Over the past few months I've acquired a number of new toys, the most popular of which is proving to be my EOS 400D (or Digital Rebel XTi if you're so inclined). I've oft sworn that a DSLR was more trouble than it's worth - yes, the pictures are nice but it's lots of money and hellish to carry around. Much better to have a compact IXUS or similar and keep it always nearby. Unfortunately, John decided to buy himself one, and hence I was daft enough to have a play. After a few stupid moments of trying to turn live preview on, I tried out his 50mm prime and was instantly sold.

Unfortunately, it turned out I was sold about a month too late. Canon had offered £50 off during December, but kindly returned to the RRP of £400 when I was looking to buy. And so I did my research, and spent many hours wondering whether a Nikon D40/40X would be a nice option, only to discover that they can't drive a 50mm lens (and the Sigma 30mm would wipe out any price advantage they offered). Thus I bit the bullet and wandered over to the Canon refurbished dealer, and bought myself a 400D + 18-55mm lens. And then I went down to Covent Garden and came away with a big grin and a 50mm prime.

To date I remain deeply in love. Yes, it's a bit bulky, but I can haul around a small camera big which serves for sundries as well. The battery lasts forever - I knocked off 600 shots yesterday, about 50 with flash, and the battery meter didn't move. The 50mm prime is fantastic, its only flaw being the zoom factor of the Canon sensor makes it a 80mm lens and hence you need a bit of space to use it. But at 1.8f it's nice and fast and you get a very tight focus (and you are left most embarrassed if you focus on the wrong element). I can even survive the use of compact flash, although I did wince a bit at the price difference when compared to SD. However, the 450D is still AWOL, so I'm certainly glad I didn't decide to wait for such things to be resolved.

In summary, I can't recommend it enough. The only thing likely to separate me from it is an attack by an unwilling subject, which seems to grow ever more likely (especially when they see the output).

As if in a flash, I found yesterday that 17 months have passed since I signed up for an 18 month contract with T-Mobile. This means one important thing: I'm eligible for an upgrade. Hurrah! I signed up back in the formative days of Web'n Walk, where they offered half price line rental for 12 of the 18 months, and in return you got a rebranded HTC Wizard, 200 minutes and 40Mb of data.

These days T-Mobile have unlimited (i.e. 1Gb and you'd better not use Skype or the phone as a modem or they'll hunt you down and throw you in the Thames). Further, while the Wizard is GPRS and hence offers modem speeds at best, T-Mobile now have a HSDPA network, which offers broadband-style internet for £7.50 over your standard tariff.

So it was with great expectations I headed off to the upgrade page and found that they didn't want me back. I could pay £27.50 a month for a new plan, and £150 for a new phone. This was taking the piss, given you could get the same thing as a new subscriber for £22.50 and £90 respectively. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Nevertheless, I went down to the local T-Mobile store and put this to them. It wasn't until I asked them to cancel my contract that they folded and offered me the same terms as a new subscriber. So much for customer loyalty.

The upside is I have a brand new HTC Hermes (aka TyTN aka T-Mobile MDA Vario II) winging its way to me. Hardware wise it's a touch nicer than the Wizard, with a faster CPU and 3G support. The upcoming Kaiser would add GPS, but frankly I'm not all that interested in both waiting and paying for such toys. Yet, anyway. Downside is that it still runs Windows Mobile, however an alternative has failed to appear as yet. Most disappointing.

The downside is that I've rewarded T-Mobile with my business in exchange for them being tits. The problem here is that most UK providers don't dabble in data - Vodafone are promising a data plan come August, Orange want £3 a Mb, Virgin want £5 a Mb and 3 start at £40 a month for 'unlimited' plans. Hence one is left with few choices.

Still, new toys to play with - huzzah!

Yesteday Steve Jobs came out with a rather neat toy - the iPhone. It's small, it's running a variant of Mac OS X, it's completely touch screen driven - given my lack of love for my Windows Mobile device, I was rather excited.

 Then the details came out - EDGE, no 3G (EDGE is conspicuous in its absence from the UK), no expansion slot (which makes the photo viewer somewhat less useful on the run) and most disappointingly, no European release until Q42007. It's also been announced at US$599 with a 2 year contract, so no doubt we'll be lucky to get it at £400 with a similar period of tie-in.

 Worst of all, Steve spent the better part of 90 minutes waxing lyrical about this, and neglected to mention anything about Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), a new iLife or iWork, or any chance of video in the iTunes store outside the US. The first is surprising, given it's aimed for a spring release, the second is a break from tradition and the third sharply drops of the usefulness of the announced AppleTV.

 All in all, less than exciting. Nothing to see here...

This weekend Polly did the required near-Christmas trip up to Glasgow to see her relatives. I escaped, given the moderate chance that some weekend work would be required for a delivery on Monday. This didn't eventuate, and as such I found myself at a loose end. My normal resource is such circumstances is to head out to the various museums and galleries with my camera in hand. Unfortunately, Polly had swiped my camera while I was under the heavy influence of sleep (her train left King's Cross at 0700, an hour about which I have grave doubts). So, what would Brian Boytano (or Jesus if you're so inclined) do? Track down a new one!

After a bit of hunting I found my target - a Canon IXUS 850IS. My previous camera was an IXUS 55 and I found the balance of size and performance rather good. The major downsides were that it was useless in low light and the battery was tiny. The IXUS 850 provides a decent wide angle lens, 3.8x optical zoom, image stabilisation and a bigger battery, solving these issues to some degree. While it packs in a few less pixels than its sibling, the IXUS 900 (7.1 to 10 MP) it makes up for it with the lens and stabilisation support.

Tracking one down turned out to be a pain though. PC World had the previous model, the IXUS 800IS, for less than Amazon, yet had none in stock in the entirety of Greater London. Amazon had them, but a fortune in postage would have been required for prompt delivery. In the end Pixmania was chosen, as despite the shop being out in Fulham, they had them at Amazon's price and in stock. I must concede however that their ordering process wound me up - they proclaim that they have them in the store, yet when ordering say it will be 24 hours before you can pick up. I chanced it and lucked out, but certainly something to be wary of in future.

As for performance - smashing. The lens is fantastic - suddenly huge vistas are opened up to the sides, and you don't need to be three miles away from something to get all of it in the picture. The controls are improved - it doesn't get knocked into video mode in your pocket, and it seems to do a bit better with low light. The major downside is the increased file size, which makes a mockery of the 32Mb SD card they include. Another useless SD card to keep around, huzzah! But then Amazon are selling 2Gb from £13, so it's a problem with an easy solution.

Of course the major outcome of all of this is that Polly is unlikely to leave the house without relieving me of my debit card in future...

My main investment of the week has been a PSP. I've been tempted for some time, and when DevHook came out for firmware 2.71 I was finally convinced. Now you can have a 2.71 PSP (the latest is 2.81) and still run 1.5 firmware via flash. Hence homebrew is quite achievable, an advantage which the PSP clearly won over the DS Lite.

Of course, the requirement for 2.71 did mean buying second hand, so there are a few scratches on the screen. On the other hand it did mean the giga-pack was cheaper than the new base pack, so one can't really complain. The downside is that now I've installed a MegaDrive emulator Polly keeps swiping it to play Sonic the Hedgehog.

So I'm very happy with it, bar Sony's continual attempts to wipe out homebrew. If it had a touchscreen it would be perfect. I've also picked up a few games - Lemmings, which is still superb, Lumines and the ever classic Ridge Racer. Lumines is fantastic, although a little buggy - suspend the device while playing and upon the end of the game it will prompt you to load the profile, overwriting your new high-score and unlocked items. Whoops.

I've also tried the whole one demo available - LocoRoco. Decidedly weird, set to j-pop and lots of fun, although not really what you'd expect on the PSP. Well worth a try though.

My other investment for the week was a Flickr Pro account, and as such I'm uploading all 3.5Gb of my photo collection. Once completed there should be some more of interest there, especially for friends. Stay tuned.

My last employers were kind enough to give me a cheque upon leaving. This makes a nice change - normally there's guessing involved and it's all rather inconvenient. What's more, the company topped up the sum donated by my kind colleagues - an example more should follow. So, money to spend in London. Whatever to do?

What I ended up doing was what any self-respecting geek would do: I bought a new keyboard and mouse. My old keyboard was a Natural Keyboard Pro, one of the best of the group, but getting a touch noisy having just reached 6 and a half years of abuse. I had held off replacing it due to the industry's current avoidance of split keyboard - Logitech only produces the Cordless Comfort Desktop set (which Polly has) and Microsoft recently revamped their line with the appalling Comfort Curve - what's the point of that? Conveniently, they soon followed it up with the excellent Natural Keyboard 4000.

The 4000 has a couple of nice enhancements. Firstly, the keys are not just split but nicely curved for the hands. Secondly, it comes with a stand to raise the front, thus keeping your hands flat while typing. It looks a touch odd, but is very comfortable. Add the faux-leather wrist rest and the dirt-hiding black colour and it's well worth the £35 odd quid from PC World (cheaper than Amazon even). Even Polly is impressed with it.

I also invested in a new mouse. My Renaissance mouse was snapped during the flight to Heathrow and was thus working due only to the tape covering the break. I did consider a G7 (wireless, but batteries need to be changed every day or two) and the G5 (laser with silly weighting system) but in the end went for last-generations corded spectacular - the MX518. Changeable DPI, buttons galore and a stylish cover - what more could one want? The only catch is it suffers from Logitech's current fad of only shipping Windows drivers, hence I'll need USB Overdrive to change the rest.

Even better, to polish the day off, England's football game meant that even with 'Severe Delays' the Misery Line was half empty and reasonably quick. Made a change from being unable to stand up this morning, anyway. So, for the first time in my life, I say let there be more football! (or more tube trains...)

My MacBook Pro arrived Monday. Apart from the nasty feeling that comes of ordering just before they knock the speed up a notch (Apple did give me a token refund back, albeit only token as they don't appear to offer the price protection seen in the US and Australian stores) I did find an interesting freebie - the long rumoured DashCode.

I had presumed they had just released it while I wasn't looking, but it appears it's still just a rumour. It does make this a very expensive way to get one's hand upon it though...

I am seriously unimpressed with the Apple Store's shipping process. It took from the 13th to the 17th from my order to travel from Shanghai to the Netherlands, and now it seems to have stopped. UPS seem to have picked it up as of 20:00 on the 18th, but there's been no movement today.

One wonders why they say 'shipping in 24 hours' when it's going to be several ice ages before the cursed thing arrives...

Having been reloading my tracking page every 5 minutes I've finally seen some response - a small update!

One does wonder - where was it between the 14th and the 17th?

So, having ordered my MacBook Pro on Friday, today Apple have dropped the price by £80 and upped the processor speed to 2.16Ghz. Meanwhile, my new toy is still floating between here and Shanghai somewhere. Bugger.

All is not lost, however. I called the Apple Store and they said I had two choices: 1, to send it back within the 14 day period after it arrives (although it does mean suffering a £60 shipping charge) or 2, to give them a call and we could discuss a refund based on the difference.

Of course, it has to arrive first. The Apple Store's tracking is rubbish, so I'm using a third-party solution. Current status: It flew out of Shanghai on the 14th. It's now the 16th and presumably the plane is still somewhere above the ground... it makes you worry...