A powerful high-end suite with a lot of potential. Make sure you have a high-end system to run it as the listed system requirements are very optimistic.

Support for new file types and platforms plus improved 3D rendering, but director is yesterday’s tool – and it shows

Another minor revision, but the addition of privacy functions further extends its impressively wide focus

Surprisingly powerful for the price, even if the best features are reserved for the more expensive Plus version.

A decent performer, but it struggles with small files

HD editing finally heads to the desktop in this major update to a favourite consumer editing package.

A few usability niggles don’t detract too much from this great-value OCR package.

Optical character recognition (OCR) software has been around for a long time and OmniPage from ScanSoft is often touted as the market leader in this space.

As a reviewer, there is no greater thrill than being privy to a product that you know will either revolutionise or turn the world upside down. The first Palm Pilot, USB devices, and the Canon 1Ds.

Strong performance and noticeably quieter than its predecessor. The Barracuda 7200.12 1TB is more than good enough for an OS drive, but also good bottomless storage for your movies and music

The D-Link DWL-7000AP is a wireless access point that is friendly towards all 802.11 devices. It's a dual-band/tri-mode wireless device - this means the 7000AP supports all three 'g', 'b' and 'a' standards. If you have one of these, you don't need to worry about what other 802.11 devices you will be using - chances are they'll talk.

Monster storage; plus a choice of professional SAS or consumer SATA interfaces and reliability to boot.

Some reasonable hands-on editing power, but image management and sharing are disappointing.

Huge improvements in speed and a revitalised interface bode well for the future.

We take mail filtering for granted today, but it was big news back in 1991. Pegasus was the first to do it and, 12 years later, its long history ensures lots of development time and a strong community of helpful users. The latest release is a major upgrade, and filtering is still at the forefront.

AVCHD support and some useful new effects keep this as the leading entry-level video editor.

WhatsUp Gold ups the ante by providing all the tools to monitor network device status and performance.

The USB Nebula DigiTV box has the best tuning abilities of the external devices tested, and it has some basic but good software to go with it.

Powerful and flexible, but also a little complicated for small business.

Packed with great features and offering decent coverage, the DIR-655 is a winner at this price.