It is small and quite stylish and is automatically recognised so unless you need some of the software just plug it in. I found that the power drawn was low enough not to require a power supply however one of the extra USB leads that also draw power (takes two USB ports) is supplied if necessary. It has a 2MB cache and of course under run protection. It is 16.5x15.5x2cm, add 2cm to the first figure to insert the mini USB lead and that's it.

Certain names have the ability to bring memories flooding back with the effect that you have the totally wrong impression of the current situation. Take, as an example, Polaroid. My immediate thoughts, when invited to the company's product briefing, were of instant cameras that were bulky and produced instant snaps. Later, perhaps, I would have probably thought of sunglasses.

The box is 42x28x5cm and is silver grey in colour. The total weight is around 2.4kilos. The  front edge has six silvered buttons and the front left has the DVD tray while to the right of this is a LCD display. Once configured most will probably control the unit with the 47 key remote control. Providing you have a TV with a SCART socket the Alba unit provides everything you will need.

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.

At one time adding an additional optical drive to your computer involved a degree of surgery.  You would have needed to open up your system box; find an empty bay; remove the face plate from the bay; insert and screw the drive into place; and attach both a power and data ribbon lead to the appropriate sockets before closing the case and completing the process.  If a laptop was involved then the problems could be multiplied.

There have been several instances of so-called "wars" between competing technologies in the past.  A couple of examples are those between Betamax and the VHS video tape format and the short-lived contest between the GEM and Windows GUI software packages.

The black box of the Samsung BD-P1000 blu-ray player has a silver strip along the bottom half of the front, it is much the same size as a standard video recorder at 43x32x7cm. You will need to add around another 3cm to the 32cm depth for insertion of any cables in the rear of the unit. The front has some buttons but everything - apart from insertion of the DVD's - is possible from your armchair via the 49key remote control.

Apart from the fact that it is obviously aimed at the female this is a rather good small portable DVD player. The claimed time for use on batteries is only two hours but I never got less than 165 minutes and on one occasion I got 174 minutes. You can of course run it from the mains and should you wish you can plug it into a TV.

Firstly what is LightScribe, it is the ability for the laser that writes the CD/DVD to also write or draw on the reverse of the drive - the side that may normally get a felt pen or even a label attached to it. Currently this is only mono but I am told that there are coloured discs about but even these only remove the top colour to expose the one below so if the surface was green with a yellow coating below the text or image would be in yellow.

While new computer systems, whether of the desktop or notebook variety, generally arrive with a CD/DVD burner as standard, the drive will probably not support all the various formats available. With a choice of DVD+R, DVD-R and DVD-RAM, it is more than likely that the drive in residence will only be able to read / write two of the three formats. However there are drives available, normally referred to as a multi-drive, which can handle all three formats.

This is quite large at 41x41x7cm with cables inserted. Several units I have seen are thinner and certainly less deep but they do cost considerably more than the Alba. I was very pleasantly surprised at how easy this was to setup. Plug in the aerial and the SCART lead and turn on. It then scans channels and finds not only the five terrestrial but also my cable channel even though it was switched off.

I do hope the in the title sentence gave due warning. I have had this unit for some time and after trying everything I could think of - while waiting for the manual to arrive - I passed on to other things.

It should be possible to burn up 4.7GB of data in a little over ten minutes, given that only a few years ago it took much longer than that to burn a CD-ROM then you can see the advances. Of course why should we need to burn up this amount of data, this is entirely due to bloatware - badly written packages - that we are all lumbered with using. The data is there and data in the most important community we have.