Ableton’s flair for innovation shows no sign of diminishing. This is the best version of Live yet.

Support for new file types and platforms plus improved 3D rendering, but director is yesterday’s tool – and it shows

Yet another leap forward for After Effects, which cements its status as the leading PC video compositing tool.

With a fantastic new suite of plug-ins on top of an already hugely powerful production environment, it’s hard to imagine a musician for whom Sonar 5 isn’t perfect.

For those with deep pockets and big hearts, this DVD recorder comes with full PVR functionality and an 80GB hard drive.

The IBM ThinkCentre S50 Ultra Small is the world's smallest 'full-function' desktop computer according to manufacturer IBM. Whether it's the world's smallest or not, it's certainly one of the smallest we've seen.

The Techmart SOHO is the only system in this roundup to be supplied with a copy of Windows XP Home rather than XP Professional. This highlights Intermedia's emphasis on the small office, home office environment with this system, where the additional networking features of XP Pro aren't necessary. Even so, it does mean you'll be restricted to using a peer-to-peer network, and you'll need an upgrade if you ever want to set up a client-server system. For the extra $90, it might be worth future-proofing and upgrading to Pro.

Although falling slightly below par in our quality testing, the IntelliPro 4000GX managed to claw back points with a score 16 percent above the average for value, primarily due to its incredibly low initial purchase price.

One of the mantras of business computing is reliability. It all ties into TCO (total cost of ownership) - if a mission critical PC suffers a hardware failure, the resulting downtime can cost you a lot more than the price of an entire new system. As such, we in the PC Authority Labs always place a high emphasis on a good on-site warranty, such as that provided by a few manufacturers this month, including Pluscorp with its INTEQ V26.

The slump in the accounting software market since the heady days leading up to the introduction of GST has seen the major players completely revamp their products. For example, QuickBooks Pro once sold for less than half its current price and was designed for small business.

Web Graphics

The CWS SuperPro S3 has some very nice components under the hood: its equipped with the fastest Athlon XP in this months crop (a 2100+), 512MB of PC2100 DDR and an 80GB HDD.

Mitsubishi monitors have always been a popular choice in the marketplace, and the Labs, and not without merit.

This time round Sony has rewritten that equation by offering the CPDG420 19in Flat-CRT

Easy to set up and administer; has all the advantages which Linux offers.

Hitachi CM771

Design-wise, the Sony possesses an imposing no-frills presence, and yet is reasonably compact in dimension, enabling it to be used in small offices where space is a premium.

Flat CRT technology is all the buzz these days, and there are three main competing technologies. While LG, with its Flatron range, offers a completely flat screen, it has run into a couple of problems.

CPU

A powerful high-end suite with a lot of potential. Make sure you have a high-end system to run it as the listed system requirements are very optimistic.