Nero 2015 Platinum

Burn your files to disc or stream them to all your devices using this handy suite of programs

Nero’s disc-burning program has been around for ages and has now evolved into a suite packed with other media-related features. The latest 2015 Platinum release includes the core Nero Burning ROM software for burning DVDs, Blu-rays and other optical discs, as well as applications to manage, share and edit your video, audio and image files on your PC.

Amazon Fire TV

Tell this set-top box what you want to watch

There are plenty of devices for watching streaming video on your TV, from Blu-ray players and set-top boxes, to smart TVs themselves, but almost all of them get their interfaces wrong. They present you with a grid of icons, similar to the homescreen of a smartphone or tablet, and you then search for what you want to watch either by clicking on each icon and then scrolling through long, juddery lists that are slow to load or by typing search words using a fiddly on-screen keyboard via the remote.

Toshiba Satellite CL10-B-100

This £199 Windows 8.1 laptop is no bargain

Chromebooks are great budget laptops, but they can only run web apps, which is limiting if you have a favourite Windows program that has no online equivalent. The Toshiba Satellite CL10 is the first in a small wave of £200 Windows 8.1 laptops designed as an alternative to Chromebooks.

The CL10 looks surprisingly stylish for such a cheap laptop, with a bronze-coloured casing and a subtle checked pattern on the lid. It’s reasonably sturdy and weighs just 1.1kg, rising to 1.3kg with its charger. Combined with its respectably long battery life of seven and a half hours, this means it should be ideal for use on the move.

Adobe Premiere Elements 13

A turning point for home video editing

Software developers often try to make video editing less time consuming and intimidating by simplifying the process with automatic editing facilities. But we’ve never seen the appeal of twee templates and automatic editing options that randomly throw video clips together. Thankfully, Adobe Premiere Elements 13 has a new' Video Story feature that removes much of the effort and complexity, yet produces surprisingly good results.

Amazon Fire Phone

Amazon's oddball 3D smartphone

The ruthlessly competitive smartphone market is dominated by Apple and Samsung, with former front runners like Nokia and BlackBerry now relegated to the status of has-beens, so Amazon is brave to launch its own smartphone. And this is a particularly bold move because Amazon’s Fire Phone is the quirkiest, most distinctive phone we’ve seen in a long time.