After spending the best part of a decade in London, the consumer electronics show Live headed for the midlands last week, taking up residence in a couple of halls in Birmingham's NEC.
Punters were treated to a reasonable selection of recent gadgets, yet, given the rather limited number of exhibitors, not really enough high-tech desirables to justify the rather exorbitant £12 entrance fee.
There was, however, a UK debut for a genuinely innovative product - the world's first portable digital radio.
Displayed purely as prototype, the unit developed by Roke Manor Research (a division of Siemens) charmed listeners with its hiss-free performance, large screen and pocket size. The company hopes that a version with a built-in MP3 player will go on sale next year for around £300.
Sony treated its customers to the first European walkies of its latest Aibo robot dog - Latte. Appropriately finished in a fetching shade of Milky White, Latte can learn and respond to the name given by his owner, take JPEG images via a voice-controlled digital camera and generally wag its tail at other Aibos. The new pooch will be on sale in November for £700.
Other highlights on the Sony stand included its two new net-ready digital camcorders - the DCR-PC120 and DCR-IP7. Both models feature MPEG 1 movie capture facilities, an integrated web browser, Bluetooth facilities and a large LCD display.
Users can email movies from wherever they are by using Bluetooth to connect with a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) mobile phone. The camcorders reach the stores in November both priced £1,600. Also proving popular was Sony's Palm-OS-based Cli¿ handheld, the PEG-N770C.
The model which goes on sale next week for £400 features an integrated music (MP3/ ATRAC3) player and has one of the best colour screens seen on a personal digital assistant. Colour screens were big news on the Trium mobile phone stand, where the company paraded the Eclipse, one of the first colour screen mobiles to reach UK stores.
The GPRS model is due out in October and will cost £100-£150. Siemens also afforded punters a glimpse of its latest model, the C45, its first to offer users downloadable and programmable ring tones.
Visitors could also check out a selection of the hottest new phones on the Virgin Mobile stand including the two super stylish mini models (Nokia's 8310 and Motorola's V66) that will be competing for a place in your Christmas stocking.
Virgin also displayed two mobile phone gadgets which will reach the stores next month: Ericsson's snap-on digital camera attachment the Communicam (£125) and Nokia's MP3 player (£200). Visitors also had their first chance to get to grips with Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system which is scheduled to reach the stores next month.
