Hot wired: Great devices for festive season 

Eva Longoria with the I-Dog.

No shopping days left before Christmas, unfortunately; so it seems too late to be passing on any more helpful technology-buying tips.

Okay, just one - wait for the New Year sales.

They'll be good. The proliferation of MP3 players, new-generation cellphones and the arrival of a portable PlayStation have made 2005 a year of the personal-entertainment device.

Of all of them, the iPod stands out as the leader, morphing into a variety of shapes and sizes and becoming more affordable and easy to use. So influential and dominant has Apple's baby become that it has spawned an entire downstream industry of its own.

The iPod can be accessorised, adapted and enhanced with a huge variety of add-ons. Well-known hi-fi brands including Monitor Audio, Altec Lansing and Bose have developed amplifier/speaker systems and components into which you simply dock your iPod as the musical source.

Toy manufacturer Hasbro is another, paying homage with its all-white, canine look-alike I-Dog.

The I-Dog doesn't store or play music, it simply moves, grooves, flashes its lights and gets moody in response to the music you play it - and any attention you give it.

The nodding dog for a new millennium. Despite their relatively high cost, video-capable 3G cellphones have raced off the stands.

The ring-tone industry has come of age and this year one distributor staged its own award ceremony, complete with elaborately framed gold and platinum discs for the biggest sellers.

In home entertainment, 2005 has been the year of the television.

While Hollywood's movie studios are anxious about falling theatre patronage worldwide, TV manufacturers are building multibillion-dollar plants all over Asia.

In particular, LCD screens have come on in leaps and bounds and pixels - prices are dropping, quality is improving and screen sizes are expanding to compete with plasma.

DVD players have turned into DVD recorders in a big way, but it is the all-hard disc MY SKY personal digital recorder which is the year's biggest home entertainment step forward.

Sure, you can do without one, but once you get one of these genius devices you enter a realm of recording/playback convenience which leaves any other TV programming system in its digital dust.

Sky started talking up MY SKY in September but it wasn't until a fortnight ago that the first units started to be installed as an alternative to the pay TV supplier's old digital boxes.

There are a few operating foibles, but in essence your grandma could quickly figure her way to never missing a moment of Coro St again.

No more mistakes, no more tapes, no more missed endings.Even Bert Badger can make these babies dance.

It's about time. Enjoy your Christmas and here's looking beyond the telly to a wonderful new year.