ACDSee 7
ACDSee is designed to help your photographic overflow woes.
Acer TravelMate 3202XMi
The Acer has all the bells and whistles you're going to need as a student, or mobile office worker; and then some.
Alternatives to Windows
Want to break free from a Microsoft world? Leigh Dyer looks at the alternatives.
Apple 12inch iBook
Apple and style are synonymous and the rounded lines and gloss white plastic chassis add to its durability and looks. Its slot-mounting combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW means there are no moving parts to break off in accidents, and serve to provide additional storage space should the comparatively small 30GB hard disk not be enough room for your files.
ASUS A4000L
While the build quality of the ASUS A4000L is good and sturdy, this notebook is much larger than the others featured in our roundup.
Call of Duty: United Offensive
It starts fast, speeds up, and just about never slackens the pace. Building on the outstanding Call of Duty, Activision's United Offensive expansion pack brings 13 fresh missions, three new multiplayer modes on 11 original maps, and a decent mix of new weapons, vehicles and troop types.
Civic Diamond 2015.xT
The Civic Diamond 2015.xT is more than a little similar to Digital Star's PowerNote CL56 (reviewed November 2004, page 43), featuring the same OEM housing. Designed to take care of any application you can throw at it, it's a capable book that will handle DirectX 8 and 9 games, as well as churn through productivity apps.
Colin Mcrae Rally 2005
Colin McRae Rally 2005 looked pretty solid in preview, and the final release has certainly lived up to expectations.
Counter-Strike: Source
It isn't an add-on, a mod or a new way of playing the world's most popular online shooter. Counter-Strike: Source is the same game that's known, loved and often responsible for gamers sitting motionless for days on end. But it's now been ported to Valve's new 3D engine, the Source engine, giving us our first glimpse of the technology that will be powering Half-Life 2.
Dell Inspiron 510M
Dell's reputation at providing reasonably priced capable 'books shines through in the 510M - the cheapest notebook on test this month.
Dream screens - superfast 8ms LCDs
LCD technology takes a small step forward with the advent of superfast 8ms. Darren Ellis looks at why your next screen will be LCD.
FIC Condor
FIC's Condor has answered the call this month, offering gamers an easy to upgrade system, wrapped up in a one of the most innovative cases we've seen.
FIFA Soccer 2005
EA has dominated the soccer-sim market for some time and FIFA Soccer 2005 looks set to maintain that proud tradition.
Ford Racing 3
Brought to us by Razorworks - the team that made its name with Apache Havoc - Ford Racing 3 is the latest instalment in a popular series that has managed to achieve solid multi-platform success.
Half-Life 2
For a company whose only other major release was the original Half Life, Valve has pushed the boundaries with fresh, bold gameplay that stays true to the legendary legacy.
HP Compaq NC6000_106
The look of the HP Compaq NC6000_106 is pure business with its black casing and silver trim. It's also one of the heavier laptops at 2.9kg.
HP M1188A
A decent PC with media abilities bolted on, transforming this into a good lounge machine.
Jargon Buster: Media PC's
Dan Chiappini delves into multimedia jargon in our monthly tech term glossary.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Based on the books and film of the same name. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events follows the story of the mysteriously orphaned Baudelaire siblings and their evil guardian Count Olaf.
Login: Taking Redmond
Looked outside lately? David Kidd expects more from the Microsoft machine
Maxtor OneTouch II
One of the practical devices for large back up jobs are external hard drive drives, which not only offer competitive capacities, but are easily portable and perfect for offsite storage. Maxtor's OneTouch II is pitched squarely at this type of application and, as the name suggests, makes it easier with a single button for back up.
McAfee VirusScan 2004
McAfee puts out its VirusScan 2004 in two versions - boxed or downloaded and managed from the internet. Whatever way you do it, the installation is simplicity itself with no difficult questions to answer or confusing choices to make.
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was a huge hit a few years ago, boasting a D-Day landing most of us will never forget. Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault takes the war to the Japanese; across Pearl Harbour, Guadalcanal and the Makin and Tarawa Atolls.
Mitsubishi DV650U
A nondescript looking scanner that admits to a 36-bit colour depth, enhanced to 48-bit through its drivers.
MSI NX6600GT-VTD128E
As one of the first native PCI-Express cards, the 6600GT has generated quite a bit of excitement: finally, a mid-price card that promises close to high end performance. So the fact that the card is finally available in AGP is good news for those willing to keep their existing AGP kit.
Myst IV: Revelation
After a brief foray into 3D with Uru: Ages beyond Myst, UbiSoft has returned to the core gameplay that made the Myst franchise so popular over time. Myst IV: Revelations is a stunningly artistic title that builds on the evolving story, answers a few nagging questions (while raising a few more!), and presents the most impressive puzzles and challenges yet seen in the series.
Need for Speed Underground 2
Need for Speed Underground reinvigorated the franchise a year or so ago by adding some challenging and slightly antisocial elements to an inherently solid and well presented concept.
Notebooks for work or study
Looking for a new notebook for work or study? We’ve got it covered with 11 notebooks designed specifically for when playtime is over.
Optima MyPC Media Center
Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 was launched with quite a bit of fanfare late last year, and not least of all because it was the first time in its 18 month life Australians could buy systems based on the OS.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3
The RollerCoaster Tycoon series has proven remarkably popular over the years, despite average graphics and a slightly clunky interface. RCT2 disappointed many fans, but the loyal Tycoon community continued to share new scenarios and rides while waiting for the Holy Grail to turn up.
Rome: Total War
We're big fans of Creative Assembly's Total War series. Like the original games, you have the option of playing through various campaigns, or jumping straight into the tactical game with historical scenarios or custom battles.
RWC: The Sound of Surround
Linux doesn't have to be a silent workhorse. Leigh Dyer examines the state of sound support in Linux
Sacred Plus
Sacred first graced the pages of PC Authority just nine months ago, at which time we rated it as a solid RPG experience that would hold its own in a tough environment. Re-released with the Plus upgrade (also available via download), Sacred Plus improves a strong title and implements many of the suggestions made by the game's loyal online community.
Samsung X10 Plus
Powerful laptops have to be big, bulky and ugly, right? Not necessarily. Samsung's new line of laptops is proving that portability, style and performance are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Pirates is virtually unchanged from the old C64 version: it’s how you choose to live out the swashbuckling dream that’s radically different. And this, believe it or not, is fantastic news.
Sony Ericsson S700i
This is a handset we have been waiting to hit our shores for some time. Sony Ericsson now brings the S700i to Australia and with it an amazing set of features and quality to match.
Sony VAIO VGN-S28GP
Sony typically asks a little more than their competitors for similar products, but this usually pays off in the quality of workmanship and the reliability associated with most Sony products. The Sony VAIO VGN-S28GP is an extremely well-built notebook and should provide rock-solid performance for years to come.
Star Wars Battlefront
A combination of Battlefield 1942 with Jedi Knights it may well be, but Lucas Art's Star Wars Battlefront is a polished representation of the Star Wars universe that will satisfy sci-fi geeks and action gamers alike.
Targa XTender A510
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.
Tech Horizons: Get Up and Go
The Centrino platform has just received a major revision. Tim Dean peers inside Sonoma and takes a look at what we can expect.
Technolog: I've Read Your Email
Are we being watched? Tim Dean thinks privacy advocacy groups have blown the issue out of proportion.
The Battle for Middle Earth
Several attempts have been made to capture the scale and atmosphere of Tolkien's epic on PC, but few have come close. In The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth, EA Games has combined relatively straightforward RTS gameplay with an outstanding look, impressive atmospherics and a remarkably accessible interface.
The Investigator
How can you make OEM products work for you? Ty Pendlebury looks at how these three letters can help save you money.
The Sims 2
The most successful franchise in gaming history has finally re-invented itself after stacks of great and not so great expansion packs that spawned a fanatically loyal gaming community.
Todaytech M120W
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.
Tony Hawk''s Undergound 2
Actually the sixth title in the genre-setting Tony Hawk series, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 throws players into a frantic World Destruction Tour against Bam Margera.
Toshiba Portege A200
The Portege A200 also has many of the necessary features we would expect in an education notebook, including LAN and modem ports, two USB ports, a DVD-ROM, and 802.11b/g with an wireless on/off switch.
Tribes: Vengeance
The Tribes series has always attracted a core of loyal gamers, but it has never been the runaway success it deserved. The original game was ahead of its time, delivering an innovative multiplayer game which relied heavily on team coordination and strategy.
TS: Softclocking
Dan Chiappini shows you how to get the most out of your graphics cards, without ever picking up a soldering iron.
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines
Using the same engine that has won Half-Life 2 more than a few friends, Bloodlines turns players into one of the 'eternally dammed' on the streets of LA. It comes with a terrific plot supported by excellent writing, and developer Troika has pitched Bloodlines squarely at an adult audience.
World of Warcraft
Blizzard Entertainment has sewn up a huge potion of the strategy market with its Warcraft series, and the keenly awaited World of Warcraft looks set to carve out a nice piece of the MMORPG scene for fans of the franchise.
XpertVision GeForce 6200TC
The big feature that sets the 6200TC apart from the 6600's and 6800's is the addition of TurboCache. Currently, graphics cards are typically limited to the memory on the graphics card, but TurboCache opens the door to your PC's system memory.