X-Rite ColorMunki Smile

£67, $90 www.xritephoto.com

It may be named like a toy for a pre-school child, but the ColorMunki Smile is also child’s play to use thanks to software that trades advanced options for excellent clarity.

A couple of oversized buttons stand between you and the calibration process, then kick back as the gizmo does its thing. In a shade over four minutes you’ll have a fully-calibrated monitor without needing to know your white point from your gamma.

There’s no scope to measure ambient light, but the ColorMunki Smile does nail the basics as it performed well beyond its budget price tag and generated the most accurate colour profile of all the colorimeters on test. Calibration time: 4 minutes 15 seconds Colour accuracy after calibration (Delta-E, lower scores better): 0.58

Proof that less really is more, and that a silly name can conceal a really useful product