The notebook winner this month was a close call. Two units stood out as being at the top of the multimedia field: the Pioneer D47K and the Acer Aspire 1802WSM. Feature-by-feature they were very closely matched, but we chose the Pioneer for several reasons, one of which was its advanced media capabilities.

We did a double take this month. Not only are Pioneer and Protac's chassis identical but the inside specs are too.

The Pioneer DreamBook Power 900 is a locally built monster – this isn’t a desktop replacement, it’s a desk.

A stylish, silent well-featured Media Center PC at a decent price.

If laptops were cars, then the Pioneer Power 470 would be a caravan - a quick scan of the specs reveals that it has almost everything. The 470 model we tested was a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 unit with a large 60GB of drive space and 256MB of DDR.

As this Labs’ sole available proponent of the –RW format, Pioneer has a struggle on its hands getting the public to accept the standard over the faster and more widely used +RW format.

We’ve seen several manufacturers make use of FIC’s Spectra case before, but few have made such a good job of it as Pioneer.

One of the most striking things about Pioneer’s entry this month is the cosmetics: it’s 24hr karaoke bar meets street-racing BMW. And lots of blue LEDs! And these LED’s can get a little annoying – especially the super bright “headlight” LED’s. They shine directly ahead, and at desk height they beam straight into your eyes. There is also a large, illuminated ‘Xfinity’ etched into the front door of the case. Suffice to say this case won’t be to everyone’s taste. But otherwise, the rest of the externals are OK – the top mount houses two of the six total USB ports beneath a tidy flap, and a large power button with a good action.

When we sent out the call for multimedia systems we were expecting notebooks and PCs capable of DVD playback and some basic gaming. Pioneer not only cleared this bar with their submission - they raised it.

As DVD starts gaining ground on CD burning as the optical storage method of choice, 4.7GB DVD has some competition at the hands of the newer 8.5GB dual layer format.

Locating the sweet spot in the market for well kitted out machines on a budget, Pioneer has come to the party by introducing it's Power PC model, featuring all the tech goodies without the sour aftertaste of a high price ticket. This black futuristic PC looks quite schmick with its front mounted LCD readout displaying up to date temperature information on the system, so you know exactly what's happening with your cooling.

Making it into the sub $500 price category, Pioneer offers a very competitive unit in its DVR-A06P DVD writer, supplied with a single -R and -RW disc and an excellent software package.

As well as being the first company to launch EIDE DVD burners into the mainstream IT marketplace, Pioneer is the company behind DVD-R and DVD-RW recordable media formats. In the last couple of years, it has fought hard to stave off competition from Philips' rival standard, DVD+RW, and until recently buying a DVD recorder meant locking yourself into one standard over the other.

A poor performer in the face of HP’s similarly-priced, touch screen-enabled rival.

A powerful and feature-packed notebook. But it can’t match the quality of Dell’s XPS M1710.

Pioneer’s new DreamBook Power uses the Clevo D900K chassis which offers the size and space required to cool the blisteringly fast components contained within (see the specs box below).

When we opened the box for the Dream PC from Pioneer, we though there must have been some kind of mistake. Coming in a form factor reminiscent of external hard disk units, the Dream PC packs an entire P4 system in a surprisingly small space, and at 3kg, it weighs less than some notebooks.

The D400S packs the usual gear, and offers well-thought out front-mounted FireWire along with 802.11b on/off controls for the optional WLAN device. We were surprised the right-hand side of the chassis contained absolutely no connectivity options – a shame given the inclusion of only a single PCMCIA port. Three USB ports are present – two rear-mounted and one on the left-hand side.

Pioneer's Value notebook is another well-featured offering, with a large variety of ports, a combo drive and a very handy three-year warranty.

Like the Ricoh entry, the Pioneer DVRA03 is a versatile unit, and is capable of burning all CD formats with the added advantage of burning DVD-R and -RW discs...