Nokia Image Viewer

Want to show off your snaps on the big screen?

Time was when eating Twiglets under the glowing light of the neighbours' Benidorm slide show was the height of home entertainment. Thankfully, those days are long gone, but now Nokia is reinventing the travelogue for the modern era by swapping the clunking projector for a small Bluetooth box that plugs directly into a television.

Thanks to this device, pictures taken on any Bluetooth mobile can be viewed on a 42-inch plasma as easily as they can on the phone's screen. It all sounds very hi-tech, but what you actually get is a small, discreet box powered by batteries or a Nokia charger that sits on top of your TV and connects directly to your composite video socket. Failing that, you can also use a Scart adaptor - but despite the Image Viewer's high price tag, you'll have to buy your own adaptor.

Once plugged in,set-up is easy.Just turn on the TV and this box will take over the screen. Being a Bluetooth device, it needs to pair with the phone before you can start, but this is again a simple task. Then just send snaps from your phone's memory and the TV will automatically display them as a slide show.

With only two buttons to the box's name, control options are limited. You can decide between four- or eight-second pauses between displaying each picture, you can rotate images that are the wrong way up and, er, that's it. There's no cropping, no order- changing and no deleting of images. Come to think of it, there isn't even a remote control for armchair browsing. This is the definitive one-trick pony.

Photos are restricted to VGA size - the maximum most phones can capture, anyway - and despite how grainy they look on a PC monitor, they look quite good on most TVs' lo-res screens. On a par with camcorder footage, almost. It's a shame, then, that the device's memory will only hold 65 snaps, and loses them when it's turned off.

This is a good toy to try out, but £100 is a lot to pay just to view some questionable-quality snaps on a big screen. Certainly not a must-have gadget.

KEY FEATURES:
Compatible with Nokia 3650 and 7650, 3MB storage (around 65 VGA images), file format: JPEG up to 640x480 pixels (VGA), powered by 4 AAA batteries or Nokia charger, connections: 1 x composite video, Bluetooth, dimensions: 98 x 42 x 98mm, weight: 105g