While Microsoft has struggled to sell the idea of the Tablet PC, mini-tablets like the iPod touch, the iPhone and HTC's new Touch HD are ideal for the digital home. In fact, my iPhone is probably one of my favourite gadgets of all time*.

Get yourself an iPod touch and you don't need to fire up a laptop to browse your email. And thanks to its full HTML web browser, you can quickly check (most) web pages from your sofa. You can also check who's on Xbox Live, access Facebook or Last.fm, catch-up with last night's TV via the BBC iPlayer. Or maybe that's just me.

Log onto Apple's iTunes App Store and you can also soup up the digital home talents of the iPod touch and iPhone. The Air Sharing app enables you to mount your device as a wireless drive on any Mac, PC or Linux computer. Intelliremote lets you control your home theatre system via a touchscreen menu, while Mocha VNC uses the VNC protocol to let you view your PC's desktop.

Remembering the Internet Tablet

Of course, the mini-tablet isn't a new idea. Nokia announced its 770 Internet Tablet back in 2005, following it up with the N800 two years later. The 770 was arguably ahead of the curve. But it was slow, ran Linux (before it was cool to do so) and suffered from a poor battery life. And without any PDA functionality, I remember wondering why anybody would actually buy one.

Not only weren't we ready for a portable web device like the 770, but it wasn't flexible enough. Part of the appeal of the iPod touch is that it's also a music player, video player, games machine, ebook reader, PDA, photo browser and digital notepad.

The iPhone and the iPod touch are also whatever else the development community can dream up. The built-in accelerometer lets them moonlight as digital spirit levels, while other apps add dictaphone functionality, an onscreen tape measure, even a decibel meter.

While the 770 was nowhere near being the iPod touch of 2005, it did include a 4-inch widescreen that had a resolution of 800 x 480. The advantage? Being able to view web pages without having to zoom in. A similar feature marks HTC's new Touch HD smartphone out from the gaggle of iPhone wannabes.

While the digital home is all about big, high-def TVs, Blu-ray players and games consoles, it's built upon the idea of networked infotainment. Where Tablet PCs have failed to inspire, the iPod touch, the iPhone and wireless devices like them fit right in.

* My other favourite gadgets include: TiVo, Psion 7, TomTom sat-nav and the original Archos AV400 video player.