Finding a good PC or notebook for the family is not as hard as you might think. PC Authority  puts the latest models to the test.

The Athlon64 has only been out a short while, and although it's an excellent processor, from all accounts it's not selling as well as it should be.

While the epithet 'multimedia PC' used to be bandied about to over-hype any PC in the mid-'90's that was capable of playing music, rudimentary video, and games, the descriptive was overused so much on sub-par PCs that the impact of any real multimedia capabilities was diminished in the wash of pretenders.

The 4PCA3+ packs a whopping six IDE slots and two SATA ports, perfect for a jumbo-sized array. A PCB-mounted LED displays error codes, great for quick boot troubleshooting, and the inclusion of Gigabit Ethernet and ECC DIMM support would make this the board of choice for a single processor server, while USB, dual-channel DDR and S/PDIF ports would set you up nicely for a home machine setup.

You’ll see a lot of hype surrounding the 3.06GHz Pentium 4, and doubtless you’ll see benchmark scores for the new processor. If you do, regard them with a heavy degree of skepticism because all is not rosy with this chip.

We've traversed the acronym laden landscape of VoIP for you, and present you with the PC Authority guide to VoIP: what it is, what kinds of services you can find, what savings you can expect to make and how it is that you can go about setting up VoIP for yourself at home.

Dell's OptiPlex range is aimed at the corporate market, and traditionally bog-standard and boring boxes with little imagination and componentry to match, but the OptiPlex SX260 is a totally different beast.

Compro's VideoMate Gold TV may be an analog TV tuner card, but it's got one feature that alone makes it better then the DTV cards reviewed - it has a power pass-through for your PC's power switch.

A board with middle-of-the-road features, the NF7-M boasts a well-designed and spacious layout with some nifty additions.

At the very reasonable price of $157, ECS's L4IPEA2 is a great little board.

High contrast and fine focal abilities make this display perfectly suited for business or student users doing a lot of reading. Impressive sharpness and resolution scores make it a great companion to those doing desktop publishing or graphic manipulation.

Last month we reviewed Microsoft's Bluetooth-enabled keyboard and mouse (January 2002, page 52), and at $399 we deemed it more worthy as a Bluetooth starter kit than a wireless keyboard and mouse kit.

Panasonic's new business projector, the PT-LB10NTE is a stunning little unit for its price and size. It features a bright 2000 ANSI lumens rating - powerful enough that the projection is clearly legible even with the fluorescent boardroom lights on, and a wide 500:1 contrast ratio.

Netgear's Wireless Digital Music Player, the MP101 is one of the easiest music streamers we've reviewed, but for rich multimedia support you should look further a field especially if you're keen on streaming video to your equipment.

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 Viewsonic airPanel V110 is the first of its kind – a wireless, portable display that unfetters you from your PC and allows you to work around the home and office while your PC sits in another room. It runs Windows CE for Smart Panels which is like a pared-down version of Windows XP, and mimics your system desktop allowing you to access files and programs without needing to be next to your PC.

After January's shenanigans with this system, it's nice to have it back in the testing Labs. My initial impressions haven't changed: this is one mean system that will handle anything you throw at it, and the benchmarks back that claim.

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.

One of the most striking things about Pioneer’s entry this month is the cosmetics: it’s 24hr karaoke bar meets street-racing BMW. And lots of blue LEDs! And these LED’s can get a little annoying – especially the super bright “headlight” LED’s. They shine directly ahead, and at desk height they beam straight into your eyes. There is also a large, illuminated ‘Xfinity’ etched into the front door of the case. Suffice to say this case won’t be to everyone’s taste. But otherwise, the rest of the externals are OK – the top mount houses two of the six total USB ports beneath a tidy flap, and a large power button with a good action.

Just over four months on from our massive hard drive roundup (October 2002, page 74), and Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks have finally arrived. Phew.