Gadgets and gizmos a go-go!

Price: £499.99 (RRP)
Contact: www.sony.co.uk

Style and substance are always hard to combine but Sony seems to have managed it with their new compact micro 'lifestyle' hi-fi. It features stunning good looks with plenty of features to keep the average audiophile happy. Underneath the polished aluminium top and black fascia is a system that features an AM/FM RDS Tuner with 30 presets, and a slot-in CD player that is compatible with CDR/CDRW.

The MD Long Play recorder/player can record two or four times longer in stereo using a normal 74/80-min MD. It boasts funky 20W speakers and can also be specified with a PC Link Kit that lets you transfer MP3s to MD more easily. A neat combination of beauty and brains.

2002 BMW 7-SERIES
Price: TBA
Contact: www.bmw.co.uk

'The ultimate driving machine' is BMW's slogan, but perhaps the 'ultimate gadget machine' is more appropriate for its new 7-Series. Aside from its controversial oddball looks, the most-talked about feature is the iDrive interface.

Where the gear lever usually nests is a large knob that controls over 200 of the car's functions such as automatic climate control, stereo and TV. The 7-Series also boasts buttons and levers located on the steering wheel to allow you to change gears Formula 1 style. Niftily, there are tiny fans set into the seat that cool your posterior and lights built into the door armrest that face downwards and illuminate the floor as you step out of the car. A mobile home from home for gadget freaks.

SONY NW-E10 NETWORK WALKMAN
Price: £300
Contact: www.sony.co.uk

First the MD, then the Memory Stick, and now the Network Walkman. The NW-E10 is Sony's latest interpretation of portable audio and has 128Mb of built-in flash memory, which is good for storing a few dozen MP3s to listen to whilst on the move.

The lack of moving parts makes it totally skip free. The built-in rechargeable battery is good for 11 hours of playback and is charged via the cradle-style docking station, which doubles up as a USB interface for data transfer from a PC. All in all, a very neat little device that will set you apart from the CD, MD, Memory Stick and cassette crowd.

LIZARD LOUNGE
Price: from £2999.95
Contact: www.digitaltables.co.uk

The Lizard Lounge recreates the great arcade games of yesteryear in functional table format. The innards of this table is a PC running Windows 2000 and emulation software that allows you to play a variety of games displayed on a monitor inset behind the glass top finish.

It also has an in-built sound system, and gives you authentic arcade controls at the front. And as it's essentially a PC, it can also do the normal stuff too: surfing the internet, email and MP3 playback. Each table is hand-built to your specifications and the table has a variety of finishes. It would make a fine addition to the pool table in the games room.

BANG & OLUFSEN BEOCOM 2
Price: £500
Contact: www.bang-olufsen.com

Cordless phones have never been particularly exciting, at least not until Bang & Olufsen decided to throw their hat into the ring. The BeoCom 2 is simply gorgeous, with its ergonomically designed swoopy curves and neo-classical crafted, brushed aluminium handset sprouting from a functional base.

As well as doing all the obvious phone stuff, it has a phone book memory function that recalls 200 names and numbers; a 16 name and numbers redial; and caller ID. Colour-wise, choose from aluminium, black, blue, yellow and grey. A thing of beauty forever.

CASIO WRIST CAMERA
Price: £179.99
Contact: G-Factory (020 7437 1441)

"Now pay attention 007, to take pictures of the secret missile site you'll be needing this." When Q says "this", he might well be referring to this Casio watch with a built-in lens and a 1Mb memory that can store up to 100 greytone shots (particularly handy if you need to collate images of Spectre's global domination campaign from around the world).

Before you snap something, you can view the image and check the exposure on the 20mm screen. The picture can then be downloaded to a computer for viewing later using the supplied software. We nearly forgot - it's also pretty good at telling the time. "Oh and one more thing, 007: do try to bring it back in one piece ..."

PHONE CHARGER
Price: £4.99 (phone not included)
Contact: www.gizmos-uk.com

We've all experienced it when your mobile phone battery dies on you and you are nowhere near a power socket or your AC adapter. Help is at hand with this nifty little device that can be attached to your key ring and is as cheap as it is ingenious. It's powered by a rectangular 9V battery (included) that clips into the charger itself, and it's good for 10 to 60 minutes of talk time. This is a cracking little stocking-filler for any mobile user.

PANASONIC DVD RECORDER
Price: £949.99
Contact: www.avland.co.uk

The DVD player has been around for a while now, but it has always been lacking one important feature, and that was the ability to record. Well, thanks to those clever folks at Panasonic (among others), we finally have a DVD recorder suitable for home use. For picture and sound it's a vast improvement over the obsolescent VHS format, and also has some nifty features that were not available on VHS.

Its Chasing Playback allows you to watch the beginning of a recording, even while it is still recording the end of the programme. It even allows you to watch a recorded programme while you're recording a programme to a different part of a disc! All of which will prove essential for those nasty seasonal clashes with the EastEnders Christmas Special ...

PANASONIC SJ-MR220
Price: £179.99
Contact: Argos, Dixons

Get on the MD bandwagon with this very sexy little Walkman from Panasonic, which seems to be going portable-audio crazy at the moment. This MD Recordable Walkman SJ-MR220 is launched to complement the SV-SD75.

The basics are that it can record digitally from CD and that it features the useful MDLP (long play feature) that can squeeze up to 400 per cent more time from an ordinary disc. But with so many MD Walkmans on the market, what sets the Panasonic apart is a cool touchpad membrane panel switch on the fascia, which does away with most of the buttons.

It is also the smallest and lightest MD recorder ever, Panasonic claims. Comes with rechargeable battery, LCD remote, adapter, optical cable and other standard MD Walkman kit.