NOKIA N-GAGE: IT'S been a week of vastly differing fortunes for Britain's games console manufacturers.

Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is hoping for great things from its new hand-held, called the N-Gage. It's the first device to combine a games console with a phone and, as such, is expected to clean up with older gamers this Christmas.

Yet, despite a high profile advertising campaign, early sales have been disappointing. According to 6,000 games stores polled by Chart-Track, fewer than 500 handsets had been sold in the first week.

These figures do not include sales via mobile phone stores but they still represent a disappointing start for the N-Gage.

By way of comparison, Nintendo's established Game Boy Advance outsold the pretty little Nokia by 30 units to one, despite having no new games titles to attract new customers. At least Nokia has launched with a decent selection of software titles.

Unsurprisingly, it was the hand-held's version of Tomb Raider that topped the inaugral N-Gage chart. Nokia couldn't have chosen a worse week to launch, coinciding, as it did, with price cuts to both the Nintendo Game Cube and the Sony PlayStation 2.

Industry pundits wonder if Nokia hasn't misread the gaming market by pitching the hardware at a relatively high price. Until now, the industry has worked on a razor/razorblades economic model, where the hardware is sold today at a loss in the hope of profits tomorrow from software sales.

Of course, this could change if N-Gage is given away free as part of a phone contract but, currently, the hardware is expensive for a hand-held at more than £200. On the other hand, Nintendo is celebrating after a savage price cut halted Game Cube's seemingly inexorable slide. Now retailing at just £79, sales of the little box have jumped more than 400 per cent - outselling the PS2 in some markets. Perhaps Nokia needs to take a hard look at Nintendo and bite the bullet before the important Christmas season really kicks off.

This is a worrying development for proponents of the convergence device. If N-Gage flops, it could kill off the hand-held/mobile phone gaming market entirely.

SELECT: Database; Photo Studio; CD/DVD Burner. Publisher: Focus Multimedia. Price: £9.99

LAST week, I reviewed the Select Desktop Publishing programme and gave it an unqualified thumbs up. For less than ten pounds, it represents amazing value for money. But what of the other titles in the Select series?

Are they hidden gems or worthless junk?

Virtually every PC these days comes with a copy of Microsoft Works. Over the years, this productivity suite has grown to encompass the latest edition of Word, plus the usual crippled database and spreadsheet applications. Some versions also throw in a copy of Picture It! Photo editing software.

Select Photo Studio is a similar picture re-touching tool. It's one of the modules that form part of the Ability Office productivity suite - a cut-price alternative to the mighty MS Office XP.

I wasn't expecting a lot from this application but, again, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Photo Studio includes most of the tools I'd expect to see on a fully fledged image package like Paint Shop Pro - at a tenth of the cost.

Working with layers is simple if you have some experience of using big hitters like Photoshop or PSP. Filter effects can be applied to individual layers or the whole image. There is a wide range of different effects split into 11 categories: artistic, blur, sharpen, stylise, edge detect, tiles, distort, noise, light effects, effects and custom filters.

Brushes are equally generous, as are the paint tools that you'll need for your artistic imagery.

Even better, Photo Studio also allows for the creation of PDF (portable document files) output so you can send your masterpiece to pals safe in the knowledge that they can see it.

This last feature is also a part of the Database application, possibly because the programme is another part of the Ability suite that's been repackaged as a stand-alone title.

The application has been designed from the start to closely resemble Microsoft's mighty Access package and it succeeds. If you use Access at work but want to take your data home, then this is the cheapest method. Some of the more sophisticated features to be found in Access are missing but most of us wouldn't notice the difference. Even better, all Access databases can be opened with this software.

The Select CD/DVD Burner isn't an Ability Office product. It's a burning programme originally published by Mediaart Multimedia.

I'm used to Nero Burning ROM so this application's simplistic interface came as something of a shock. Start it up and the main page gives you just four options - data, audio, copy and media. It looks very stark.

Delve a little deeper, however, and you'll find most of Nero's tools hidden beneath the plain surface. You can create video CDs, photo albums, mixed mode CDs and audio platters with just a couple of clicks.

As a bonus, this title also throws in 1,000 royalty free photos, a basic image editor, and a jewel case creation programme - not bad for something that costs so little.

None of these titles has a printed manual but, hey, I guess economies have to be made somewhere and if you're really insecure you can always print the instructions out on your printer.

Now you've read about the Select range from Focus Multimedia, you can win a set for nothing. Just answer this question: How much does the Focus Select range cost? Answers to: Select Comp, Burton's Bytes, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF. Closing date: November 18.

Published: 24/10/2003