101 Killer Apps for your Pocket PC is a handy reference freeware and shareware book for users of Pocket PC PDAs. It's quite comprehensive, but very application biased.

Performance per watt has taken a backward step, but it’s very fast with the right apps.

Dubbed the 'Facebook phone', this small and stylish social-networking phone will connect to you to your favourite net apps including MySpace and MSN.

A period of transition as Adobe deals with its Macromedia inheritance and the changing nature of the web.

Refocusing on disc-related features makes Nero the top choice for optical disc authoring.

It resembles the excellent MSI Wind, but the inclusion of Linux-based gOS operating system makes this one super-cheap piece of hardware

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

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

TI's current workstation-class 3D graphics accelerators - dubbed X1 - are the company's latest effort to keep a hand in the high-end 3D graphics market. Consumer-level 3D hardware is now massively powerful, of course, but for all-out 3D performance and rock-solid driver integration you need a card dedicated to the purpose, and ATI claims the X1-128 is it.

OneNote is one of those rare apps you'll wonder how you ever managed without it. It's basically a note-taking application where you work on sheets of electronic paper, putting down your ideas and rearranging them.

Some powerful improvements – but you won’t get the most out of this unless it’s used alongside other Adobe apps.

The most curious thing about 3DConnexion's new joystick-like device isn't that it reminds us of old rotatable arcade controllers. No, it's meant for CAD, but also among the list of suggested apps is Second Life.

Not without its impracticalities, but the touch is a simply brilliant marriage of software and hardware

New effects enable richer design results, while a host of other improvements boost productivity.

Don't confuse Microsoft Works with a slimmed-down version of Office, because Works is for the home productivity market.

Still the best choice for speed and security, but most new additions are eye candy.

The Civic Diamond 2015.xT is more than a little similar to Digital Star's PowerNote CL56 (reviewed November 2004, page 43), featuring the same OEM housing. Designed to take care of any application you can throw at it, it's a capable book that will handle DirectX 8 and 9 games, as well as churn through productivity apps.

It has been over two years since we previewed Office XP, but Microsoft has finally given us a glimpse of Office 2003. The finished version should be on the shelves by the end of July, but will it be worth the upgrade? The answer could be an emphatic 'yes' if you're a Tablet PC user, as Microsoft has just launched OneNote (see page 59), making full use of electronic ink. The company is also introducing InfoPath (see page 59) for designing electronic forms, with the flexibility of XML. The classic apps have also had their seen refurbishment, with Outlook (page 56) getting the most attention, and FrontPage and Publisher (page 58) a bit of a revamp.

The future, they say, is based on the Internet and mobile computing.

It’s missing a couple of key features, but nevertheless, Vegas Pro is highly sophisticated and quick to use for serious video editors.