Although the dual-band NETGEAR WAB501 was an excellent PCMCIA card and scored well, we rated the single-band 802.11a NETGEAR HA501 higher because of its ability to cope with dire signal conditions.

There's no denying the appeal of broadband internet access and yet for a smart country Australia has been falling way behind our international counterparts.

Not quite up there with the USB dongles from MSI and Booya, the WUSB11 has good signal strengths but was lacking in transfer speeds.

This PCMCIA card was fairly average in all tests, returning some uninspiring times and a middling tenacity to stick to its signal.

A speedy performer due to its support for the 802.11a standard, the NETGEAR HE102 was near the top of the charts in every test we performed, although it didn't do so well with signal qualities at long distances.

Oddly, in our tests, the BEFW11S4 performed better at long range with bad reception than it did at short range with good reception and a stronger, more robust signal.

The major difference with the Net MD MZ-N1 and previous MD players is that it features PC connectivity. The only way you could connect previous MiniDisc players to a PC was either with an optical digital output from your soundcard (and then manually record the audio signal on your player) or by purchasing an expensive accessory from Sony.

Belkin is not normally a name you'd associate with leading edge networking products, but in the case of the Pre-N range they've really grabbed the bull by the horns and delivered some excellent gear. The Pre-N networking range is based on the 802.11g standard so it's backward compatible with 11b, but like some other 'turbo' networking gear the Pre-N stuff also offers well over the 802.11g 54Mbps data throughput with 108Mbps.

I've predicted 2003 will be the year of the TFT, with massive price cuts on the way that will give CRTs a run for their money. The year is already looking good with these three models entering our testing Labs.

The Linksys WAP11 access point features a single 10/100 Ethernet point for plugging directly into a network or via a hub to a PC.

One of the faster 802.11b access points on review, this is almost identically configured as the Booya BWMR15, except for one important distinction – it's is a long-range access hub.

Another competent adaptor, the USB 1.1 Surecom EP-9001 ran extremely smoothly in our tests.

The NETGEAR WAB501 was a contender for a Recommended Award, with incredibly solid results in all tests conducted.

This USB dongle from MSI, like the dongle from Booya, proved a tiny USB device could deliver equal or better performance than you can get from a PCMCIA or PCI card.

Voice recognition is the holy grail of computing: the ability to walk around your room and dictate to your PC is an attractive one, however the real experience with voice recognition is far different.

Leadtek's WinFast PVR 2000 is one of the two analog TV tuners we've looked at, but while it lacks Compro's power-on functionality it makes up for it with DirectBurn (the ability to burn recorded programs direct to CD or DVD) and an FM tuner.

This is the second Smartphone we've reviewed (O2's Xphone, March 2004, page 55) but, unlike the Xphone, the Motorola MPx200 features a clamshell design. Smallish, black and sleek, the MPx200 is a Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 phone with GPRS which enables email, SMS, MMS and WAP capabilities.

This is another dual-band 802.11a/802.11b PCMCIA adaptor that offers the best of both worlds.

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.

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.