Microsoft has four key 'visions' for Pocket PC 2003 (PPC 2003): make it easier for manufacturers to innovate, improve the 'wireless experience', bring easy instant messaging to the PDA, and expand the 'media experience'.

MACROMEDIA E-LEARNING STUDIO

Built-in tracing and improved drawing, formatting and colour correction make X3 the best CorelDRAW upgrade in years.

A powerful high-end suite with a lot of potential. Make sure you have a high-end system to run it as the listed system requirements are very optimistic.

The only PC in our mini roundup this month to feature a rather boring beige case, it more than makes up for its looks with blistering performance at a very reasonable price. Inclusion of thumb screws will allow you to get at your hardware quickly and without the need for tools. Always handy for those of us that like to fiddle frequently.

Our pick of the low-cost office suites has had a much-needed overhaul, and now battles Microsoft in terms of features, not just price.

When Macromedia released the first Dreamweaver almost three years ago it was welcomed with open arms by professional Web developers.

It sets out to create photo-realistic 3D models from 2D photos and illustrations, with the barest of tool sets and minimum user input.

The Quark-killer has finally landed. For the last year, the hype about Adobe's replacement for the worthy but old-fashioned PageMaker (reviewed issue 22, p108) has been building to fever pitch.

A fantastic specification notebook with all the trimmings you'd expect to find on more expensive notebooks, the Joybook 8100-V13 has a 15.4in widescreen WXGA with native 1280 x 800 resolution. With ATI's Mobility RADEON 9600 graphics, boasting 64MB dedicated video memory, it's great for DVD playback or gaming -- the unit returned 9,502 marks under 3DMark01SE Pro, more than enough to provide comfortable gameplay with a decent number of fps even in recent games. BenQ has gone as far as to include not just a DVD-ROM for DVD movie playback, but an optical DVD writer, capable of 2-speed DVD+R media writing, ideal for both business archiving or for personal backup.

Epson has two current specialist photo printers and the model which takes care of the lower end is the $399 Stylus Photo 810.

Kapersky Antivirus has been around for some time and often pops up on home computers as the uneducated user’s anti-virus software of choice. Unfortunately, it really isn’t as user friendly a program as it should be for novice users.

A fully digital multitrack audio production suite for under $2,500

Web Easy promises that anyone can use it to create Web sites and even a complete novice can create and publish a page in less than an hour. With only a few qualifiers this is absolutely true.

The second most expensive printer to purchase, Epson’s C900 outlay cost is quite high given its fairly low quality results; as a consequence, this printer’s value rating suffers. Saving face, it managed to finish fourth overall for the speed portion of our testing. Surprisingly, for a printer of this cost, it is another unit to lack integrated network connectivity, although it is available as an expansion option.

Whenever PC Authority reviews a data projector, we try it out with DVDs and games, and we test entertainment projectors with PCs just to see how they handle applications other than those they’re specifically designed for.

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

Vector graphics

Even with falling hardware prices, the expense and yet to be finalised format war rages on with DVD writing technology deterring many a consumer. DVD+R/RW appear to be making headway gradually with both format flexibility and hardware integration into next generation platforms.

It turns out that Microsoft [I]is[/I] bringing out Windows XP Media Center Edition in Australia, but until such time as it materialises -- and Microsoft Australia is being very sketchy on the dates -- those of us looking to integrate our PC media files with our televisions and hi-fi systems have to turn to bridging solutions.