Overview

This budget-busting effort from Hannspreee does away with 'smart' apps and on-demand IPTV services and instead combines some of the basics on shoppers' lists: LED backlighting, Full HD, pause live TV and basic USB recording.

The brand often rears its head as a maker of and of in general, and this 40-inch Edge LED-backlit LCD TV from Hannspree is firmly in that second camp.

The brand's first model in its SE TV Series, and available to buy now from , the SE40LMNB includes a two-year collect and return warranty as standard. A 32-inch version, the Hannspree SE32LMNB, will become available this month, too.

Although the SE40LMNB's recording and Time-shift functions are touted, note that the system employed here is much like on any other modern TV.

A lot of the major Japanese, Korean and Chinese brands now build-in a USB port that's capable of making TV recordings to a connected hard disk (not forgetting the all-important pause and rewind live TV feature), and that's the case here.

Tie that to a Full HD resolution and the reasons to buy increase, though that extra detail is rather wasted by the lack of a Freeview HD tuner.

The idea of writing on a piece of paper for it then to appear on your Mac as ready-to-edit text is intriguing. That goes especially for anyone who has taken notes and had to type them up when they're next sat at their Mac.

The E-pens Mobile Note Digital Pen for Mac isn't a unique product. But it has an advantage over one of its nearest competitors, the , because it's able to use any piece of paper to record your handwritten notes. (The Livescribe Echo Smartpen needs you to write on specially marked paper.)

This additional level of flexibility is achieved via a small receiver that attaches to the top of the sheet of paper you're writing on. If you want to use a flip notepad you'll have to turn the pad upside down to attach the receiver.

You need to install NoteManager and MyScripts from the included disc. Because there doesn't seem to be an easy way to install these programs from the E-pens website, it meant we had to use an external DVD drive to install it on our optical drive-less MacBook Air.

Initial results when we imported our notes were not that impressive, with some words being recognised, and others coming out as gibberish. It took practice on both sides to get better results. On our part we wrote more slowly and clearly, while the MyScript software created a profile to help it recognise our handwriting. Our second attempt was much more successful with only one error.

While the receiver is connected to your Mac you can also use it as a mouse. It takes a little getting used to, as you need to hover the pen over the pad, while pressing down on the paper replicates a mouse click. The Digtial Pen comes with a plastic 'fake' ink cartridge to use in these cases.

Overview, design and feel

BlackBerry may quietly (or perhaps not so quietly) be finessing its plans for world domination with its upcoming handsets, but it's not letting the other operating system go to waste, witha stream of BB7 devices being churned out right now, among them the BlackBerry Bold 9790.

No longer are there just a few mobile phones to pick from, with RIM really saturating the market as it attempts to put the woes of last year's BBM outage firmly in the past.

Up until now, the cock of the school has been the , the premium BB offering that showcased the then new BB7 OS and replacing the tired and lines.

The Bayan Audio Bayan 7 is a curious-looking speaker dock which looks more like an oven that slots into a wall than a high-end iOS speaker dock (a black version is also available). But on closer inspection, it soon reveals its true purpose.

Set into its clear Perspex facia is a hefty bass subwoofer that also acts as its stand. The rest of the sound is supplied by twin 5cm full-range speakers and two 2.5cm tweeters.

The Bayan 7 has two amplifiers, one for the bass and one for the middle and high-end sounds. Altogether, the five speakers deliver 120W of power, so it won't leave you short of volume. Its comprehensive collection of drivers also gives it a very wide frequency response.