In a world filled with gorgeous Sony, Apple and even Dell laptops, a sober, matte black machine aimed at consumers has to be truly special to turn heads. The IdeaPad Y430 is a well-built Centrino 2 machine that lacks nothing in the way of features, speed or value

A decent LCD in its own right, but the speakers are poor and the dock isn’t much more than an expensive gimmick.

A wireless music player that performs audio magic through its LCD enabled remote control. It’s easy to use, quick to setup but lacks video functionality. But we still really liked it.

Olympus first introduced SLR (single lens reflex) to digital cameras in early 1998 in the form of the Camedia C-1400L.

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.

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.

Who would have thought that this projector would be this cheap.

With solid-state media still expensive and offering limited capacity, MP3 players with hard disks seem like the perfect solution.

There are now literally dozens of MP3 players on the market. However, the arrival of MPZoos MP3 Disc Player brings a slight change in direction

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

There is barely an area of consumer electronics that Sony does not have a hand in, and its contributions are seldom substandard in quality.

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.

The Sony DSC-P3 is a neat and very compact device with dimensions unheard of a year ago when we did our last digital camera roundup (Digital Darkroom, May 2001, p 42) especially for a 2.8 megapixel camera.

Quality, speed and a huge array of features go some way to justifying the price

A dreadful scanner and an overall lack of features make the low price a moot point

It certainly isn’t pretty, but with results like these for such a low price the MP180 is hard to ignore

The Optio 550 is the first Pentax camera we’ve reviewed in the Labs. It’s the cheapest 5-megapixel device here and, despite the slim dimensions, crams in a 5x optical zoom.

Once you get past the Taurus extremely small form factor and use it, its best feature becomes apparent: its ease of use.

The FinePix 30i is definitely the more pocket-sized device, and possesses quite a cute and funky style that the Labs team agrees has a feminine kind of appeal.

Samsungs multi-use camera comes with everything youd expect and then some. Twenty-first century style headphones, a transparent carry case, USB connector cable, tilt/swivel stand and our review camera came with a 16Mb (RCA brand) Compact Flash memory card.