It’s an odd gambit business-wise: align your own brand with that of another. But for Acer, the one-off team-up with Ferrari to brand and produce the Acer Ferrari 3000 notebook has resulted in a stunning product.

The Qosmio is the absolute pinnacle in multimedia notebooks. It brings everything you need for a good Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) system and squeezes it into a notebook form-factor. Albeit a large notebook form-factor. Yes the Qosmio is a huge and heavy notebook, but it's not nearly as heavy as it would have been if it was packed with desktop internals as many desknotes of this size usually are.

While the epithet 'multimedia PC' used to be bandied about to over-hype any PC in the mid-'90's that was capable of playing music, rudimentary video, and games, the descriptive was overused so much on sub-par PCs that the impact of any real multimedia capabilities was diminished in the wash of pretenders.

Scoring marginally below average in each of the testing criterion, Digitime's AMD Xtream system performed around the middle of the pack.

The first PC Direct machine we've tested features an eye-catching black anodized case with custom stealth drive face plates on all drives and front USB and audio connectors. Easy access via the tool-less snap panels takes this case the extra mile.

The processor struggle continues between AMD and Intel as the war rages on for the top ranking of the market share table. Interestingly enough, of the four machines this month under the $2,500 price tag, Scorpion Technology's Z-Box was the only unit to feature an AMD Althon XP processor. Also interesting was the marginal gains achieved by Intel given their obvious clock speed advantages over this unit.

Altech's Maestro Pro is a Home Theatre PC based on Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

The Aspire is a very good unit with several features which enhance its usability. It will suit on-the-go entertainment and productivity, at a price that won't burn your wallet.

The Viewsonic airPanel V110 is the first of its kind – a wireless, portable display that unfetters you from your PC and allows you to work around the home and office while your PC sits in another room. It runs Windows CE for Smart Panels which is like a pared-down version of Windows XP, and mimics your system desktop allowing you to access files and programs without needing to be next to your PC.

Although the mobile marketplace has been changing in the face of Centrino and the slow but gradual tablet PC adoption rate, large form factored (greater than single spindle) notebooks are still the order of the day.

Great design and build quality are coupled with a stunning nine-hour battery life, and it’s affordable too

A good first stab at the semi-ruggedised laptop market. It isn’t up to the tough standards of others, though.

Despite the improved specifications, the Q1-SSD is anything but mobile computing nirvana.

We’ve had some great competitors knocking on the mid-range A-Listed door, but TI’s all-rounder wins through.

A few quirks can’t detract from the fact that this system is fast and good value

Thou shall not cast the name 'Zeus' around with careless abandon, unlesseth one can backeth up claims of PC godliness.

Look what four grand can buy you.

A good-value and very powerful system that will appeal to those seeking ultimate performance.

Not all multimedia notebooks have to weigh in around the $5000 mark. Digital Star’s 15.4in widescreen PowerNote Z71V offers very good value for money for a laptop sporting a 2GHz Pentium M, 1GB of RAM and a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600 graphics chip.

The Acer Aspire 1692 WLMi is a story of compromises; a +/-/RAM dual layer burner and gigabit Ethernet are offset by Windows XP Home, only 512MB of RAM and the slowest processor and hard disk of the bunch.