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

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

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.

On receiving this unit, we were impressed by the mammoth 15.4in widescreen display. Although sceptical of its ability to perform given its monster display size, we were proven wrong at every turn, with the 8600 performing similarly to the more expensive Toshiba Tecra S1 Notebook (July 2003 page 40). Absolutely bursting at the gills with features, this Notebook boasts an array of connectivity options including side mounted FireWire and IrDA, while on the rear of the unit we find two USB and legacy serial, parallel and S-Video ports.

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

We’ve had some great competitors knocking on the mid-range A-Listed door, but TI’s all-rounder wins through.

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

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

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.

Narrowly missing out on an award, this machine deserves a special mention for its execution and incredible value for money rating.

When it comes to accessories, the Aspire has one of the best bundles supplied for this roundup: including an MCE remote and a radio/TV antenna! It also has a decent specification list: 3Ghz Pentium 4; 160GB HDD; and 512MB RAM. The only sticking point here, amongst all this multimedia goodness, is the inclusion of the Mobility X300 video card. It's like building a Ferrari and installing a two-stroke motor. It doesn't make much sense.

The best convertible tablet we’ve seen great performance and great design at a decent price.

We heard that Apple may be changing its slogan from “Think Different” to “CONFORM!”

'Absolute consistency' are the words we'd use to describe the performance of the Aspire T310. A solid all-rounder, this machine is just as at home gaming as it is doing 2D tasks, such as productivity applications, anti-virus scanning or media decoding. And, as shown by its impressive 4,271 PCMark04 score, it's not short on horsepower.