The Valve download platform is broadening its appeal with a beta version of Steam now available free on Apple and Android phones.

Still in beta, this version of Steam will allow you to communicate with your friends, check their status, keep up to speed with what's going on on the platform, new releases, promotions and, of course, purchase online.

For the time being, only some of the usual features on the legal video gaming download site are available but, eventually, the mobile Steam application will allow you to carry out all the operations you can currently carry out on your PC or Mac.



To enjoy this beta, all you have to do is go to the Apple Store or Android Market, download the application, enter your Steam identification and wait for the Valve authorisation.

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Since the launch of the HD 800 as Sennheiser's new top model, its catalogue had a gaping hole to fill. It can now say, job done!


The HD 700 had been making noise on the net, with several sites showing prototype photos. Finally presented at CES, it should be in stores some time in March.

This new generation set of headphones is positioned between the very costly HD 800s, that come in at a tidy £1200, and the older but no less deserving HD 650s, launched back in 2003 and now available at under £300. The new model will be on sale at something under £700.

The HD 700s have nothing to be ashamed of in terms of spec in comparison to its predecessors: a frequency response of 10 Hz to 42 kHz, harmonic distorsion under 0.003% and an SPL of 105 dB. Impedance is announced at 105 Ohms. We will of course test these new cans as soon as we get our hands on a pair.


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The quality of the screens used in our laptops is far from matching that of desktop LCD screens. Like any self-respecting rule however, there are one or two exceptions.

Among the 10'' to 14'' notebooks tested in the course of the year, some do nevertheless stand out from the rest. You can find details on our choice of the three best screens in the mobile laptops that have come through our lab in the last year by following the link below.

> Notebooks: the best 10'' to 14'' screens

> Laptop Reviews: Compare PC and Mac Laptops and Netbooks


> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products

In spite of the success of Nokia's Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, the world's leading mobile phone manufacturer had a particularly disappointing year in 2011. Stephan Elop, Nokia CEO, is remaining confident, but 2012 looks like it'll be a decisive year for the Finnish phone-maker.



In the last quarter of 2011, Nokia sales dropped 21% (9% in 2011) compared with the same quarter in 2010, with net losses totalling €1.07 billion in Q4 alone.

Facing tough competition from Android and Apple (which has just published excellent financial results), Nokia has been somewhat overshadowed in the lucrative smartphone market. Even the sales-boosting holiday season towards the end of Q4 wasn't enough to set things back on track.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, Nokia sold 93.9 million mobiles (feature phones) and 19.6 million smartphones, compared with 37.04 million Apple iPhones over the same period. The results are below market hopes, and sales figures are lower than the same quarter of 2010 (-8%) in spite of bouyant Lumia handset sales, estimated at over a million units.

Stepen Elop, however, is confident that restructuring within the company and Nokia's partnership with Microsoft (for using Windows Phone 7 in its smartphones) will help the firm restore some of its former glory.

Nokia hasn't set any targets for 2012, which the firm sees as a 'year of transition'. Then again, as Markus Huber from ETX Capital points out, this could be a sign that the recent recovery is still pretty fragile and isn't yet a firmly established trend. For the time being, it looks like everything is riding on the success of the Lumia range ...

> Review: Lumia 800

> Phone Reviews: Mobiles and Smartphones



> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products

As well as the new Full HD Iconia Tab A700, Acer's first Android 4.0 tablet will be the new Iconia Tab A510, first seen at the end of 2011.  It runs Android 4.0 on an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and will go on sale during the spring.

Acer now has multiple Android tablets, starting with the A200, little more than Iconia Tab A500 with some features trimmed back and squarely aimed at entry-level consumers.  Next comes the A510, first floated last autumn, but on show on Acer's stand at the CES.

Thinner, smaller and tougher-looking than the Iconia Tab A500, this more high-end tablet follows the trend for Android tablets set by Asus' Transformer Prime and Prime 'HD' 700 Series devices.

That goes part of the way to explaining why there's a quad-core 1.3 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU, 1 GB of RAM and your choice of 16, 32 or 64 GB of storage.  You get Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, but at 1280 x 800 pixels, the display isn't Full HD.  The USB 2.0 port has disappeared, but there's a 3.5 mm line out for headphones, a micro-USB port, a micro-HDMI port and a microSD card slot.

Acer has chosen to really put the emphasis on battery life, with a 9800 mAh battery which should give you enough to keep on going for around ten hours.  We found it fun to use, especially given the pleasant-feeling soft touch finish at the back.  Acer still isn't on top of the design game, but it's hardly produced an unworkably ugly product either.  Within the interface, Acer has added a few nice touches to Android 4.0, including a circular menu that looks great and is pretty easy to use.  Different tabs fold out of the circle to give access to multimedia content and open web pages.

The Iconia Tab A510 is set to go on sale for $500 for the 16 GB version.  A 3G version, the Iconia Tab A511, is also in the pipeline, with news expected at the Cebit show in Hanover.

> Touchscreen Tablet Reviews

> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products

While Intel rules the roost with its ultrabooks, MSI has opted for an AMD solution for its X-Slim X370. 

MSI's latest version of the X-Slim X370 is more affordable than an ultrabook, has a 13.3-inch screen and uses an AMD Fusion E-450 APU rather than an Intel processor. Will the MSI X370 manage to attract clients away from the current stars in this segment (Asus UX31E and Acer S3)?


> Review: MSI X370

> Laptop Reviews: Compare PC and Mac Laptops and Netbooks


> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products

A new generation of power-packed smartphones is due to be presented at the World Mobile Congress next month in Barcelona. LG will no doubt use that opportunity to present a new sleek, speedy, top-of-the-range smartphone with a quad-core processor.

One of the most important events in the mobile technology calendar, the Mobile World Congress, is due to be held from 27 February to 1 March 2012. Word is that LG could be gearing up to unveil a new smartphone for the occasion, loaded with a 1 GHz quad-core processor (Nvidia's Tegra 3, perhaps?) and running on the latest version of Google's Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich ... or at least, that's what Pocketnow reckons ...

As well as its new powerful processor, the LG X3 is apparently a pretty big handset, packing in a 4.7-inch LCD (1280 x 720 pixels). It's rumoured to have an 8-Megapixel rear-facing camera (compared with 12 Megapixels for the Samsung Galaxy S III) with autofocus and LED flash, plus an additional front-facing 1.3-Megapixel camera. Internal memory is said to be 16 GB with a microSD card slot on hand to give storage a boost.

Connectivity includes Wi-Fi (b/g/n), Bluetooth, Near Field Communication (NFC) and Long Term Evolution (LTE).

> Phone Reviews: Mobiles and Smartphones

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