The Todaytech M120W, even though it's based on an OEM housing, is all style with its glossy royal blue top, and the silver surrounds on the palm rest and screen.

This month's winner, the A510 from Targa well and truly trounced the competitors this month, with the exception of Dell who trailed by only three points.

Widescreen notebooks are the way of the future, really they are. With entertainment now proficiently done on the go, why would we go back to limited 4:3 aspect ratio? It's far easier to work on two spreadsheets concurrently in widescreen without needing to alt tab like a madman. Toshiba, like many manufacturers, has seen this need and provided such a product.

The iMac has always been a little more about style than function and the latest iteration is testament to this philosophy. The most noticeable thing about the iMac G5 is the massive 20 inch widescreen. It's a Big Mac. Geddit?

This pre-production notebook was shipped to us in a professional looking silver lockable briefcase. We were expecting to see top secret government papers rather than a slimline ultra low voltage (ULV) notebook.

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.

Intel’s push on Centrino notebook branding has only made it so far in the six months since its introduction. So far prices have been high for Centrino notebooks, although Emagen looks set to change this mindset, now offering the N1000 model as a cost-effective alternative option to top of the line name brand notebooks with all the bells and whistles.

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 new 12in PowerBook G4 is a truly beautiful piece of equipment. It sports a superb screen, the best portable keyboard ever and a super-slick, slot-loading DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Add FireWire, Bluetooth, Ethernet, a couple of USB ports and the usual external sound and video ports and it seems like everything you could want is on offer at a sub- $4,000 price.

Intel's new Centrino is possibly the most hyped notebook technology ever launched. Centrino is the name for a group of Intel's technologies including a tweaked P3-M CPU, built-in wireless, and excellent battery life.

We see a lot of notebooks at PC Authority, but like the BenQ JoyBook 8000 (page 37), the Portege 2010 was an immediate crowd pleaser when it was removed from it's shipping materials, garnering lots of "oohs" and "aahs" from techies and non-techies alike.

While IBM ThinkPads might look a little bulky and coarse compared to some of their competitors, they've generally got it where it counts; delivering in function if not form.

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.

If the Efio 2617 looks familiar, it-s because it is almost identical to the Hi-Grade Notino R5400 (December 2002, page 49).

Although the Tablet PC was launched with much hype and fanfare, many media outlets have been sceptical as to the validity of the technology. However, the experience delivered by using a Tablet PC firsthand, for any length of time cannot help but impress. I myself went from cynical observer to total convert after trialling three tablets.

The core of SATOs SS51G is an incredibly tiny Shuttle XPC. These bare-bones boxes have been on the market for close to six months now, and have proven effective (if not over-whelming) performers and a very popular choice for building a lounge-room PC for playing music and DVD movies.

As far as Tablet PCs go, the only indication that the Portege 3500 is one, and not a notebook, is the solid stainless steel and magnesium hinge centered under the display. This is the single point for rotating and flipping the screen over and down, and it locks into place with a satisfying 'snick'. It's a much better work-around than the hinge and locks used by the Acer TravelMate C100.