Stories by: Damien Donnelly

The AI Robot is a simple piece of software that allows you to run automated keyboard and mouse sequences that you can record yourself. This is great news for anybody who has no idea how to program a script or run a macro, but inevitably has to do plenty of repetitive tasks on the desktop.

BenQ's latest release, the S61 v30, is the only 12.1in notebook we've seen to come with a built-in digital TV tuner. It weighs just 1.65kgs, has a 12.1in screen with a 1200x800 resolution and a slim optical drive bay, yet it's remarkably portable.

For those unfamiliar with Nancy Drew, she's been around since the 1930s solving mysteries in a style reminiscent of the clan from Scooby Doo - albeit with less Combies, humour and masks. Despite being in her 75th year, Nancy Drew appears to have no trouble keeping up with the times, and her latest title welcomes the Hardy Boys, two teen sleuths who have been solving crimes since 1927.

Multiple camera security surveillance over a network (using Internet Protocol) can be expensive to implement. Swann has created a surveillance solution that delivers exactly the same thing - multiple camera security - at a competitive price.

Sony has once again shown it has notebook style mastered to a degree that would make Steve Jobs green with envy. Focusing heavily on form, whilst squeezing out as much functionality as is currently possible is Sony's VGN-TX27GP, the follow up to the VGN-TX17GP. For the fashion conscious, a metallic bronze colour has been added to the fold.

The A100 is designed as an all-round notebook that would be a good buy for students, considering its price and specifications. It features an Intel Core Duo Processor T2300 running at 1.66GHz, 512MB DDR2 RAM and a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 graphics processor.

The Acer Ferrari 4006 has a superior build quality to the manufacturer's other notebook models. It uses carbon fibre for the chassis and a rubberised coating, which gives it an almost leather-like feel.

Pioneer's latest optical drive has placed the company back on top in our Best Buys charts. It produced excellent quality burns and didn't falter once in any of our tests, making it a marked improvement over the last Pioneer drive we looked at, the DVR-110.

Damien Donnelly dives into the yawning gap between digital idealism and analog realism.

BenQ's latest burner hasn't changed dramatically since the previous version, the DW1640. In fact, almost all the specifications are the same. The only difference we could see was a slight increase in power requirements and an update of it proprietary burning software, QSuite, from 1.0 to 2.1.

The Acer Ferrari 4006 has a superior build quality to the manufacturer's other notebook models.