The huey, which costs 59, is aimed at designers and home users for applications such as digital photography and gaming.

"It's the iPod of colour management," said Geoffrey Clements, managing director of UK distributor Colour Confidence. "There are thousands of designers out there doing design using Pantone books."

It uses technology from GretagMacbeth's professional colour management tools. The Pantone range includes two versions of the Eye-One Display,  the Eye-One Display LT which costs 112 and the Eye-One Display 2, which costs 165. Both provide more advanced controls than the huey. All the devices work with LCD, CRT and laptop screens and are compatible with Windows 2000 and XP and Mac OS X10.3.

"The convergence of publishing, the internet and entertainment has led to a generation of computer users whose primary media is the computer screen," said Pantone vice president of European operations Helmut Eifert. "This has big implications in terms of colour. With huey wondering if colour is right is a thing of the past."

GretagMacbeth's deal with Pantone to use its colour technology in the design and consumer sectors follows an extension of its deal with Heidelberg for on-press colour control last year.