The first time PC Authority got to take a look at a Twinhead notebook system (the Slimnote VX, Labs tested issue 20, p59) was back in July's test of budget notebook computers.

The 650 really picks up where the 600 left off, and while it doesn't look too different to the eye, many of the changes are under the hood or subtle manipulations of the 600's design. It runs the new Palm OS 5.4 and has a much faster 312MHz Intel PXA270 processor, but the most immediate difference is the screen: it's now double the resolution at 320 x 320.

The past two years have been littered with attempts at combining a phone with a PDA. The first was O2 with its XDA (January 2003, page 41) - an excellent first try, and one that will be revised this month.

Purely because of its size, even the smallest PDA isn’t something you’re likely to feel comfortable holding to your ear as a phone for long periods of time. And, despite its slim curves and great physique, the Xda II is no exception.

The attraction is immediate when you cradle the contoured shell in your hand. Everything is rounded - no hard edges, the control buttons are sparse and round and the LCD is elliptical.

Triplex Xabre Ultra 600

An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

Selling at a rate of one per second.

Microsoft has confirmed it has cut a "small percentage", thought to be around 600,000 gamers, off from Xbox Live for modifying their consoles to play pirated games

Australian venture capital firms are looking to invest over $600 million in ICT companies; but good ideas will not attract funding, it's good businesses they're looking for.

The Nikon Coolpix 2500 is the latest addition to the Coolpix camera range, and is designed with the camera novice in mind.

19in widescreen LCD TV which shows much promise and is Dell’s first consumer offering in Australia. Spec-wise it looks quite good on paper, with 450cd/m2 brightness, 600:1 contrast ratio and 1280 x 768 widescreen resolution, and it doesn’t disappoint when fired up.

It's a sign of the times when Compaq's Aero 8000 runs Windows CE in a box bigger than a Sharp PC-A250 (reviewed issue 23, p86) running Windows 98. So what's the big idea? Windows CE uses no moving parts, while software in ROM means immediate start-up times, high reliability, and long battery life all highly desirable qualities in a portable.

Rarely has a new camera received as much attention as the EOS 300D, released amid a flurry of excitement among photographers and a massive marketing campaign. Why the fuss? Because it's a true 6.3-megapixel digital SLR for under $2,000 including lens. It sounds expensive in the context of the cameras in this month's digital cameras Labs, but the previous generation of several models in that test were nudging a grand when they were released.

As far as performance is concerned, the Emagen Lightspeed XPS is a fairly competitive offering. It sits in the middle of the pack as far as price is concerned, but managed to sit at second to third place in most benchmarks - it even came top of the class in 3DMark05. The 3.6Ghz Pentium 4 certainly helped there. And the fact that it’s $600 cheaper than the Pioneer system also works in its favour.

IPv6 should solve the problems with overcrowding on the Internet. Tim Dean delves into the guts of the next generation protocol.

Benchmarking PCs is a tricky business. You need to ensure that you stress the systems, but also that the results you get will be relevant in the real world. Previously we have relied heavily on BAPCo's SYSmark2002 for simulating home and office use, with programs such as Excel, Word, Outlook, and web content through Adobe Premiere and Macromedia Dreamweaver. However, due to SYSmark's history of instability as well as the sheer length of time it takes to complete a run, we have put it on the backburner in favour of PCMark04 for this Labs.

What will $50 a month (and under) get you on pre-paid mobile these days? We compare the best prices and deals for pre-paid mobile plans from the big telcos and one little guy.