The market for specialised compact photo printers remains relatively small, but as prices come down for printers and digital cameras, they are becoming more popular. As digital camera prices come down and more cameras have direct printer connectivity, a small photo printer becomes a viable accessory.

Canon's new 600i series of digital video cameras doesn't offer any major changes to the 500i series, just a continuing improvement in quality and a few nice extras. The cameras still look the same and are just as easy to use, but the new top of the range 650i is about as good as you are going to get in its price range.

Once upon a time not too long ago, your average inkjet printer had a single tricolour ink cartridge. Of course, the print quality was fairly ordinary, but it did the job. Today, with digital cameras the norm and home users wanting to print their own photographs, your photo printer may have as many as eight different ink cartridges.

Hitachi pioneered the concept of recording digital video direct to DVD . Now into its third generation of DVD cameras, a few competitors have appeared on the horizon with its first generation models

Looking similar to a retro portable radio, the PictureMate has a touch of style to it that is backed up by the overall quality of the product. At a buck under $400 it won’t appeal to everyone, particularly seeing as it’s a dedicated photoprinter, requires its own specialist photo pack and restricts you to postcard sized prints.

Portability has been talked about a lot recently, and people are starting to get used to the fact that their printer can be just as portable as the rest of their equipment. Canon has been offering portable laptop printers for several years and selling just enough of them to persevere, however, with the digital camera boom they are starting to come into their own.

According to analysts at IDC (International Data Group),DVD is now the fastestgrowing consumer electronic technology ever.

Ever since the mid-1990s, a variety of manufacturers have been attempting to find a reliable way to turn your PC into a television – without a huge amount of success.

Printer manufacturers have steadily been increasing the number of ink cartridges in their top of the range photo printers on the basis that the more basic colours they have to work with the more precise the overall result.

In the mid-1990s a debate raged over whether we would eventually end up watching television on our computers, or whether television would take over from the PC. In 1995 a PC called the MyGeNie went on sale boasting that you could watch TV while you worked...