ADAM HARVEYrounds up a selection of gadgets
The Mammut Obelisk DX urban climbing shoe is the perfect accessory for Parkour practitioners, urban gymnasts and Irish banking regulators who might want to escape unnoticed from their office by shimmying down the drainpipe. The waterproof shoe features grippy soles, asymmetrical lacing that tucks away down along the big toe, and a stiffened inside edge on the shoe so wearers can balance on small ledges. £80 (€86), www.cotswoldoutdoor.com.
From behind it looks like a Kevlar vest, but the BuiltNY laptop backpack, made from the wetsuit material neoprene, aims to protect your computer, not you. It’s waterproof, there’s a breathable mesh back, and it fits under a coat – which means you could slip it past those Ryanair carry-on-bag facists and their outrageous attempts to empty every last cent from your wallets. Two sizes. €80, www.pressieport.ie.
LG's Renoir phone looks okay, has loads of nifty functions, such as geotagging, widgets and photo-editing software, and produces eight-megapixel images that are high-res enough to blow up to poster size, should you want to. But there's an annoying delay between pressing the shutter and taking the image, the "accelerometer" that's supposed to rotate the screen when the phone is on its side seems to work about half the time, and it suffers from the curse of all touch-screen phones: it's annoyingly difficult to use while trying to perform the basic functions of a mobile phone – texting or making a call. It's too easy to bump the wrong key, and you can forget about sending a message while travelling by car or bus. €199, www.three.ie.