THERE are some things that you dream of as a boy, or even as a rather geeky adult. A mobile phone that can play movies is one of them. Why, exactly, is hard to say. You might call it the Light-Sabre Impulse. You want one. Your life will be better if you have one. I gather that women do this with shoes.

The Nokia 6680 does let you watch movies on your phone, sort of. The screen is about twice the size of most mobiles. The sound is pretty good provided you wear the headphones, and the whole thing is as sleek and silver and shiny as any boy could want.

The trouble is, there aren’t actually any movies. Orange only lets you download new movie trailers and clips from old movies. Frankly, it’s all too bitty and frustrating to be really worthwhile. I selected the battle between Luke and Darth from the end of Return of the Jedi. It cost £1.50, took an aeon to download, and then froze up halfway through. Then it disappeared.

Anyway, when exactly am I going to spend all this time watching movies on my mobile? You’d have an accident walking down the road, you can never get a decent signal on a train, and if you don't get mugged watching it on the bus, you deserve to. And at home, you have a telly.

Verdict

As a phone, the Nokia 6680 is a trifle on the chunky side, but it does perform almost any task you could ask of it. As a film buff accessory, though, it’s a dud. £79.99

www.nokia.co.uk, www.orange.co.uk

HUGO RIFKIND

2. Canon MV850i digital video camcorder

FAMILY, and all its complications: what better a theme for a first-time director? With this in mind I resolved that my debut feature was to centre on the family reunion that my weekend held in store. I packed the MV850i, not much bigger than the palm of my hand, and hoped I’d shoot a Disney love-fest rather than a Tarantino bloodbath.

Arriving on set (Mum and Dad’s kitchen), I found it surprisingly easy to get going with the MV850i. While the manual could be made to look a little less foreboding, a new feature from Canon — the “easy” button — means a first-time director can start shooting within three minutes, and let the camera worry about focus and colour balance. The key buttons, zoom, record, take a picture, are where instinct says they should be, and a big, clear fold-out LCD display means that your eye needn’t stay glued to the lens.

The camera records onto tape or SD memory cards: a 512k one will store around 33 minutes of footage. Calling a wrap and connecting to the television to play back (the necessary wires are provided) all agreed that picture and sound quality were impressive. The unit manages 400,000 pixels in movie mode, and colour was a particular strength: you could really see the green of Mum’s brussel sprouts. The auto-focus seemed a bit slow, though.

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