We've all been there – you're away from a power supply but need to make or receive an important phone call and the battery dies. It seems like the more complex smartphones get, the shorter their battery life is. The iLuv iBA200 portable USB rechargeable battery kit attempts to help fix or avoid these situations.

By charging it up beforehand you can carry it around, and when your smartphone, digital camera, PDA, MP3 player or other device that charges via USB loses its battery, you can quickly attached it to the device for an extra boost. We got an extra four hours of talk time out of our dying iPhone.

It works well, being compatible with major smartphone brands and handsets including the Apple iPhone 4, BlackBerry Torch, HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy S2, MP3 players including the iPod touch, cameras and more. For getting out of sticky situations it really can be a life-saver. Annoyingly, it doesn't come with a mains adapter – so you have to charge it via a computer's USB port, which takes some time.

A simple LED indicator kept us informed of how much battery life was left – although when we first used it we didn't know how long three LEDs is, compared to four LEDs.

It's a simple countdown that will at least let you know that it holds some charge, and the more you use the iLuv iBA200 charger the better you'll get at knowing how much time you have left when there's only one LED lit up.

If you have an iPhone or an iPod then there is a good chance that you have a lot of pictures and movies stored on them. The MiLi Power Pico Projector enables you to show them off.

This connects to your iOS device and throws the images onto your wall, creating a 'screen' of up to 70 inches. The images look good, although movies in our test were less impressive than still photos.

The MiLi Power Pico Projector attaches to the Apple iPhone or iPod neatly and runs off the device's battery, but if you plug it into the mains you can charge your iPhone or iPod through the projector.

When opened up, the MiLi Power Pico Projector turns itself into a decent stand, which makes adjusting the projection easy.

If you don't have an iPod or iPhone then that doesn't matter, because there are inputs for all kinds of smartphones, MP3 players and other devices included. However, the functionality of the projector is a lot more limited on these, because it has been designed for Apple devices.

It also comes with some built-in speakers too, which sound pretty good considering their size – although it's no replacement for a home cinema system, and there are cheaper portable projectors out there.

If you have an iPhone and want to show off your photos and videos in a stylish manner, then you might find the MiLi Power Pico Projector to be right up your street. Others might want to steer clear though.

The Conran Audio iPod Dock is a stylish speaker set and is very versatile.

As well as a 30-pin dock that holds your iPhone or iPod in portrait or landscape orientation, there's a 3.5mm AUX-in and stereo RCA ports for other audio devices. A USB socket connects to your Mac to sync a docked iOS device, though a USB connection won't act as an audio-in.

Its Bluetooth feature is especially noteworthy, supporting the latest aptX codec for CD-quality streaming from compatible equipment, including Macs running OS X 10.6.5 or later, but not iOS devices.

In our tests, the dock performed admirably through Bluetooth, effortlessly pairing and suffering no distortion or signal break-up.

The Conran's style is minimalist in the extreme. There are no on-board controls other than a multifunction volume knob you also press to cycle through input sources. All other controls are slaved to the remote, which is neatly housed in a niche on the side of the unit when not in use.

Six pre-defined equaliser settings let you tailor the output to suit your music's genre. Unfortunately, the controls aren't very instinctive, with the track skip buttons atop rather than next to each other and the current equaliser setting indicated by unlabelled LEDs on the unit's front.

Audio is lively and detailed, with each instrument impressively clear. Treble and mid-range tones are reproduced effortlessly, giving your sounds a vitality that's sometimes absent in mid-priced systems.

Unfortunately the bass is a little flabby, and not very meaty at all. Its sound stage is a bit small too, with poorly realised stereo effects doing little to shape the audio.

To an extent this is unsurprising in a system of this size, but companies such as Altec Lansing have proved it's far from impossible to make stereo speakers sound much further apart.

This dock's not up there with true giants of iOS docks such as Arcam rCube or Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8, but it's substantially cheaper and good value for money overall.

This could be the strangest looking speaker unit we've ever reviewed at MacFormat. A 47cm-tall triangular design with a chrome carry handle at the rear, its entire body is covered in 'blood orange' cashmere (slate grey, black and beige are also available).

If you can find one to match your room's décor it looks neat enough, but comparisons to a cat's scratching post are inevitable.

Libratone Beat has two input methods: a 3.5mm auxiliary socket for connection to any audio device that takes standard headphones, and a wireless receiver to stream sounds from your Mac or iOS device. There's no built-in dock connector.

For wireless sounds, it comes supplied with USB and 30-pin transmitters, and a USB cable that fits the 30-pin dongle so you can power your iOS device through the mains while transmitting.

Other than the pairing button, the speaker unit itself is devoid of controls – you must use your Mac or iPod for changing volume.

Sound quality is a mixed bag. It has enough volume to fill a room and bass is strong and solid, though the midrange is a little subdued, and sometimes swamped by the treble.

As you might expect given its vertical form factor, stereo separation is poor. Although well detailed, the promised 360-degree sound proves patchy in practice; it's generally obvious the sound is coming from one source.

While the Libratone Beat scores heavily for style and convenience, its audio quality, while far from shabby, doesn't justify its £500+ price tag.

Speaker docks for the iPhone are ten-a-penny, so it's great to see a product that's been built for the iPad, though you can dock an iPhone or iPod in the Altec Lansing Octiv 450 as well.

Designed largely to complement the iPad's video playing abilities, it's best used in landscape orientation, has stereo speakers, an adjustable holder and a remote control. This well-thought-out combination means you can pop the device on your coffee table, adjust the angle of the iPad to suit and then slump down on the sofa and enjoy your favourite movies or stream live TV without having to move.

The iPad slides firmly into the arm, sits snugly against the supports and is held in on three sides. The dock connector charges your device, but there's no USB port, so no syncing to iTunes unfortunately.

The angling arm is stiff, so once you've set it, your iPad will remain how you left it. The slight downside is that you need two hands to adjust it, especially to bring it towards you, or you'll flip the unit up.

As well as angling your iPad, you can rotate it through 180 degrees while it's mounted, so you can use it either way up in landscape or portrait.

The speakers, while small, have been engineered from the ground up with high-quality audio in mind, and they go loud enough for you to enjoy your movies as they were intended. They provide deep, punchy sound, at times at the expense of clearer treble.

This didn't bother us while watching video, and indeed provided an immersive experience, but we found the bass a little overpowering when listening to some styles of music, like acoustic or vocal-oriented tracks.

The unit's neat and small enough to take around the house, but we were concerned about transporting it further afield.

The arm folds down but still sticks off the top of the unit, and the supports seem vulnerable when there's no iPad attached. We wouldn't feel comfortable putting it in our luggage to go on holiday without a box.

While it's not meant as a travel dock, we'd have liked to be able to take it on the road without worry.

The rCube is Arcam's most ambitious product yet. The result of around five years' research and development, it aims to bring hi-fi quality sound to a compact and transportable speaker dock.

The rCube's sealed construction enhances the bass, giving it a more natural sound than a rear-facing bass port would allow. The woofers are positioned back-to-back so they don't shake the unit, and the tweeters are angled at around five degrees to give the audio a breadth that belies the dock's relatively small size.

Available in black or white, the top and bottom sections have the same finish as an iPhone, with a cloth cover enwrapping all four sides. Metal grilles add rigidity.

As well as mains power, it has a built-in rechargeable battery that lasts around six or seven hours. A hatch covering the 30-pin dock doubles as a carry handle, and also as a back rest for your iOS device – no Universal Dock Adapters are needed.

You can also stream your music from your Mac or iPod to up to eight rCubes, using an optional 30-pin dongle or USB stick (sold separately). Wireless streaming is based on the Kleer system for 'lossless' quality.

For £500 you'd expect a stellar sound, and the rCube delivers. It's very detailed and well integrated, especially the bass, which is clear and well defined.

The sound as a whole is gorgeously complete, with no undue emphasis on one particular area, though if you find it a little bass-heavy (perhaps because the rCube's in a corner), a button at the back cuts out unwanted echoes without losing overall balance. Vocals in particular sound great on the rCube, sitting atop the audio very nicely.

There's very little to criticise here. It's expensive, but not overpriced for a device of this quality.

It's very harsh on highly compressed MP3s though, so if you've ripped your CD collection at a high compression rate to save space, you might want to rip them again.

But then, anyone prepared to spend £500 on a top-quality speaker dock is unlikely to use low-quality MP3s on any audio system.

It's a truth universally acknowledged that Apple's white iPod headphones are crap.

Which is why a whole industry has sprung up around replacing the things, despite their iconic status on billboards and in TV adverts.

Joining the fray is electro-acoustics expert Phitek, which makes the noise-cancelling tech inside acclaimed headphones like the Audio Technica ANC-AN7 and Creative Labs Aurvana, as well as supplying most of the world's biggest airlines with similar technology for their passengers. Exciting stuff.

Philex has now applied its know-how to natty Apple earbud alternatives – and it looks like it's scored a home run with the i10: a pair of active noise cancelling headphones, which use unique technology to get your music singing loud, clear and free from unwanted outside noise.

Here comes the science bit

What makes the i10s different from other noise cancelling headphones is the way in which they work. Instead of using a bunch of microphones to monitor the ambient noise outside the headphones, Phitek's version listens to the sounds inside the ear canal instead.

LISTEN HARD: The business end of the Blackbox i10 headphones include Active Noise Rejection – a Phitek technology which analyses and then suppresses unwanted noise inside the ear canal

Because the Blackbox i10's silicone earbuds isolate your ears from a good deal of outside noise already, the noise cancellation system – called Active Noise Rejection (ANR) – only has to deal with the remaining annoying noises that make it through to you ear.

This is not only brilliantly done, but it's energy efficient too. Many noise cancelling headphones require you to carry spare batteries around in case they conk out mid-flight. The Blackbox i10s simply draw power from your iPod, using its proprietary 30-pin connector instead.

Design and ease of use

The Blackbox i10 headphones themselves comprise a pair of in-ear buds with a shaped, but slightly bulky, drive unit box apiece, along with a generous 1.25m cable that incorporates a volume slider control and mute button, which you press to let the outside world in – handy for giving out your drinks order to the air hostess, or for crossing busy roads.

CONTROL: The Blackbox i10 headphones include an inline remote control with volume slider and a mute button so you can let in sounds from the outside world

Also included in the box are small, medium and large silicone sleeves that ensure a snug, noise-isolating fit no matter how big or small your ears are.

In use, the Blackbox i10 headphones prove comfortable to wear for long periods and that noise isolation/active noise cancelling combo really works.

You can listen to your favourite tracks without them struggling to be heard above the sounds around you, with the added benefit that you can listen at lower volumes, so saving your hearing.

When it comes to outright sound quality, the Blackbox i10's equip themselves brilliantly. 256kbps AAC tracks ring out with incredible clarity, with enough bass on offer to satisfy even the most ardent drum 'n' bass junkie.

The only real drawbacks are three-fold. The first minor one is that the volume control on your iPod no longer works, so you have to rely on the inline slider instead.

The Blackbox i10s are also only really compatible with iPods: plug them into an iPhone and a compatibility warning message pops up on screen.

And because the headphones use a proprietary connector, you won't be able to use them with any device that relies solely on a headphone socket, so that stops you from using them any other kind of MP3 player or even a laptop or desktop PC.

But given sheer number of iPods out there – and the ubiquity of those crappy white headphones, that's not as much as curse as you might think.

Woww One: Overview

In the eternal trade off between portability and sound quality, portable speakers are universally rubbish, but the Wowee One attempts to change that, by using some clever technology to turn any surface into a speaker for better bass response.

The trouble with tiny speakers is that they have little capacity for low bass frequencies, which makes your favourite tunes sound like an early version of Morse code played through a tin can.

The Wowee One is designed to vibrate, and enable those low frequencies to bass onto flat surfaces that it's placed on. In effect this makes the bass frequencies sound warmer than most portable speakers of its size- although that's not saying much.

The Wowee One has a built in battery, and charges via USB and boasts 20 hours of playtime. This which means all that's required is a 3.5mm jack cable, which is supplied, to the speaker into your MP3 player.

The Wowee has a grippy rubber pad on the bottom which enables you place on vertical surface such as windows and walls, and it stays put without leaving marks, as if held by invisible magnets.

There's an impressive volume level which is more than loud enough to entertain a group of friends, however, when reaching the upper limits, the bass aiding vibrations started to feel more like a ringing mobile phone on a desktop, which left us rushing to lower the sound.

Wowee One: Verdict

While the bass is impressive, the higher frequencies still suffer from a bad-quality built in speaker, and some songs we tried were unbearably grating.

The guitars, rhythms and vocals sounded scratchy, tinny and little better than most built in laptop speakers. This is a big disappointment after a long list of clever innovations and well delivered ideas.

We liked:

The Wowee One is a decent portable speaker, which enables you to enjoy your MP3 player anywhere (providing there's a solid table top or window.)

Bass does sound warm, and we love the simple nature of charging, attaching and carrying. At the size and weight of an early mobile phone it's small enough to go unnoticed in your bag.

We disliked:

The overall usefulness of the Wowee One is questionable, but there are worse portable speakers on the market for more money.

However, the gains that have been made in bass response are outweighed in equal measure by the raspy nature of the main built in speaker, which makes listening at high volumes as uncomfortable as most mobile phones.

Verdict:

It may cost you an extra £30 to get a better portable speaker, but it's certainly worth the extra cash.

Here's a smart idea. The Griffin PowerBlock Reserve – something around the size of a thick bar of soap – comes with US and UK socket adapters, and outputs 5V/1000mA, so it'll charge pretty much any USB device you plug into it.

(Exception: while it will charge the iPad, it does so very slowly. It would take three days to charge it fully. Rest assured, Griffin's on the case.)

The clever bit is that part of the PowerBlock Reserve pulls away; it's a little battery with a standard 30-pin dock connector that you can use to give your iPod or iPhone a jolt of power when away from the mains.

The battery is held in place with a couple of magnets, though when used with the UK plug, it sits on top rather than hanging underneath so the magnets aren't so important – and as it's charging, a row of five green LEDs show its level of charge.

But while you can press the battery icon to see the charge level when it's connected to the mains or a device, it doesn't show it when it's not.

Of course, the PowerBrick Reserve charges a connected device and its own removable battery at the same time.

This battery is a bit weedy, though. With only 500mAh capacity, it won't fully charge an iPhone battery, though it was sufficient, in our tests, to make an iPhone properly last an entire day away from the mains, even when being used heavily.

The Griffin's only a fiver more than Apple's own USB charger, too, with the bonus of the battery and US/UK compatibility.

The Klipsch iGroove SXT packs a mean punch for a small device. It’s just 30cm long and light enough to sit comfortably on most shelves, but its audio quality is surprisingly detailed.

It doesn’t (and couldn’t possibly) define the shape of the sound as comprehensively as a unit with discrete speakers, but it performs very well for a mid-priced compact dock.

Bass isn’t very prominent in the mix, and with no equaliser, it won’t get any stronger. Although far from poor, it won’t satisfy those who like their audio bass heavy. The overall balance between treble and bass is good, which makes for a wonderfully clean sound.

The iGroove SXT is now bi-amplified, meaning each driver has its own amplifier, so you can crank up the volume surprisingly high before you get distortion.

Its feature set is fine, but not exactly exceptional. A 3.5mm aux port offers compatibility with most audio devices, and there’s an S-Video output for watching movies on an external monitor, if you’ve a compatible iPod or iPhone.

The remote is standard fare, with power, mute, volume control and track skip. There’s no radio tuner, and despite its small size and weight, there’s no battery option – a pity, as it would make a great portable device.

A 1000mA fast-charging circuit can recharge a flat iPhone in around an hour and a half.

The Klipsch iGroove SXT combines a clean, detailed sound with a good balance between the bottom and mid-range. It’s a great dock for all-round use but less so if you like a lot of bass in your music.