So RIM has dumped the mechanical click screen of the original Storm completely and has replaced it with a brand new system. And having spent nearly an hour in the company of its successor – the BlackBerry Storm 2 – I can confirm that it’s a huge improvement.

The Storm 2 uses a system of four software-controlled electro-mechanical actuators (which sit behind the screen), to give a sort of localised haptic feedback. Press the screen anywhere on its surface and it gives feedback in response – but this is like no other feedback vibration I’ve experienced before. Incredibly, pressing the screen feels just like clicking a button, and it’s very responsive too.

Coupled with the BlackBerry OS’s effective auto correction, I managed to get up to a rapid typing speed instantly, and because it’s multitouch, you don’t have to wait to finish one key press before beginning another.

It really is a revelation to type on, whether it’s being used in portrait or full Qwerty landscape mode. I’ve always preferred hardware keyboards, but this could finally sway me. I’ll reserve final judgement for when I’ve had a longer play with the phone (expect a review very soon).

I do have reservations, however, and the first is that, at times, it felt as if it might be too sensitive – more than once I found myself holding the phone and clicking by accident. Also, RIM has yet to implement a rival to the iPhone’s pinch-to-zoom gesture in its web browser, preferring the simpler, yet less-effective, double tap to zoom approach.

How about the rest of the phone, though? Well, The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s sleeker, with formerly sharp edges softened and corners rounded a little. The new screen system also means there’s no unsightly gap around the edges of the display for dust and crumbs to collect in.

The speaker has moved from the rear of the phone to the bottom edge and the phyiscal buttons below the screen have been replaced . Otherwise it’s a very similar size and weight to the original.

The screen is the same size as before – measuring 3.25in and boasting a 360 x 480 resolution that offers dark blacks and good contrast. The battery is identical – a 1,400mAh lithium polymer unit. The camera is still 3.2-megapixels with an LED flash and there’s assisted GPS, and all the usual smartphone toys: Bluetooth, ambient light , proximity and accelerometer sensors.

However, version 5 of the BlackBerry OS makes its debut. One new feature demonstrated to us this morning was the “flying cursor” and multitouch text-select facility (pictured below). Again it looks like someone at RIM has been putting serious thought into this: it’s straightforward to fire up and the large, finger-friendly handles used to adjust the selection make it easy to get precisely the selection you need.

Other additions include direct access to the connections menu and clock screen from the home screen, plus an all new version of BlackBerry Messenger.

The touchscreen and OS aren’t the only additions, either. With the Storm 2, RIM has filled the gaping hole in the first Storm’s specification and added Wi-Fi. Storage has been boosted too, from just 128MB of flash memory to 256MB plus a further 2GB for data storage.

Suffice to say, I walked away from my brief demo this morning very impressed indeed. In completely revamping the touchscreen, RIM has made an extremely brave move and one that looks like it could pay off.

We’re expecting a review sample to arrive very soon, so watch this space for our final verdict.

Jumping killer whales and pico blues

Sanyo’s HD2000 pistol-grip camcorder has a special trick – it can record 1080p video at 60fps, and can even reach 600fps for those Planet Earth-style animal action shots if you don’t mind sub-YouTube resolutions. Its video quality may not quite reach excellence but its all-in-one ability to take good video and stills makes it a strong choice at a good price.

Another strong choice, but at a more premium price, was the superb LaCie 324 monitor. The 24in panel displays 92% of the NTSC gamut, and during our tests it had cooing crowds gathered around it as the ultimate endorsement. Bringing images alive in a way standard monitors just can’t match, it earned a deserved recommendation for professionals.

Unfortunately, Dell’s first pico-projector, the M109S, was a bit of a dud in comparison, with focus issues, poor performance in all but the darkest rooms and fiddly controls driving our reviews editor to despair during testing. The format is in its infancy but it’ll have to get better before we dive in.

The bargain PC and the psychic mouse

Novatech sent us the ION, a PC with a difference: a full system with a 17in widescreen TFT, keyboard and mouse for an incredible £234 plus VAT - almost cheap enough to squeeze into our £250 challenge. True, it’s Atom-based so it won’t do everything, but it’s hard to find fault in a system that offers so much for so little.

By contrast, Fujitsu sent us a mouse with an RRP of £299. The culprit is the PalmSecure technology inside it, which uses infra-red to read the unique pattern of the veins in your palm. It’s undoubtedly fascinating to use, and it’s claimed to be more secure than fingerprint technology, but Fujitsu will need to improve the accompanying software before we’d consider breaking the bank fro a palm reader.

On the laptop side of things we saw Lenovo’s ThinkPad W500, a professional machine that occupies a unique niche with its high-resolution screen and ISV workstation certification. It’s impressive, but we’re not convinced it’s quite worth the price.

Best of the rest

We also saw Belkin’s Powerline AV Starter Kit, which finally managed to add some style to a market that’s traditionally been function-over-form. The Xerox Phaser 6280 failed to impress our business reviewer, D-Link’s DGS-1248T ’eco-switch’ fared a little better, but the Vivotek IP7142 IP camera topped them both by being more capable of withstanding the British weather than the rest of us managed this week.

Components and peripherals proved much more successful, with Belkin’s N+ draft-n router earning high praise from reviews editor Jon Bray. With the choice of ADSL or cable variants, impressive performance in our tests, a USB port for external storage and a very attractive price, it jumped straight onto our A List.

Sanyo’s new flagship pistol-grip video camera, the Xacti VPC-HD1010, arrived to fill the admittedly short gap before its successor arrives next month. We found it to produce good quality, full HD video recordings, but also decent snaps, and its attractive price should fall even lower with the HD2000 just around the corner.

Two all-in-ones arrived in the Labs. Brother’s MFC-990CW offered all the features a small office could need, including a handset and fax component, but let itself down a little on the performance front. Kodak’s ESP 7 is aimed at the other end of the market – the novices – but still impressed with its speed, if not quite its quality.

Nvidia released the GeForce GTX 285, a die-shrink advance on the GTX 280, with decent but not ground-breaking results. And Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic had a few too many flaws to impress us enough to earn a recommendation.

Completing the week were the HP Compaq 6730B, which impressed us with “its feel of a professional computer built for professional people” despite its low price, and Arbico’s Stealth 9550 Pro system, which packed plenty of punch but not quite enough value.

Firefox vs iTunes

Surely the most interesting release of the week was from Mozilla. Although its been in development for a few years, Songbird finally saw an official release, with a media player and browser in one. Darien was hopeful it could finally give him an alternative to iTunes: “Since it’s open source, freely extensible and unfettered by corporate interests, Songbird’s future looks bright.” Try it and let us know what you think.

Not just for christmas

Fujitsu stole the headlines with its offer of a free laptop every three years forever, and Jon reckons “if you’re a cheapskate and don’t mind being tied to one brand for the rest of your life it’s got to be worth looking into”. If the best you can get is the Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook S7720, however, you’ll probably be turning them down on their kind offer.

Dell’s Inspiron 1318 is a much more tempting proposition, with a price tag of just £383 exc VAT putting it dangerously close to netbook territory. Sasha was impressed by the ”portable chassis with great ergonomics and fine battery life – a potent combination”, and more than enough to earn it an award. 

Sideshow 2?

Sideshow never caught on, largely because it was rubbish. But the concept of a smaller screen by your main display has merit if it’s actually an extension of your desktop. Samsung’s 2263DX comes with a 7in supplemental screen that clips anywhere on its frame, and you can drag anything you like onto it. It’s certainly a novel twist, and we can see it catching on – but only if the price drops.

The Navigon 1210 doesn’t have the same stumbling block, as it’s a satnav that costs just £85. But far from being a cheap and cheerful bargain, Jon found plenty of advanced features and solid navigation, and called it “a very good deal indeed.”

Another short throw projector arrived in the Labs, and the Acer S1200 proved every bit as good as – if not better than – the BenQ from a few weeks back. A huge 82in picture from just a metre away is phenomenal, and apart form a few focus issues the Acer came through our tests with a Recommended award that was well deserved.

Best of the rest

Toshiba finally entered the crowded netbook market with the NB100-11R but while Tim liked the screen and the light weight, he reckons it’s a missed opportunity for the laptop giant.

Lenovo’s T500 did much better, with Jon delivering a Recommended award, calling it a solid buy “if you don’t mind sacrificing sex appeal for comfort and reassurance”.

And the EasyNote RS65-M-700 had Matt gushing about it being “by far the most attractive Packard Bell laptop we’ve seen”, even if it wasn’t quite enough to gloss over a few other weaknesses.

In the business world, Dell’s PowerEdge T100 pedestal server walked off with a Recommended award, the iQStor iQ2850 iSCSI Storage System came mighty close, while Cyberoam launched its CR250i web filtering utility.

Laptop frenzy

We were intrigued by the Packard Bell EasyNote BG45-U-300, a portable laptop to take on the netbooks at less than £300 exc VAT – just £50 more than our A-Listed Samsung NC10. Matt reckons it’s perfect “if you’re after a little more oomph and a higher-resolution screen” than a netbook.

If your budget is significantly higher the UK’s first review of Toshiba’s brand new Portégé R600 ultraportable may be more your bag. Tim reckons it can trounce the Macbook Air on most specs – and he’s the editor so we can’t argue. It’s not the prettiest but “its price, integrated 3G modem and low weight all work in its favour.”

Completing our portable trio is the big, shiny and bold Pavilion dv5-1000ea, HP’s latest budget entertainment laptop. “While the HP is more gaudy haute-couture than timeless style,” mused Matt on its ergonomics, “it’s certainly a refreshing change.” Not quite refreshing enough for an award, but a “perfectly viable alternative” to our A List incumbents nonetheless.

Hard as nails

Ruggedised phones are always great to chuck around the office, and Getac’s PS535E didn’t disappoint. Dave Mitchell stopped playing MacGuyver just long enough to tell us about its “bulletproof feel” – so tough that he reckons it will even “work happily in our delightful British weather”.

He also tested the LaCie 4big quaddra, a huge 4TB DAS appliance with exemplary build quality, silent running, “a classy design and a good range of fault-tolerant features”. Which all adds up to another award-winning business product.

Two for the money

If one GPU isn’t enough, trust ATI to cater for your needs. This time the Radeon HD 4850 X2 isn’t the top-end part, but one which still offers hefty performance at a hefty price. “Is this high-end improvement worth two-and-a-half times the cost of the HD 4850, and just £50 less than a HD 4870 X2?” we asked? Short answer… no.

The Slingbox was a great device for watching your TV over the internet, but the SlingCatcher takes it a step further by allowing you to watch the streamed content on another TV, rather than just a computer screen. It’s a great idea, but the ever-skeptical Jon had his reservations.

Cowon’s O2 is the latest media player to take on Apple, and Jon was impressed by its broad file format support, memory expandability and built in speaker and TV output. Not a luxurious device, by any stretch, but one that’s well worth considering.

Last but not least, Iiyama – recently excelling at offering decent quality TFTs for ever lower prices – released its first 1080p 22in monitor. Whether we really need 1080p on desktop monitors is debatable, but if it appeals to your inner entertainment junkie you may be a little disappointed by the ProLite PLE2208HDS.

This morning, I received an email from a reader I hadn’t heard from for a year. How do I know? Not due to my enclopeadic brain (my brain is anything but), but because the moment the email dropped into my inbox it came up with a brief history of my correspondence with him.

As it happens, that’s just two emails – but it’s enough to prompt me to look at the previous emails and give them a quick read.

This is great for me, but for a company that thrives on customer relationships it’s surely invaluable.