click to enlarge If like me you've taken the trouble over the years to rip the bulk of your CD collection onto your PC you can be left with wondering how to then play that music.

click to enlarge It is 20x20x2.5cm and weights (without optional batteries) 680 grams. The case is brushed aluminium and there are two small speakers inset into the top rim of the unit. Inside the rim there are 16 rows and 16 columns of .7cm round push buttons that can light up. Round the rim apart from the two speakers there are 13 buttons, a spin wheel and 5x1.5cm LCD display to the wheels right.

My music collection spreads over vinyl, tapes, compact disks and MP3 tracks with the latter consisting of duplicates from the compact disks.  Recently I have been looking at a way of converting the first two categories into MP3 tracks that can then be burned on to optical media.  The product under test is SnapMusic Studio 715 from KWORLD.

Geoff Eales  Jazz Piano Legends Sixteen tracks each well known by different master pianists all played by one man. On at least half of these you would certainly think it is the original master playing them. However this is not an exercise to simply mimic the original.

A superb bass player from the USA is Charlie Haden and he is just 70 years young. This is a two CD offering the first was recorded on his 50th birthday 20 years ago. It was one of the first entries in the Naim catalogue and has been unavailable for many years as it was originally only released as a limited edition that soon sold out. Now as 2008 comes in it is re-released along with another he recorded the following year at a university.

This looks very like those offerings of a few years ago that used to be humped around on the shoulders of youths. It is 34x22x13.5cm. The width (middle figure) is a little misleading as it narrows to only 13cm at each end. The weight is around 2.5kilos. The unit is grey with black mesh over the front. To play CD's you need not only the controls on the top of the unit but also the remote control as amazingly the unit itself does not have a play/pause button.

This review takes a look at the latest in the DS line of hand-held game consoles. The Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) arguably saw the turn around in Nintendo's fortunes and a continuation of the strategy that brought the DS to market led directly to the new Wii phenomenon. Put bluntly - Nintendo had the foresight to put the user, rather than technology, first.

The 10.4"LCD screen of the TechVision TW104 is protected by a plastic case with front panel buttons for volume, channel and input selection. Other than that all TV functions are controlled by a separate water-proof remote control. Overall dimensions are 395x292x42mm (width x height x depth). The TV is certified to IP56, which broadly speaking means it can be hit from water at any angle and will be fine.

To look at this controller is similar to a standard PS/2 controller and includes all the standard gaming buttons one would expect. For PS/2 users two vibrating motors are included - with the option to switch them off to save battery. I found the basic controller pretty comfortable to hold - the two 'wings' are much longer than those on a standard PS/2 controller.

Normally when a large company, especially one in the highly competitive IT industry, puts on a show for the media and business partners, the focus of attention is aimed at a specific product or products already rolling off the production lines or those in a well-advanced state with an imminent arrival expected.

Electronic have been out for a while from various manufacturers. Most of these allow you to transfer images from your computer via USB. That's all well and good, but each time you want to change the pictures you have to move the frame to your computer and find that cable (ok - where you safely store it this time? photo frames did Parrot have a different take on populating the frame with your images.

So what do you get in the 23x18x8cm unit. A CD Player, FM/AM radio, Clock with Alarms, external connections so an MP3 player can output through the external speakers and of course the all but obligatory remote control. The speakers are 24x8.5x2cm and can either be wall mounted or sit on a fold out stand (deck chair like). Each speaker has a 3.5mm jack plug on the end of a 60cm lead.

It was with some trepidation that I plugged my very old TV aerial into the back of this Humax FreeView PVR. Having been on cable for the last 5 years with the aerial dangling in the garden I was expecting the worst! Luckily though the box sprang to life and discovered a good range of digital channels. The Humax PVR9200T provides everything you need to receive and record FreeView programmes onto it's internal hard-disk drive (HDD).

Set up in 1994, Parrot was originally involved with the development of voice solutions designed to help the visually impaired. Following this introduction, the company then branched out into the area of wireless mobile telephone accessories as it established itself as a pivotal global player using the expertise it had accumulated in voice recognition and signal processing technologies.

The unit is very well built - weighing an impressive 1Kg without batteries certainly gives a very solid feel to the product. Opening the box gives a couple of surprises. Firstly, although it can be powered from a 3V mains adaptor, no adaptor is in fact supplied. It is very clearly and seriously aimed at poolside use on battery power. Secondly the radio doesn't have built in batteries - instead it takes two 'D' sized cells.

Around twenty years ago I got an old Casio keyboard and that is exactly what it was a keyboard and little else. This top of the range offering is a world away from that. It is a five octave keyboard but what lies behind the keyboard is the guts of the unit. It is 95cm long, 34cm deep and 3cm tall at the front increasing to 13cm at the back.

, as this is the ultimate green product it is no surprise that it is a green colour. It is 7x5x8cm and weights only around 200grams. It may come in other colours as the packaging shows a white unit. This is a rectangular unit The front is a grill mesh with a 4cm circular speaker behind it. The top has a small five piece rod aerial that extends to 22cm and 4.5x3.5cm solar panel. The left side has circular volume control and earbud input.

It is technically possible to connect a VCR, a DVD recorder, a DVD player, Audio Components, Games Console, Digital Camera and or course a Video Camera from this unit. I have never seen an illustration showing all these connected at one time, however as it has more or less the same external connections as most modern TV's they could probably do so as well. The right side has only four buttons and an input for earbuds.

I was somewhat surprised that no aerial is supplied with the / . If like me the bedroom is just too far away from the roof aerial then a portable one has to be used. While the image they give is normally far from ghost free the quality in most cases will be watchable. Bush LCD DVD combination I first tuned the unit in my lounge using the loft aerial. Next I moved it to the bedroom and found a couple of portable aerials.

Unlike the Wesley Snipes series of "cut & slash" movies nor the follow up television series based on the same character, this Blade has no pretension to feed on your blood.  In this case The Blade is a MP3 player that has been developed by MPMan.  This is a company well experienced in the sphere of MP3 player technology; in fact it created the first MP3 player back in 1997.