Cutting edge for Christmas

From state-of-the-art to look-at-the-state-of-your-desk, we present a round-up of high-tech wizardry that will enhance any stocking big enough.

Desktop PCs
Laptop computers
Handheld PCs
Mobile phones
Portable music players
Headphones
Digital cameras
Gadgets
Accessories

They call it a lifestyle PC. To you and me, that means a design-conscious desktop with stereo external speakers. It's fast and powerful, with a 1.7GHz Pentium 4, 256MB RAM and a 80GB hard drive, so sit back and enjoy the wizardry. It's got a DVD-drive, CD-RW and GeForce2 MX 32MB graphics card for 3D gaming and a host of connections - iLink, Memory Stick, Ethernet and multiple USB - to network, download pics, upload MP3 music etc etc. But you'll need to invest in a screen such as Sony's G220 17in CRT, £294, or M51 15in LCD, £470.
Price: around £1,199.
Stockists: 08705 424424. www.vaido.sony-europe.com

Toshiba Portégé 4000.

This state-of-the-art mobile beauty has a sleek, silvery magnesium case, a full-sized keyboard and 12-inch colour screen. Electronic magic is provided by a Pentium 111 processor with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (Wireless LAN) antennae built into the lid so you can connect up with virtually anything from a handheld to a local area computer network. It has a Secure Digital (SD) slot for memory cards, storing up to 128MB of data and for connectivity to mobile phones, PDAs and cameras plus the usual USB ports.
Price: around £1,996.
Stockists: 01932 828828. computers.toshiba.co.uk

Apple Powerbook G4.

The G4 packs awesome processing power into its definitive, anorexically thin one-inch titanium case. A 15.2in screen offers front-row DVD movie screenings while at the top of the range, a G4 chip running at 667MHz will carve through the bread-and-butter stuff fast and give lightning-fast graphics.
Price: Around £2,419.
Stockists: 020 8218 1000. apple.com/uk

Sony CLIE

This pocket-sized palmtop lives up to acronym (Communication, Link, Information, Entertainment). You can listen to MP3 audio and Sony's ATRAC3 music version via external speakers or headphones. Download digital music from the internet or CDs to a PC then transfer to CLIE. You can also view still pictures or videos and manage personal data and surf the net via a mobile phone.
Price: £400.
Stockists: 08705 111999. sony.com

Palm m505

The featherlight (140g) new Palm won't even dent your shirt-pocket. Its shiny aluminium case looks as stylish as its predecessor but it's faster and brainier, with a colour screen, postage stamp-sized expansion SD (Secure Digital) and MultiMediaCard slot, a new Universal Connector for add-on hardware such as digital cameras and MP3 players as well as the internet.
Price: Around £399.
Stockists: 020 7365 9820. palm.com/europe

A young-at-heart WAP mobile with front and back exchangeable covers in eight funky designs. You can create personalised covers and download ring tones, screensavers and bitmaps at my-siemens.com/city . The Enhanced Messaging Service allows you to send pictures and sounds along with text messages and you can text all your friends simultaneously, while a phonebook feature lets you dial up several friends? phones at the same time. As well as mobile internet access, it comes with BM Kung Fu, an interactive multi-player game.
Price: £19.99 with contract (£99.99 without) from BT Cellnet, Virgin, One 2 One, Vodafone.
Stockists: 08457 400700. siemens.com/mobile

Ericsson T65.

Powerful GPRS phone with 1.2.1 WAP browser for fast and easy internet connection. Loaded with the latest features - one-button access to on-line WAP services, EMS enhanced messaging and mobile chat. Link up with the Ericsson Communicam to take digital photos on the move to send as e-mail attachments or post on the web. The six-row display makes reading web pages and e-mail much easier, while internet connection speeds of up to 43.2kbps put your old mobile in the shade.
Price: Around £270 without contract or free with contracts from BT Cellnet or Vodafone.
Stockists: 08705 237237. ericsson.com

Rio 800 digital audio player.

You can store up to four hours of music in the 128MB memory on this sexy little gizmo. It supports MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats and can be upgraded for emerging file formats such as Audible and AAC. It's PC and Mac-compatible and works with other Rio accessories such as Backpack memory expansion packs, FM tuner and car-cassette adaptor. It has a voice recorder and comes with earphones, remote control, USB cable and rechargeable battery.
Price: £300.
Stockists: 0870 5500049.

Iomega HipZip.

HipZip plays music stored on Iomega's 40MB PocketZip disks - perfect for building up a low-cost digital music collection. The player is compatible with digital formats including Microsoft Windows Media Format and MP3 and its software is upgradable to other audio formats. It comes with Windows Media Player 7 for PC users and MusicMatch Jukebox software for Mac users, so you can download audio files from the internet or create customised digital music collections from your audio CDs.
Price: £199.99.
Stockists: 020 7365 9527. iomega.com/europe

Philips HC890 Clarity headphones.

Philips' boffins have come up with a design that combines good looks with effective performance. A double hinge means they automatically adapt to different head shapes while the 180 degree rotation of the ear-shells make them ideal for single-sided DJ monitoring. Oh, and the acoustics are pretty good too.
Price: £65.
Stockists: 020 8665 6350 philips.com

Plantronics folding digital PC headset.

Plug into a laptop (PC or Mac) for on-the-hoof playback of CD, MP3 or DVD audio. These nifty folding headphones come with a CD software disk - just whack it in your laptop and off you go. There's an inline remote for volume control, and other settings can be adjusted on screen. Use the microphone for internet chat, games and voice memos.
Price: £79.95.
Stockists: 084 5600 7002.

This small and perfectly formed palm-sized Mini-DV camcorder offers great picture quality, moving or still, and a quick connection to your PC via USB and an SD memory card slot to edit and e-mail. It has a two-inch high-res colour LCD monitor and low-light sensitivity for better night-shots. It's also small and stylish enough to wear as jewellery.
Price: Around £1,100.
Stockists: 0870 300 5000. jvc.co.uk

Nikon Coolpix 775.

If you want decent printable images from digital, you need to start at around a two megapixel (that's million dots of colour) definition. This smart pocket-sized number qualifies: It offers 10 shooting options, from "party" to "portrait" and has a wide-range 3x zoom lens and one-touch button for transferring pictures to your PC. All the software you need to get up and running is here, including FotoStation Easy software to retouch and sharpen shots plus software to create your own on-line album with Nikon's free website, Nikon FotoShare, where website visitors can order prints.
Price: Around £350.
Stockists: 0800 230220. nikon.co.uk

Olympus C-40 digital camera.

The C-40 Zoom is so small it can almost hide behind a credit card. Aluminium good looks mask a 2.8x optical zoom plus pixel-mapping and noise-reduction wizardry to ensure crisper images on longer exposures. Images are sharp and clear - unusually so when printing larger formats. It also captures video sequences with sound in JPEG format while USB AutoConnect downloads image files to a PC quickly and easily.
Price: Around £700.
Stockists: 0800 072 0070. olympus.co.uk

The crème de la crème of GPS handhelds has an electronic compass and built-in barometer altimeter as well as all the usual GPS technowizardry. There's plenty to play with on the backlit display, from programmable routes and position co-ordinates to waypoint symbols and speed assessment. Retrace your path using the 10 saved tracks device or measure your ascent and descent rate. It can also be set up to work with your computer.
Price: £239.99.
Stockists: Ellis Brigham, 30 Southampton Street, WC2 (020 7240 9577). Mail order: 0161 834 5555. ellis-brigham.com

Olympus DM-1 voice recorder/ MP3 player.

When you're tired of dictation, play your own compilations while you pretend to work. The DM-1 stores more than 22 hours of voice recording or an hour of music via the 64MB SmartMedia card supplied or you can double this capacity by using a 128MB card instead. It has three folders for organising data, each with space for 199 voice files with six index marks for each recording. Transfer to a PC via the USB interface and the voice files can be e-mailed or converted to text. The player supports a number of formats including MusicMatch Jukebox software for MP3 and Microsoft WMA formats and has an integral loudspeaker so you don't need earphones.
Price: around £299.
Stockists: 0800 0720070. olympus.co.uk

A Mac- and PC-compatible graphics tablet that really works. The sculptural tablet comes with a pressure-sensitive cordless pen and cordless mouse. It connects up via USB. Unlike some rivals, it can tell the difference between airbrushing, scribbling and totally carving up a page, which makes the whole business of drawing, designing and photo/video editing that much more fun.
Price: around £64.
Stockists: 020 8200 8282. wacomeurope.com

Philips Web-cam Pro 3D

State-of-the-art webcam, with improved light sensitivity, very high frame rates per second (60) to improve perception of motion plus new-tech such as Smart Green (image processing for extended resolution of 1 megapixel) and Dynamic Noise Reduction (picture quality enhanced to maximum even in a dark room). It has a built-in microphone and voice recognition that enables you to command it to take pictures. The design lets you use it on laptops - so get mobile and start video mailing.
Price: around £89.99.
Stockists: 0800 1698430. pcstuff.philips.com

Retractable modem cable

If you're busy hotdesking between companies or your home office resembles spaghetti junction, then you'll need this handy accessory. This circular, three-inch diameter discus contains 1.9 metres of modem cable, spring-loaded for fast retraction. It's light enough to shove in a pocket or briefcase and its blue-and-polished aluminium case looks stylish enough to rank as a fashion accessory. The same lot also does a neat and sweet clamshell computer tool, below, that contains almost everything you'll need for on-the-spot hardware maintenance including screwdrivers, wire cutters, pliers, socket wrench and blade.
Price: cable, £10.45 and £2.95 p&p; computer tool, £29.45 plus £2.95 p&p.
Stockist: Special EFX 01789 451204. efx.co.uk

Disgo

Forget the floppies - store files, MP3, video, pictures, presentations and documents on Disgo, above, and take it with you wherever you go. This handy gizmo plugs into any USB port, drawing power from your computer, and works without drivers on PCs, Macs and Linux systems (though Windows 98 requires drivers; included) so you can easily exchange files with other users.
Price: From £35 for 8MB to £150 for 128MB.
Stockist: 0845 070 0737 mydisgo.com