HP EliteBook 2530p Notebook PC

From £1,200 www.hp.com

WHAT IS IT?This slender 12in business-class laptop weighs less than 1.5kg, yet unlike many ultra-portables it boasts a built-in DVD drive and has a full-sized keyboard. HP insists that despite the laptop’s slim lines, its anodised aluminium casing and magnesium alloy chassis can cope with the harsh life of a serious road warrior. It will be available to buy in the UK from early September.

SHOULD I BUY ONE?This is serious money for a laptop but decent value compared with similar machines, such as the Lenovo X300. A trickier issue is that all the main laptop-makers (including Dell) are about to release smaller, low-powered designs known as netbooks at a fraction of this price. HP already has one for sale, called the Mini-Note, for around £350.

Teac LP-R400 Vinyl CopyStation

£299 www.teac.co.uk

WHAT IS IT?The CopyStation is a hi-fi that converts vinyl straight onto CDs. If all those James Brown rarities you spent years collecting are gathering dust and you’d love to digitise them but can’t stomach the palaver of connecting a turntable to a PC, this is the answer. The LP-R400 can even add breaks between tracks to make it easier to skip through the CDs or convert them into MP3s later. This feature might well be fooled by prog-rock albums. Still, it does have an auxiliary input for bagging those cassettes from your youth.

SHOULD I BUY ONE?The Teac is a well-made mini hi-fi with built-in 3in speakers. Sound quality is acceptable without being floor-shaking. A spare-room asset for technophobic vinyl-hoarders.

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