Interesting technology, but noisy and expensive to run.

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

The annual battle of the small business accounting programs has flared again as both MYOB and Quicken roll-out their 2004 editions. While both have made several tweaks and additions to last year’s models, the main difference this time around is in MYOB’s new product activation model. While many users will consider it overkill, there is little doubt that MYOB and others have suffered as a result of software piracy over the years and this time MYOB is determined to stop it.

Sacred first graced the pages of PC Authority just nine months ago, at which time we rated it as a solid RPG experience that would hold its own in a tough environment. Re-released with the Plus upgrade (also available via download), Sacred Plus improves a strong title and implements many of the suggestions made by the game's loyal online community.

Mitsubishi monitors have always been a popular choice in the marketplace, and the Labs, and not without merit.

HDV support and seven video tracks make this a massive upgrade, but only for the plus version.

Auriga’s 17MLV-1 is not the best looking TFT we’ve ever seen, with a pretty big bezel and a chunky neck, but it has a wide degree of swivel and tilt flexibility. Plus there’s a feature unique to this monitor in the comprehensive roundup -- the 17MLV-1 came with a D-Sub RGB connection, plus Composite and S-Video. But furthermore, the TFT featured PiP (Picture in Picture) which meant you could have your PC as the main display, with the TV running in a corner, or vice versa. Via the OSD you could set where you wanted the PiP to appear, plus toggle the sources.

The Korean-made JNC SSF-70 is very cool, neat and bursting with goodies – it comes with 128MB of MP3 storage plus voice recording plus a built in FM scanning tuner plus a built in auto-charging battery – all in a tiny tube designed to hang ‘round your neck on a special earphone/neck strap combo.

Very narrowly pipped for the top placing Labs winner award this month, Plus offers an impressive performing gaming machine with all the bells and whistles you'd expect to find at this price point. Wrapped in the attractive Cooler Master Cavalier wave housing, there's no ultra portability to be found here. The clear advantage of moving away from small form factor housing is not being starved for space internally.

Plus Corporation's U4 136Z projector is a fairly small unit measuring just 53 x 190 x 239mm and weighing only 1.5kg, and while it can be held easily in one hand its got the goodies where it counts.

Streaming is the process of taking large files, breaking them into smaller pieces and sending them to their destination where they are recompiled as they arrive, providing an audio, video or animated broadcast over the net.

The Samsung M40 plus is a slick and stylish notebook, but unfortunately just doesn’t cut it compared to the others on test here.

It might seem unfair comparing MYOB’s best selling single user product with Quicken’s multi-user small business accounting package, but the key difference between the two is number of licences and not the functionality.

The Plus U4-112 suffered from some persistent problems when we tested it, including some noticeable moire and thick banding that showed with highly detailed test patterns.

With unusual styling that looks like it came straight from a 1970s sci-fi series, Maxtor’s OneTouch Plus is a distinctive but not unattractive product.

Over 60 new tracks plus more to download means our love affair with Guitar Hero continues. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll but we like it – a lot

A professional product, but it's a poor performer for the price.

Powerful laptops have to be big, bulky and ugly, right? Not necessarily. Samsung's new line of laptops is proving that portability, style and performance are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

For those users after goliath capacity drives with fast seek and access times, there's the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus.