An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

A Media Center PC and 32in LCD TV all-in-one.

High definition video is the next big thing for Australia. We explain the essential technologies for your TV or living room PC, and what to expect from our broadcasters.

Features voice recording and an FM tuner. The device can be fiddly to operate, and the LCD screen doesn't display any track information other than the title. There is no playlist management, and no directory structure for your tracks. Voice recording allows the sampling rate to be set up to 48,000Hz.

Nominating Sato as our winner for the desktop machines this month was fairly straightforward, especially when compared to deciding the outcome of the closely-fought notebook war. Because, even though the Sato was outdone by one or two systems in terms of performance, nothing beat it on pure value for money.

A decent PC with media abilities bolted on, transforming this into a good lounge machine.

The SlimX imp-550, from iRiver left us speechless in terms of the quality and design of this MP3 CD Player/FM tuner. Being possibly the thinnest CD/MP3 player on the market, this is also one of the more feature-packed.

The Hi-Grade Xperian can simply be described as a bundle of essential technology ingeniously put together in one desirable package.

Big screen HDTVs are beautiful, but if you’re looking for an upgrade at the moment, you will have come across the killer question: LCD or plasma?

Toshiba has now introduced a laptop with a HD-DVD drive. And gave us details on HD-DVD.

What will you be buying, using and drooling over this year? Tim Dean looks at the astounding products and technologies due to hit in the next 12 months.

Leigh Dyer lets rip on digital TV, video conversion tools, aspect ratios and video formats.

Atec is a new face on the Australian LCD scene but a big name in Korea, and this is the first display weve looked at from this manufacturer.

Great design and comprehensive features make it a truly great Media Center PC. Only the price lets it down.

Still unsure about what GPS is best? Our buyer's guide compares each TomTom model on the market, including TomTom's newest GPS models.

Care to pimp your car, geek style? Azentek have just released a Vista (shudder) powered in-car PC called the CPC-1200 that they claim will be safe for use while driving.

Small screen, but it's packed with features, including DivX playback, slot loading DVD, HDMI, and a digital TV tuner.

There is something totally decadent about playing your favourite PC game on a 30-inch LCD monitor with stereo sound from two banks of speakers - one on each side.

A stunning way to enjoy HD DVD, but the wonderful design and features come at a price

The notebook winner this month was a close call. Two units stood out as being at the top of the multimedia field: the Pioneer D47K and the Acer Aspire 1802WSM. Feature-by-feature they were very closely matched, but we chose the Pioneer for several reasons, one of which was its advanced media capabilities.