NOKIA has been at the forefront of mobile communications devices for almost half a decade.

While other manufacturers just talked about handsets which combined the best features of a phone and a PDA, Nokia actually produced such an item. The original Communicator was a revelation in 1996 and, despite its brick-like proportions, it remains a much better bet for browsing the web than any WAP rival.

Now Nokia has moved the goalposts once more.

The brand new Communicator is smaller, faster and more powerful than ever before. It has a wonderful colour screen, a strong feature-set and the ability to interface with far more devices.

More than ever, the Communicator is a replacement for your laptop - thanks to British ingenuity.

Whereas the old Communicator had a proprietary operating system (OS) which was somewhat clumsy, the new machine uses a variation on EPOC 32 - the hand-held OS used in Psion palmtops.

That instantly makes the Communicator compatible with a raft of add-on software already available for the Series 5 and the Revo.

It also makes the embedded office applications much more impressive. The word processor, for instance, boasts all the most useful features of its desktop equivalent and is quite capable of editing more than a short note.

The calendar applications are also beefed up and the whole lot operates together so you can look up a contact and dial their number in one simple action.

Of course, there's also a proper web browser and an integrated fax modem too.

Nokia reckons the colour Communicator will go on sale in the UK sometime this spring. A price has yet to be set but, as the original black-and-white Communicator has recently undergone a cost reduction, somewhere in the region of £300-£400 seems likely.

That may sound like a lot for a mobile but consider that the original Communicator cost £1,000 new or how much a separate PDA and a phone would set you back.

SONY has started legal proceedings against the manufacturers of several robot dogs which, it claims, copy some of the ideas and technology used in its ground-breaking AIBO robo-pet.

The AIBO, which was featured in Gadgetman a few weeks ago, has been a massive hit since it went on sale. This Christmas store shelves were groaning with cheaper and somewhat less than impressive, copies.

Now Sony says it has had enough. The company has launched an aggressive fight-back in the courts and apparently won't be satisfied till the interlopers are hounded from sale.

THE first of what will be a mass of gadget add-ons for the Sony PlayStation II have started to arrive.

British company Datel has been first out of the traps with a version of its cheat CD for popular PS2 games.

More interesting still is a nifty little device that plugs into the PS2 and receives FM radio broadcasts that can be replayed through your TV speakers. Look out for it at your local PC store.