Some gadgets have some practical use but make you feel like a villain in a James Bond film sporting all the coolest gear, and the MX Air is one. It’s a wireless mouse that works the normal way (ie on a desktop) via a small USB transceiver. But pick it up and wave it in the air and the gyroscope in the body of the device transmits your movements to the tranceiver.

All in all it’s a power hungry machine, and throwing graphics, games and everything possible at it gave us a battery life of a little over two hours, so it’s a more suitable desktop replacement than it is a travelling companion depending in your field.

The latest entry into the field is the Toshiba Portege R400, one of the first tablet PCs built especially for Windows Vista, and one that makes good use of Vista features including the new Journal software that recognises handwriting when the device is in tablet mode.