Any way you look at it, ITC’s Millennia 7350 is a monster.

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

Alienware are fairly new to Australian shores, but for any PC-addict it's been hard to avoid their familiar little-green-men styling on the internet where Alienware cases are extremely popular among case-modding and PC-styling communities. They're finally here now, and the Area-51m 7700 is the first product through the PC Authority Labs doors.

The D900T has to be one the most impressively kitted out notebooks we've ever reviewed. Now, before you go running off with a fist full of readies, this notebook isn't available as such to the general public. Rather, resellers of Todaytech's notebooks can order them in whatever configuration you want. Or if you'd rather -- and we quite like this option -- you can order the notebook stripped of most options, and configure your own from spare parts or cheaper parts if you think you can do better on pricing.

If you're after an ultra portable, this isn't the notebook for you. If you're after a large form factored portable desktop replacement, this could be the ticket. This behemoth of a notebook features a 17-inch widescreen display and a footprint to match.

The Acer Aspire has a lot of handy multimedia functions that help it work as a desktop replacement/media unit. One of the Aspire’s main selling points is the Arcade feature, which is a Windows Media Centre clone. A button on the notebook fascia opens Arcade, bypassing the Windows OS and enabling all media player functions: DVD, MP3 etc. It works quite well but isn’t as graphically stunning as MCE.

Punch Technology's Punch Biz+ system features a 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, half gigabyte of PC3200 DDR-SDRAM, 52-speed CD-RW and a 17in monitor for under $2000 -- impressive pricing for this sort of spec machine.

MSI's MegaBook L61OI lives up to its 'mega' moniker with a large 15.4-inch widescreen TFT, desktop CPU, excellent graphics and pumping audio. The model we looked at was a pre-production prototype notebook and as such was a little shaky and did not come with all the inclusions a final model will have. As a proof of concept, however, the notebook is quite good.

The Excel G736 notebook from Protac is a desktop replacement, and as well as better-than-normal notebook specifications it also comes with the other traditional trapping of a desktop replacement notebook: it's big, it's chunky, and it's heavy.

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.

We find this model hovering in the no-man's-land between desktop replacement and notebook. Its large form factor and huge screen come at the expense of weight, while the wireless and large battery do make it viable for users on the move.

Despite not being the smallest or lightest notebook, this veritable speed demon packs a 3.06GHz desktop Pentium 4 processor and is matched with an ATI Mobility 9000 graphics adaptor and quarter gig of PC2100 DDR RAM. Another notebook to dispose of legacy parallel, PS/2 and serial ports, it boasts a pair of rear mounted USB ports, S-Video output and FireWire connectivity. Also included are 10/100 Ethernet, a 56K modem and single PCMCIA slot for card expansion.

This is not the first 'desknote' that we've reviewed (see Protac DeskNote, June 2002, page 37) but in our estimation the Aspire 1703SC is the first system that truly expounds the virtues of true desknote-ism.

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.

Dell's new Inspiron 5100 delivers a truckload of performance thanks to a 2.8GHz P4 processor, which even managed to outscore the 3GHz Hi-Grade we tested this month.

Hi-Grade's new performance-oriented notebook is equipped with a 3.06GHz desktop P4, 60GB HDD, and a gigabyte of RAM. The Ultinote 6600DH displays Hi-Grade's typically first-rate build quality, with solid casing and a good quality TFT screen.