Laptops/PCs/Apple

Looking to upgrade your DVD drive capabilities then dual layer technology is the way to go.

Portable printers are always useful, a portable printer that runs on batteries very useful, a portable printer that runs on batteries and fits in your pocket, mega useful.

5.1 sound is almost becoming standard with a lot of PC’s having it onboard. However for those without it this offering from Terratec could well improve your sound output.

Although scanners have shrunk in size and weight, you would not normally expect to carry one in your pocket. Now you can.

This product came along at a very opportune time as a new version of my ‘current’ anti spam package had just brought out a new version, for me anyway it turned out to be unusable.

Want a copy of Microsoft Word, this is the cheapest legal way to acquire one. However you also get a whole raft of other new and very recent products on a total of five CD’s.

By no means cheap, but if you need a notebook 1.3kilos is extremely light, the Q25 fills that criteria and you get what are often called extras as standard.

Keyboard and mouse sets seem popular these days. Here I am looking a set from Microsoft with wireless keyboard and mouse, the keyboard has an extra feature.

I have had this product for several months without the opportunity to try it. After all you do not upgrade your PC that often. When you do it is often nice to start with a totally fresh installation however this does have it’s drawbacks and should the thought of installing everything from fresh fill you with dread then this is for you.

Instead of letting your fingers do the work, you could use them as an aid to your memory. To discover how, read on!

At about this time of year the 2005 products appear, one keenly fought encounter is between Microsoft Encarta and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Every year I try to note the differences and changes.

Canon have recently refreshed their range of inkjet printers, this is the bottom of the range unit, but do not think it is anyway lacking in features or ability.

Music on the move, first there was the cassette player, next the CD player, nowadays the MP3/WMA player seems to rule the roost. Here an ultra small CD player that can also play MP3/WMA etc, it’s called the NAPA Ultra Slim DAV-397.

A multifunction inkjet unit from Epson that is not a great deal larger than an inkjet printer. So Scan, Copy and Print from a single unit all at a not outrageous price. It can also read almost all types of memory card, meaning that printing is possible direct from cards when the PC is not on.

What is bright red and bears the logo of a kicking horse? Sorry but anybody whose thoughts turned to the personal chariot of a speeding German and Formula One are wide of the mark. Instead it is the latest status symbol from Acer in the form of its Ferrari notebook.

With the right tools your computer can take over many tasks that can be considered tiresome. Just image your system could be reading this document for you. Read on to find out how.

This is a mono printer, it is also a sheet fed scanner, it can send and receive faxes and just for good measure it is also a copier even when the PC is not connected or turned on.

Computer manufacturers are no longer restricting themselves to internal improvements with fast CPUs and motherboard features but are also opting for a most aesthetic approach to the design of the chassis. Take the Aver Veriton series for example.

With a CD writer at say 24X or 48X the time difference for burning a 700MB disc is only a few minutes, however the time difference between 4X and 8X for a 4.7GB is substantial because of the volume of data.

I recently looked at the Zire21 a monochrome entry level PDA, here it is the Zire31 this is colour, it is backlit and has expansion both of which the Zire21 did not have. The price for these extras is only around another £30.

Having a copier, printer and scanner all in one is something that certainly saves space. Can such a device be a jack of all trades or would it be second best at all, as the saying goes ‘master of none’.

One of Adobe’s major products is Acrobat, almost all of us will have a copy of three of the Acrobat Reader that is mostly bundled with applications as it saves the manufacturers printing expensive manuals.

Contrary to what some people think there are other Office products apart from Microsoft Office. Some are shareware others are often bundled but it does not make them inferior, just less appreciated.

There are lots of mouse products around, some from people like Microsoft that sell on name, others sell only on price. However there is another category those that are, or do, something different.

A nice idea, available elsewhere when you purchase separate programs. This incarnation is easy to use and does just what it says it reads your words to you, this is text to speech software.

This is certainly a large notebook, and as such you would not need frequent visits to the gym if you carry it around a lot. However it is a genuine desktop PC replacement.

Space or lack of it makes a multi function unit almost essential. Having a scanner a copier and a printer all in the space normally required for just one device makes this a Soho users delight.

My new 'modern' laptop doesn't come with keyboard, serial or parallel connectors and so I've reluctantly had to retire my excellent Epson keyboard (for now at least) after 10 years good service.

To my mind this is exactly what the mobile user needs, a Tablet PC when on the move and a Notebook PC with keyboard when sitting down, both products in one unit.

A good multi function machine can be the answer for those of us with limited space. Printing, scanning, copying and even faxing are all possible with the Canon SmartBase MP390.