniquely – change the font.

While other devices let you change fonts on the device, the Kobo actually allows you to add a new font to the eReader when you plug it into your computer. Simply create a “fonts” folder on the unit and draw your favourite TrueTypes onto the system, then select it from the menu. You can also edit font size, line spacing, margins and justification.

There are three main navigation options, Library, Store or Reading Life. Library lets you see your books, news & magus, previews and your shortlisted items, while the store lets you download books through the devices wifi from the Kobo store. There are also free eBooks, top picks and a search option.

Reading Life is the most interesting feature, however, as it shows you your reading stats and awards. We thought that the awards were a bit of a pointless gameification addition for people who want to boast about their reading achievements on Facebook, but really enjoyed browsing our reading stats.

For your current books, you can see how long your average reading session is, as well as the total hours you’ve spent reading and the number of pages turned. You can also see the number of books you’ve finished, your total time spent reading and the percentage of your library you’ve finished.

The Kobo supports EPUB, PDF, MOBI, KPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ and CBR, with a 2GB storage capacity and a microSD slot for a 32GB card.

[Source: Kobo Touch eReader review: An unobtrusive reading experience]

The new Hero 2 uses a better camera sensor and a twice-as-powerful processor to capture Full HD video and photos at an impressive 11 megapixels.

GoPro also went back to the drawing board with the lens, making it a much more attractive wide-angle offering. It manages 170º at full-width, 127º at medium and 90º in its narrowest field-of-view in video recording. Photos operate at either the wide or medium offerings.

The new lens also uses a much better glass, which – continuing the pattern – is twice as sharp as before.

Video-wise, it’ll pull in an impressive 120fps in WVGA resolution (great for slow-motion), 60fps in a respectable 720p and 30fps in 1080p. The camera can fire 10 11MP photos a second in burst mode, or take a single 11MP photo every half a second in the time-lapse mode.

The Hero2 is all-set for professional videoing, with a 3.5mm external stereo microphone input and full compatibility with the Wi-Fi BacPac and Wi-Fi Remote, so you can control up to 50 GoPro cameras at once, or stream live videos and photos to the web.

GoPro are offering three editions – the Outdoor Edition, Motorsports Edition and the Surf Edition – each for £299.99. The different packs all feature the same camera, but you’ll find different accessories in each with mounts for each activity (unfortunately, you don’t find a racing strip on the motorsports edition).

You’ll get about two and a half hours of videoing from a single charge, which is insulated with a battery warmer to enable longer life in cold temperatures. You can also stick in an SD card for up to 32GB storage.

[Source: Go Pro HD Hero2: An action-packed sequel]

VO5’s Perfect Cut hair clipper has been ergonomically designed for comfortable and easy self-cutting, with a design that can be rotated in your hand to give you better access to those hard-to-reach areas. It’s basically a big circle, but it feels cool and it really does make clipping a whole lot easier.

Our initial impression was that the clippers were a bit bigger than expected – but having never used a self-clipper before, that’s neither here nor there. It was definitely light enough to use in comfort, and the grip meant that there was no trouble reaching even the most confusing cutting angles.

The cutting performance also impressed – there was no need to re-do previously shaved areas, and the hair cut straight away, without any “hair-pulling” that you find on blunter razors or scissors.

The device comes with seven attachments, including a 0mm “Balding comb”. The other lengths are 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15mm, giving enough of a range for all kinds of shaving needs. There’s also a left and right taper comb, to cut around the areas with a gentle slant.

You can change clips easily by squeezing the sides, although it’s important to remember that it comes with the balding comb already attached. We spent an embarrassing two minutes trying to attach a comb over the top of it. Otherwise, it’s so simple to use, hold and cut that we’re suitably impressive.

Tech-wise, it’s powered on the mains and has a built-in re-chargeable battery, with a blue LED charging indicator. You’ll get 40minutes of clipping action out of a 12 hour charge (ouch, no fast-charge here, although really, how often do you need a last-minute haircut?).

All in all, we’re not sure whether it’s an inherent ability to cut hair, or the VO5 Perfect Cut clippers, but after a three-minute self-cut, we’re looking as sharp as clippers’ blades. If anything, the Perfect Cut has made us feel more comfortable cutting our own hair – and we’ll do it again.

Get the VO5 Perfect Cut for £39.99 from Tesco, Tesco Direct and other electrical suppliers.

[Source: VO5 Extreme Style Perfect Cut Hair Clippers review]

Doro mobile phones aren’t like ordinary mobile phones. They’re more like Fisher Price phones – they boast simple lines, simple materials and simple colours, making the phones almost child-like in appearance. This is odd, because Doro mobiles are aimed at the other end of the spectrum: the older user.

A company started by one of many older mobile phone users, Doro has been producing simple mobile phones for simple folk for a while in Europe. Now they’ve finally hit the UK with the Doro PhoneEasy 610 and 615 fliphones.

On the outside, the phones seem perfect: they’re easy to hold thanks to their soft touch coating, while the screen uses big fonts (they can go really big) and the keys are huge, widely spaced and concave keys

There are also a bunch of short-cut keys for speed-dial, and on the 610 there’s even a button dedicated to the SMS app. The 615 uses this button to access the camera function, which comes with a flash. The picture quality isn’t terribly good, but what did you expect? (It could be the screen resolution that makes the images look bad, however, as the camera is 3.2MP).

In terms of accessibility, the speakers are loud and clear, which means hard-of-hearing users are catered for. Its hearing aid compatible (rated at M3/T4) and a maximum ringer volume of a huge 85dB at one meter – the noise-level of city traffic.

And the screen can output really, really large fonts – so you might even be able to escape putting on glasses to read a message.

There’s no doubt that the Doro phones are great devices for making calls, simply and without hassle. The lack of features is actually a key feature, as there’s no confusion with what you’re trying to do. Even the most technically-illiterate should get to grips with the basics of the operating system pretty simply.

There’s a major drawback to their simplicity, however: text messaging. Or as Doro calls it, SMS.

SMS Problems

• ¬ Mum: “SMS, does that mean an ordinary message? Does that mean to send a message?” What does MMS mean?” 

Uh-oh. Doro may be simple on the outside, but the interface has a host of SMS problems. For a start, most people call a written message a “text message” in the UK – labeling it SMS confused my dear mother.

Then there’s MMS – which was never really used by UK users, and especially not by older ones. “Picture Messaging” would have been a more useful label.

• ¬ Mum: “How do I change it from there to there? How do I go across?” 

Because the Doro phone replaced the D-pad of a typical mobile phone a simple up-down navigation button, it means that users have to realise that down also means “move left along the message” and up means “move right”. Eep.

• ¬ Mum: “It’s not on predictive. How do you get it on with predictive?” 

This was an awkward moment – there seems to be no easy way to switch to predicative text within the text messaging app. You have to go all the way out to the Settings menu to make the change. Not really a deal breaker, but an annoyance nonetheless.

• ¬ Mum: “This won’t change into a two when you hold it.”

The typical “hold down a key to turn it into the number” trick doesn’t work on the Doro, which is annoying for older mobile users who have grown accustomed to traditional ways of doing things. My parents play a game of “find how to do a zero”, which they still haven’t conquered, one month on.

While the Doro’s may be simple, they’re by no means fool-proof. Accessibility-wise, they’re great for the hard of hearing, mobility impaired and those with fading eye-sight. They’ll also be perfect for first time mobile users.

If you’re already a mobile user, but getting older and want to swap to an easier model, you may be a bit frustrated by the handsets – especially if you’re a big texter.

[Source: Doro PhoneEasy 610 and 615 flip-phones review]

The biggest update for the Roomba is the iAdapt Responive Cleaning Technology. Using a combination of sensors – including aural – the Roomba monitors its local environment 64 times/second. That’s about 39 million times more frequently than we do at LG Towers.

What separates Roomba from its competitors is the Dirt Detect Series 2 (available on Roomba 770 and 780 models), which uses an acoustic sensor to detect debris as small as sand to suck up. It also uses an optical sensor to detect larger and softer debris (popcorn was the given example).

The Dirt Detect system, along with a more advanced cleaning head, improves overall cleaning from previous models, with iRobot stating a 20% improvement in the collection of fine particulates.

If the ‘bot detects a particularly gruesome area (your teenager’s bedroom), it’ll use its Persistent Pass Cleaning Pattern, using a brush-like, back-and-forth motion to focus on an excessively dirty area.

All of the 700 Series comes with new power management software that results in a 50% increase in battery longevity compared to the old model.

Other upgrades include the AeroVac Series 2 bin, which maximises air flow through Roomba’s cleaning head to pull more debris from the brushes and into the bin.

There are also two HEPA-type air filters keep fine household dust from re-circulating in your home, a soft-touch bumper to protect walls and furniture and – most usefully, a full bin indicator light, for knowing when your Roomba is has had its fill.

[Source: iRobot Roomba 700 Series]

The Toshiba AT100 launched on September 1st, bringing with it Android 3.1 – Google’s first tablet-optimised OS. Most new tablets will be sporting this bad boy, so we’ll move on to other features.

The 250 Tegra processor is the standard heart for most tablets, so we’ll not dwell on it too much. It basically means that all current Android apps should run a-ok, although we’d be wary of playing Full HD videos on it.

There’s a generous amount of DDR2 RAM (1GB) so multitasking should be a breeze, although the built-in 16GB of storage is pretty minimal. Luckily, it takes full-sized SD cards up to 128GB, so you could have a pretty big storage system on your hands.

It’s not just a storage beast, though – it’s pretty beefy all over. It weighs 725g and 15.7mm thick – thicker even than a MacBook Air, and much larger than other tablets.

You’ll also find a full-sized USB and HDMI port, which add to the overall size of the device but also give it increased functionality over its rivals.

The added bulk doesn’t add much battery life, though – you’ll find an Android-standard seven hours.

A lot of that battery must go towards powering the 1280×800, 10.1″ screen, with brightness and colour boasted courtesy of Toshiba’s Resolution+ technology. It’s nice that the resolution is the same as a MacBook, but the picture quality won’t match up with the iPad’s screen.

All-in, it’s one of the biggest tablets on the market – and therefore probably suited to hardcore users. It’ll plug-in to pretty much everything that you’ve already got in your office, and you’ll certainly notice if you’ve accidentally left it behind.

It’s affordable, too, at around £380-£400.

[Source: Toshiba AT100: Android tablets hit maturity]

Using flash memory – i.e. the kind found in SD cards – Solid State Drives are much faster, smaller, lighter and less power-hungry than their old-school counterparts.

The Plextor is the same size as a standard 2.5″ drive, but weighs a meek 72g – nearly half the weight of a standard 2.5” HDD. It’s also pretty aesthetically pleasing, all smooth and silvery.

Aesthetics aside, the performance speaks for itself, with write speeds of 480MBps and read speeds of around 330MBps.

To achieve that intense throughput the drive uses the latest generation of SATA interface – the 6Gbps, SATA3 kind. That means your motherboard has to support SATA3 to get the full benefits – SATA2 may provide a bottleneck to the breakneck speed of the Plextor.

Of course, if you’re spending around £250 on a hard drive, shopping around for a slightly better motherboard is worth the effort.

Beneath the 256GB model, there are 64GB and 128B versions offering “up to 370MBps” for writing and up to 110MBps for reading.

Whatever the incarnation, however, the drives are fast. A straight-up clone of our 210GB Windows 7 installation onto the drive took 45 seconds to boot the first time – down from 77 on our old 5200RPM harddrive.

After a couple of boot-ups to perfect the file-cacheing, the Plextor fell down to just above 30 seconds – considering 7-10 seconds of that was BIOS time, that’s lightning.

The included software (Acronis TrueImage HD) allows you to easily transfer your existing Windows installation over to the Plextor, although some people have reported slight files errors. Of course, a clean install of Windows will always be the best option, and any problems will be the software – not the outstanding SDD.

While we love the fast boot times, it’ll also work well if you’re looking for a second drive for scratch disks (video or photo editing) or want to use Windows 7′s ReadyBoost feature. Ideally, get two.

[Source: Plextor PX256M2S SSD review]

Made by heating control specialists Chalmor Limited, the eTVR easily replaces existing thermostatic radiator valves – simply unscrew the old and screw in the new.

If you’re unlucky enough to be stuck with even older radiator controls, you’ll need a professional to fit one of these (or a gutsy amateur). It’s not a major job, though.

The package comes with two parts – the eTVR itself and a universal remote control, which can adjust any eTVR unit it comes in contact with. Think of it as a Sonic Screwdriver for heating.

The remote uses Infra-Red to operate the eTVR, which means it won’t work in different rooms – and your dream of lying in bed and adjusting the downstairs heating is still a way away.

As well as being controlled from a remote, each eTVR has its own controls on the device, letting you turn up and down the heat to your heart’s content.

Each device also comes with a built-in thermometer, which shows the current temperature of the room as well as the temperature it is set to reach. There’s also a boost option to increase the heat for a 60 minute period.

Each eTVR also comes with three set time periods, allowing you to choose what temperature you’d like in each time period. For example, heat up the living room at night, but cool-down the unused home office. Then choose to turn down the heat in the bedroom during the day, but crank up home office warming.

Each unit is powered by batteries that expected to live for five years without replacement (they’re rechargeable), and Chalmor believe that you’ll save 25% off your heating bill if you switch to one of these and use it sensibly.

Oh, and for long-sighted purchasers, the buttons are huge. Like, really huge.

Retail price of the eTRV is £49.99+VAT and the handset costs £9.99+VAT.

[Source: eTRV: Remote control radiator temperature control]