The latest batch of mini helicopters launched by Bladez Toyz, a company headed by ITV Tycoon winner Iain Morgan and financed by Dragon’s Den business guru Peter Jones, includes the Salvation 3D model which is the subject of this review.  The last Bladez Toyz helicopter (the Salvation 1) I looked at came with a fairly standard remote control unit with twin joysticks.  This was powered by 8 AA batteries.

The website describes this as a toy, well no doubt most children of a certain age would love one but I suspect the price will mean that it will be an ‘executive’ toy. This is a very clever piece of kit. What has 33 wheels? Yes you know the answer before you even try to count them.

A little like the Airfix kits I remember as a child this box has all the bits required to build six different items that all work using solar power. Perhaps a strange thing to promote as a Christmas gift but during the dark days you can build and then when the lighter days arrive the unit is ready to be used, all the best things are worth waiting for. The six items that you can build are a Revolving Plane, Windmill, Plane, Airboat, Puppy and Car all take advantage of the solar unit provided.

This is apparently the twelfth limited edition puzzle produced by Ravensburger. I cannot talk about any of the first eleven as I have not seen them. This is a delightful puzzle of 1000 pieces and for me anyway quite difficult because of the amount of snow. It is created from an original watercolour painting by Roy Trower who studied graphic art at Norwich and graduated in 1984. It is one of Ravensburgers Premium Puzzles featuring their softclick technology.

This is a fantastic playground toy which can be used both inside an out an ingenious combination of space hopper and 360 degree see-saw. The metal frame allows the Spirohop to go up and down like a traditional see-saw whilst going round and round like a roundabout.

You know the old one - when you buy a kid a present, they invariably play more with the cardboard box.  Here's a company that's making the most out of that maxim - ECOutlet. ECOutlet help us to feel a bit better about our purchases by giving us environmental choices, with everything from books to toys and cycling to garden accessories as well as laundry and cleaning products.  This is a great place to look for presents with that Eco-touch.

Toys use to be just toys that you were meant to enjoy without any additional baggage when I was a child.  You had your favourites and would play with them for hours quite happily.  There were even occasions when you created your own versions of a particular toy that was unobtainable due to financial constraints or other reasons. Nowadays though, toys seem to be weighed down by issues dealing with marketing, licensing and even political correctness.

While visiting the recent Toy Fair, held at the Excel Exhibition Centre, I was struck by, what appeared to be, a total lack of one particular toy that was heavily featured last year.  Flights of fancy, via remote controlled helicopters and the like, were now conspicuous by their absence – but not quite.  The thought had barely faded from my mind when, as chance would have it, I stumbled across the small, but welcome, Extreme Fliers stand.

This is a toy that has been around in one form or another for many years. Here however John Adams have gone one further by not only allowing the drawer to capture static objects on the unit but also things far further away. The base is 30x38cm and it grows to about 34cm tall forming two thirds of a triangle. The whole secret is two (unbreakable) mirrors that allow anything in the right area to be captured and therefore drawn on an A4 sheet of paper.

Not a skin in sight, it is basically a pair of drumsticks with thin leads going to a small box, while there are a couple of smaller boxes that is it. Insert 4x‘AA’ batteries in the box and start learning the movements and hear your efforts either from the inbuilt speaker or once you have things perfected pipe it out through external speakers. Annoy the neighbours without even ever bringing anything larger than 43x26x6cm cardboard box into your home.

Things have moved on a long way since the plastic toy robot my father bought me well over thirty years ago. If I remember correctly that had a single electric motor in the base and a couple of caterpillar tracks to move. The only other technology was a couple of flashing lights. The only real similarity between that long lost toy and the i-Sobot is that both are made of plastic. Gone are the caterpillar tracks to be replaced with 17 different powered 'joints'.

It has been said that many toys imitates real life. This reviewer just hopes that he is not involved in any imitation with regards to one aspect of this next product which is the Zero Gravity Micro racing car. While I am not a great fan of speed, it is other features of this car, as will become obvious a little later, is responsible for my point of view.

I'll start by mentioning the price, which I usually leave until the end, which is around about . Now you can either consider this as a very expensive toy as a cheap way of satisfying your childs desire for a pet without the cost of a tin of catfood each day, vets bills and a responsibility for your pet long after your child has moved on to other delights. You can see what Pleo looks like from the pictures - a small happy dinosaur.

Those over a certain age must remember the Rubik Cube; after all over 350 million units have been sold since its introduction in the 1980s, well now we have a follow up product entitled the Revo.  At first glance this cube shaped device with coloured sides could easily be mistaken for a slightly larger, shimmering version of the original Rubik Cube.

Flight has always held a fascination for many children so it's no surprise that inexpensive radio controlled flying toys have been somewhat of a hit over the last few years. Traditionally an expensive pastime, the miniaturisation of electronics, motors and lightweight construction materials has enabled this new generation of device. There have been problems though.

It is up to 43cm long and around 8cm across at the receiving end. There is a (detachable) tripod whose legs stray to 30cm. This can lift the telescope up to 45cm above whatever you are resting it on. The eyepiece has four positions twisting through 180 degrees. There are three others lens that can be attached. I would assume this comes in a box (mine only came in the case) and no doubt the box has all the instructions.

For some, the defining memory of the Eighties could well be that of the fiendishly clever, or perhaps you prefer the description of annoying, puzzle – namely the Rubik Cube. I have to confess to being one of the many who fell under the spell of this contraption and spent many hours in attempting to solve this puzzle developed by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian Professor of Architecture and Design.

I didn't have to go the Build A Bear workshop specially to do a review as my kids have already been several times.  If you have kids under 10 it's a very special experience.  And in fact whenever we've been there we've seen quite a few girls in their 20s putting their heart into their bear too. Build-A-Bear is a truly lovely concept.  There are Build A Bear workshops (stores) all over the country now.

I must start with a warning these products are extremely difficult to remove from the packaging. If you are giving this as a gift I suggest that it is extracted from the packaging first as by the time you have done it the child will be bored. I found six ties that go right through the packaging and need to be fed out to allow Wall.e to look as if he can be extracted.