After a year that the US President of Sony Consumer Electronics, Fujio Nishida, diplomatically described as "challenging", the world's consumer electronics manufacturers regrouped at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) show in LasVegas last week.

Buoyed by reports that sales of televisions, DVD players and gadgets had been encouraging over the crucial Thanksgiving/Christmas period, the makers unveiled their key products for 2002.

However, after several years of innovative, some might add, useless gadgets and toys, this year will see a relatively conservative selection of products hitting the stands. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates kicked off the show in the traditional manner with a light-hearted speech highlighting how Microsoft products were migrating from the office to the living room.

This year's debutants included Freestyle, a new set of technologies for the Windows XP operating system that allows a PC to be operated by a TV style remote control, and Mira, a wireless web tablet. Back on the conference floor the key words ringing in delegates' ears were hard disk technology, with manufacturers parading both portable and set-top video and audio products.

Few were as ambitious as the Media Center (MC) from the start-up company Moxi. A contender for the ultimate set top box, the MC offers either satellite or cable TV connection, a hard disk personal video recorder, a digital music MP3 jukebox, a DVD player and broadband connected internet gateway in the same box.

The company is confident that once deals with cable/satellite TV operators are struck, the unit will be available in the UK within a year. Pioneer offered a similar product with its Digital Library, though without the cable/satellite TV connection, while TiVo announced it would be adding music functionality to its next generation hard disk video recorders via a deal with Real Networks.

There are no plans to introduce this to the UK. Philips is also hoping to expand the horizons of music lovers. Its Streamium MC-i200 is a micro hi-fi system that features access to online music via a broadband internet connection. Users can either tune into net radio stations or access streamed tunes provided by music providers who have signed deals with Philips including MP3.com, Virgin and AOL.

A UK launch is planned for early summer and the system's price is expected to be around £350. CES also delivered a host of new MP3 players, including a few Apple iPod clones, which offered not only large amounts of storage but also video and still camera functionality.

A contender for gadget of the show, Panasonic's SV-AV10 features an MP3 player, still and video digital camera and a voice recorder in one tiny wearable unit. It can hold up to 30 minutes of MPeg4 video, or up to 880 low resolution images on its 64MB Secure Digital (SD) memory card. The user can then preview their footage on the unit's 2in LCD screen.

It is expected to reach the UK in the summer for around £400. Panasonic also unveiled the portable SD-VM1, which in addition to playing MP3 music also enables the user to view recorded TV programmes on its 1.8in LCD screen. It comes with a docking station that hooks up to a VCR and can store up to two hours of MPeg4 video on its accompanying 64MB Secure Digital card.

A rival product due in the UK in early spring is the Archos Jukebox Multimedia. To a small handheld MP3 player with a 10gigabyte hard disk, Archos has added a tiny LCD screen that can view images and video taken via a snap-on digital camera.

The unit can transfer music from a PC or record directly from any music source and can store and play back several hours of video recorded from a TV. Its price is expected to be around £350 for the base unit and a further £120 for the camera/video add-ons.

Motorola used CES to launch the fabled wind-up battery phone recharger. The unit, which allows five minutes of talk time after less than a minute of winding, goes on sale in the UK in the spring for £80.

Also new from Motorola is an in-car Bluetooth wireless mobile phone system (due in summer for around £200), while Plantronics unveiled a Bluetooth headset that works with any existing mobile phone (also due in the summer but no prices were available).