The News By Me

In the absence of any actual handset launches from RIM, we'll have to make do with yet another BlackBerry 10 rumour – this time in the form of pictures of the BlackBerry London.

The handset renders, which aren't actual product photographs, look nothing like the leaked photos of the London published in early January.

These new images show a long thin handset with a narrow screen looking nothing like your average BlackBerry phone.

Premi...um?

According to the bullet-points joining the images on the leaked RIM slide, "London is about changing the game."

Apparently the game is about to feature hard- and software fused into one polished experience and will morph into a "quality apps and content story" which would be a bit of a change for RIM (zing).

The slide also promises "excpectional" power and efficiency and rich specification – previous rumours peg the BlackBerry London as a 1.5GHz dual-core handset with 16GB of internal storage and 1GB of memory.

Apparently RIM has the UK in mind for the London, with two other handsets in the works for the US (BlackBerry Laguna and BlackBerry Lisbon), although there's still no hint of a UK release date for the BlackBerry 10 handset.

But, if new RIM CEO Thorston Heins has anything to do with it (and you'd hope that he would), BlackBerry 10 handsets will land before the year is out.

Nikon has announced three new compact cameras aimed at inexperienced photographers. The Coolpix L25 and Coolpix L26 will be released mid February, while the Argos-exclusive Coolpix S2600 is on sale now.

First up, the sub-£70 Nikon Coolpix L25, a 10MP camera with a 5x wide-angle zoom.

The L25 is powered by AA batteries and offers a selection of straightforward auto modes designed to appeal to casual snappers.

Easy Auto mode matches all camera settings to the available lighting, while its Smart Portrait System combines features such as Smile Timer and Skin Softening.

Other notable features include electronic Vibration Reduction (VR) and Motion Detection, plus a 3-inch LCD for reviewing pictures and video.

Coolpix L26

At £30 more than the L25, the £100 Nikon Coolpix L26 offers a slightly enhanced feature set, albeit one still targeted at first-time photographers.

The 16-megapixel L26 boasts and Nikkor 5x wide zoom, Easy Auto Mode and one-touch 720p HD video recording. Photos and movies can be uploaded straight to a phone or computer for easy sharing with family and friends, too.

Coolpix S2600

Available in the UK through Argos, the Nikon Coolpix S2600 is a slim compact with a Nikkor 5x wide-angle zoom.

The 14-megapixel sensor is housed in a body that's only 19.5mm thin. Automatic features include Easy Auto mode and Scene Auto Selector, which sets the optimum Scene mode according to the conditions.

Four types of anti-blur technology, including electronic VR, are employed to reduce the chances of blurred images, while a retouch menu enables you to enhance images post-capture.

Price and availability

The Nikon Coolpix L25 UK release date is 16 February, it is priced at £69.99 and available in silver, black, red and white. The Nikon Coolpix L26 UK release date is also 16 February and it is priced at £99.99 and will also be available in the same four colours.

Finally, the Nikon Coolpix S2600 UK price is around £69.99 and it is available now from Argos. It comes in three styles: black, red and purple with line art.

Google has announced a significant new feature for Google Music – a link that allows you to download your entire music library from the service.

Although it is not yet available in the UK, Google Music has been live in the US since November (after a closed beta that began in May, offering users the opportunity to upload their entire music collections to its cloudy service, ready for playback on an Android portable device when a data connection is available.

Until now, though, it has been something of a one-way street – you could add music to the free service but there was no way to download music unless it was actually purchased from Google.

Now the search giant has introduced the Download My Library feature, making Google Music a more-than viable backup option.

Say it proud and say it cloud

Cloud backup services have been getting a hammering of late because of the MegaUpload furore, so the timing for a trusted – well, trusted if you don't take into consideration the current dubious privacy shenanigans - company like Google to show the world that you can chuck your content into a cyberlocker without the fear that someone is going to lose the key.

There's been no word on a Google Music UK release date, so at the moment we will have to look on with jealous eyes from afar.

Or cross our fingers that Apple will offer something similar with iCloud, but that's unlikely to happen.

The Carphone Warehouse has told TechRadar that the Nokia Lumia 900 is not coming to the UK through its stores, despite announcing pre-registration for the new phone.

The Lumia 900 was unveiled at CES as an AT&T phone running on its LTE 4G network, but it seemed Nokia wanted to drop the larger-screened Windows Phone on to the UK public.

The Carphone Warehouse put up a registration page for the phone with a June UK release date, but this was put up 'in error'.

Lumia lights out

Nokia hasn't said anything about releasing the phone on our shores thus far, and stayed quiet during the announcement from TCW.

The page for pre-registration has since been taken down, and it looks like we're not going to get a glimmer of the 4.3-inch screen in the UK any time soon.

Is it a shame? The Lumia 900 is essentially just a larger version of the Lumia 800, so it's hard to see how it would have been positioned anyway. Perhaps it's just a pre-cursor for the much more exciting, 12MP-toting Lumia 910 that's been rumoured recently?

Sony has announced a new bass-heavy addition to the Walkman brand, the Sony Walkman B170.

The B170 is ridiculously small in stature – it weighs just 28g and is 88.8 x 22.5 x 15.0mm – but Sony reckons this means that it has a number of features to entice people away from their iPods, including the fact that it can be charged in just three minutes.

It is also powerful when it comes to the low end, with a bass boost button that comes with a colour matching power illuminator – letting those around you know just when you have turned the beats up.

Going for a song

The Sony Walkman B170 isn't for those who like to carry round their whole music collections but with 4GB of space you will get around 400 songs on the device, all played back at 128kbps.

And when we say played back, Sony is quoting an 18-hour battery life which is impressive considering it only takes three minutes to juice the B170 up.

Sony has also combined the MP3 player with a USB stick so you can drag and drop files on to it and plug it into cars with USB functionality.

The Sony Walkman B170 UK release date is February and will come in 2GB and 4GB sizes. Pricing is yet to be announced.

ZTE has launched its first own-brand phone of 2012 in the UK, and it comes in a Windows Phone flavour: the ZTE Tania.

Close-to-ridiculous name aside, the Tania comes with the same sort of specs as many other Windows Phone handsets on the market, but like the Orange San Francisco before it (a rebadged ZTE Blade) it will sit squarely in the budget category.

The ZTE Tania features a lot of decent specs for a phone that will cost between £10-£20 on contract according to the Asian firm, such as a large 4.3-inch capacitive screen and 5MP camera with flash

Mango and all

It's running the latest version of Windows Phone (Mango, if you weren't aware) and even can function as a Wi-Fi hotspot - something even the Nokia Lumia 800 can't manage.

There's nothing really to differentiate it from the rest of the Windows Phone brigade apart from the price point; however, seeing as it will only be available on the likes of Go Mobile, Virgin Mobile and an unnamed 'leading specialist retailer' (probably along the lines of Expansys or feasibly Phones4U) you might have a little trouble getting hold of one.

We've got nothing that resembles a ZTE Tania UK release date at the moment, but it should be within the near future according to TechRadar's sources within the firm - and stay tuned for our hands on ZTE Tania review in the near future.

Wireless standards are a funny thing. It seems that many demand that Wi-Fi is on board their devices but turn their noses up at DLNA support. So it's interesting that the arrival of AirPlay, a fairly new standard, has been welcomed and is cropping up on many a music player.

The latest to have the Apple tech inside is the Pure Contour 200i Air. This decent looking dock allows AirPlay support and also has an iOS dock on the front as well, which looks fine when either an iPhone or an iPod is connected.

We took a look at the Pure Contour 200i Air at CES 2012 and we impressed with what we saw. The dock is compatible with Pure Music – the company's Spotify rival – which means that it is internet-savvy and it has an aux-in input port in the rear and all of its controls (which consist of volume and power) are on the top of the device.

The 200i is an update to the 100Di, with the main sartorial difference being that there is no longer a clock on board – instead you have the docking station on the front.

When it comes to blasting out the music, the 200i manages 36W and has been given dual 3.5-inch full-range speaker drive units.

Like its bedfellow, the Pure Sensio 200D Connect, the Pure Contour 200i Air UK release date is Q1 and will set you back £199.99.

Pure launched two new radios at CES 2012, with the most eye-catching being the Pure Sensio 200D Connect.

This is a radio which has its fingers in all the audio pies. The music player allows you to listen to DAB radio, stream music over the internet and also surf the web if you so feel like it.

It also has the usual ports for connecting up an iPod plus a USB port so you can nab whatever you have recorded and listen to it on your laptop or anywhere with USB connectivity.

On board is a decent 5.7-inch colour touchscreen and this acts as a portal to all your menu options. It is also here where you can hook up to Pure's latest music offering Pure Music.

Looking to take on Spotify and set to launch very soon – originally it was back in December and this was when we did our hands on: Pure Music review – this subscription-based music service will set you back £4.99 a month.

While there were a number of audio options on show at CES 2012, the Pure Sensio 200D Connect was one of the smartest we have seen.

It offers decent audio output for its size, too, with the device piping out 30W RMS of digital sound via DSP tuned class-D amplifiers and twin speakers.

It has Wi-Fi connectivity, allows you to hook up to Twitter and Facebook, and you can also record any music that you listen to from the radio – which is bound to bring back memories for any '80s child which sat listening to the Top 40 with their finger poised on the tape record button.

When it comes to a Pure Sensio 200D Connect UK release date, you don't have to wait long – it will be out in Q1 and is priced at £249.99.

While the PC announcements at CES 2012 have been dominated by Ultrabooks, there's no doubting that the humble desktop is also undergoing a mini revolution. Helped by widespread cooing over the 27-inch iMac in Apple Stores across the globe, the all-in-one PC seems to be undergoing a resurgence.

As well as the Samsung Series 9 all-in-one at this year's show, we spied this – a very classy looking effort from HP. It does, however, use a chassis that we've seen before.

While others are opting for touchscreens ahead of the launch of Windows 8, HP eschew touch in favour of a traditional desktop experience boosted by high end features such as enhanced Beats Audio.

The unit does, however, have the Magic Canvas desktop background that also ships comes with HP's TouchSmart PCs. However, the screen isn't as good as the iMac's – it does have a Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 display, but the iMac boasts 2,560 x 1,440-pixels. There's no doubt that, unfortunately, it shows.

Various configurations will be available with Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 variants available alongside either 4 or 8GB of memory, up to 2TB of storage and beefed-up graphics options from both AMD and Nvidia. You can also have an optional Blu-ray drive.

Of course, all this comes at a cost, and the price won't be cheap. The HP Omni27 UK price starts at £999 and $1,200 in the US. The HP Omni27 UK release date is February.

With all the talk of Google TV, it has to be remembered that the service hadn't been available straight from a television until CES 2012, when a partnership with LG was announced.

Before, it had to be beamed through a set-top box and the like which made it less desirable. This is why seeing Google TV on an LG television is a refreshing change and it also bolsters LG's own Smart TV functionality.

Those familiar with Google TV will be right at home with what LG is offering. You get the same selection of apps and services and the search functionality is all present and correct. LG has obviously put its own skin on to Google TV but it looks great and definitely in line with the rest of LG's Smart TV services.

What's different is just how you find all of Google's goodies and this has to do with LG's rather innovative remote.

Not as bulky as other Google TV remotes we have seen, this one has all your usual remote buttons on the front. Flip it over and you have a qwerty keyboard on the back, so you can make use of Google's search options.

The remote also has motion control built in, so you point the curser and interact with the TV this way. There is also a scroll wheel situated in the middle of the device.

There's no word on an LG Smart TV with Google TV UK release date or on pricing but we are hoping it will come to the UK sometime in the summer.