I’m currently sat in the office churning through a Labs, but concentration has never been my strongest point. I’ve just watched the Champions League group stage draw via BBC live text (surely this generation’s Teletext) and now I’m following Andy Murray’s progress in the third round of the US Open. He’s winning.

But it’s how I’m doing it that I love most:

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I remember when we first started talking about HD. Back then it was this mythical beast that would tear apart video as we know it with its millions of pixels, and leave us all cursing standard definition for being as fuzzy and vague as Colin Jackson’s “expert” Olympic analysis.

Then it arrived and we loved it. The first time I ran a 1080p video on my 40in TV, my non-techie housemate grabbed the controller and kept replaying the same HD movie trailer for what seemed like an hour, so enamoured was he with the detail. Those of us with a PlayStation3 or Blu-ray player can enjoy the delights of HD by renting movies, but TV has been much slower out of the blocks.

Put simply, even a drum-beating HD lover like myself can admit the line-up of HD channels just hasn’t been worth paying for. Cable customers with Virgin’s V+ box can watch several free channels like BBC HD (and enjoy the excellent Olympic coverage, Jackson aside), but Sky HD is the big gun we all pinned our hopes on. And it’s expensive. Very expensive. (more…)

When upgrading a PC, the monitor is often the one thing people keep hold of. The rationale goes that it still works perfectly well and newer screens still use the same TFT technology that’s dominated the industry in recent times. Why shell out for a new one?

I’ve just finished testing Iiyama’s latest flagship model - a 26in monster of a display with DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs and a very impressive set of 5W speakers. It’s a solid TFT, and I was expecting a reasonably attractive price given the non-adjustable stand, but I was staggered to see just how cheap it is.

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Ever lost your cordless mouse? No, us neither, but don’t let that put you off Logitech’s latest innovation. The V550 Nano comes with a separate stick-on mouse knob (that’s a technical term) for your laptop.

Choose a suitable spot on your lid, peel off the backing and press it into place, then just slide the groove on the base of the Nano onto it - hey presto! you’ll never lose your mouse again. Phew.

It also comes with a remarkably small receiver, which slots neatly inside the mouse itself - it couldn’t really get much more portable. Check back on Monday for the review.

Our review of the latest in the Eee PC roster, the 1000H, is now online, and it’s the most usable model yet. But this marvellous chart tells its own story (click to enlarge).

The “Easy, Excellent, Exciting” (yes, that is what it stands for; no, I couldn’t believe it either) brand now consists of 12 models - and that’s only those in official existence.

There’s also going to be a 701SD with external storage, an Atom-based 900A, and a Celeron-based 1000HD to complete a line-up which will comprise 15 different Eee PC options. And that’s before the $900 S101 arrives to take the brand to a whole new level of absurdity.

Without a chart like this I certainly wouldn’t be able to tell you what’s inside each one, so I can’t imagine how the average PC World shopper goes about choosing.

Polaroid jumped back into the market in March of this year with a range of cameras and a separate digital printing device called the PoGo. Producing little 2 x 3in prints in around 30 seconds, it was a nice little concept, but beyond kids printing stickers of each other to plaster all over the back of bus seats I couldn’t see any lasting appeal.

I did ask Polaroid back then about the possibility of integrating the printer into its digital cameras to come up with a true successor to the Polaroid instant camera, and the response was, with a wry smile, that advancements would come “at a later date”.

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Dave Stevenson may no longer be our deputy reviews editor - in fact he’s currently working for an Australian magazine during a brief pause for breath in his round-the-world gallivanting - but he still keeps in touch, annoyingly.

Usually it’s inane banter, or abuse about how good the weather is in Sydney while we’re mired in London’s perpetual drizzle, but occasionally - very occasionally - he says something of interest. Today was one of those rare occasions. Luckily it’s not about him, but his Dad, a British engineer currently engaged in ground-breaking research.

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You may have noticed the latest review up on the PC Pro homepage, of HP’s Pavilion HDX9320EA laptop. A gloriously over the top machine, with oodles of style and a price tag that’s certainly not as high as we expected when it was crane-lifted out of the box.

But is it actually a laptop? Could it feasibly be argued that this leviathan will comfortably sit on the average lap? At some point a desktop replacement becomes, well, just a desktop by another name. (more…)

Yes, it’s Friday afternoon and it’s been a long week. I can offer up no other excuse for what I’m about to do to you, all I can suggest is that if you’re currently experiencing a particularly productive period at work you’d be advised not to read this blog post.

Still here? Good.

At one point yesterday one website occupied the screens of no fewer than nine journalists across Pro and our neighbours at MacUser (sorry guys). It’s called Fantastic Contraption and, I really can’t emphasise this warning enough, it’s more addictive than crack.

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We love the Squeezebox. That goes without saying. We love the Squeezebox Duet even more - when it comes to audio streaming its difficult to imagine a device as intuitive and gorgeous coming along to topple it any time soon.

But Slim Devices and Logitech clearly aren’t ones to rest on their laurels, as the audio streaming market has another segment they’re yet to conquer - that of the standalone Wi-Fi radio. Well, as of today Revo, Tangent, Terratec et al better be bracing themselves for a fight.

Meet the Squeezebox Boom.

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