Compiled by CIARA O'BRIEN

BeamBox MiLi Power Angel, €38

The Power Angel is part of a growing category of products that provides external power for your iPhone. As one way to beat the power-sapping capabilities of the apps you love, the MiLi Power Angel is a slimline battery pack that fits on to the end of your iPhone, giving it a bit of power when you need it most.

Not only does it prolong your battery life, but it helps prop up your iPhone so you can watch video clips comfortably. It will give you up to 250 hours’ standby time, 3.5 hours’ talktime or up to 36 hours of music playback. It charges conveniently via USB.

The one drawback is that it slightly spoils the sleek look of your iPhone, but it will certainly get you out of a jam when you need a power boost.

www.beambox. co.uk

Ion Pics 2 PC, €132

Before there were digital cameras, there was film and with film came negatives – bundles and bundles of them. These days, there’s not much call for these archives of family memories, but there are ways you can bring your images back to life.

There are plenty of film scanners available, but not all will scan your negatives with the quality you need. The Pics 2 PC Scanner breathes new life into your old negatives, improving your images with auto exposure and colour balance correction. The scanner has a 5.1 megapixel resolution and a high-quality optical element that can blow up the images to larger sizes, bringing out all the hidden detail. It can then transfer them to your PC via USB cable.

A separate version, Pics 2 SD, allows you to skip the PC altogether, scanning images directly to your SD card.

www.ionaudio.com

Sony Dash, $199

Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the Sony Dash is a portable internet tablet that works over WiFi. Eliminating the need for your PC, the device has a seven-inch touchscreen that is perfect for viewing photos from online services such as Photobucket or images that you load directly through the USB 2.0 connection.

The device relies on being easily customisable, with apps that cover everything from social networking to music and games. Sony is promising more than 1,500 free apps to allow you to access web content minus the PC. You can even use the device to listen to music files or internet radio once you have a web connection. The problem: it’s not yet available in Europe, so anyone wishing to get their hands on one will have to look to the US to source the Dash. It ships from April 15th. www.sony.com