PC Retail

The Core 2 Quad range includes both 65nm and 45nm parts, based on the Kentfield and Yorkfield cores respectively. Internally, they're effectively a pair of Core 2 Duo processors built into one chip. As AMD likes to point out, this is less efficient than the Phenom's fully integrated design, as cores on different dies can't communicate directly at the chip's full internal speed. Instead, they have to pass data back and forth via the slower front side bus.

Unfortunately, this doesn't translate into real-world performance: in our benchmarks, the Phenom 9600 tied with a dual-core Athlon 64X2 6000+ costing a third less. Give the applications a few years to catch up with multi-core technology and the Phenom might come into its own, but for now, it's a disappointment.

The new, interactive pressure sensitive display tablet combines a high quality 12.1-inch TFT LCD colour screen with a more affordable sub-£1000 price tag. The slim line dimensions (405 x 270 x 17mm) compare well with the company's Intuos3 A5 wide graphics tablet and allows you to draw directly onto the display, taking away the sometimes disjointed feeling you get when using a more traditional graphics pad.

Featuring two, five-watt units, each with an integrated tweeter and Creative's innovative BasXPort, the T10 presents a gloss black face to the world. Each speaker is adorned with a cloth tag in the style of your favourite pair of Levi's – a quirky detail giving the impression that someone actually thought about the design of these speakers.

Out is the cone shape and the modem support. In is a new design, new features including greater range and a wireless connectivity protocol that promises to be 2.5 times faster than the previous Base Station.

Enter the PocketSurfer 2 from Datawind, a device that aims to offer you 20 hours of web surfing free every month for a £180 initial outlay. If 20 hours doesn't feel enough, you can even up it to unlimited access for just £5.99.

Looking like a futuristic spaceship, the gloss black mouse with a silver underbelly will sit stylishly on your desk like any ordinary input device.

The most major upgrade is the addition of a round blue OLED display for at-a-glance track and feature selection even though the size of the player hasn’t increased.

Intel’s Core 2 Duo desktop platform stormed into PC World a year ago, ushering in a new era of cool-running, low-heat and high-performance chips for all.

Rushing things doesn’t tend to produce the best results, but the canon Pixma iP5300 is proof that this needn’t always be the case

Nvidia’s six-month reign as sole supplier of DirectX 10 graphics hardware comes to an end this month, as ATi launches its long-awaited Radeon HD 2000 series.

Convergence - there’s a buzzword for you, and nobody is embracing it more than Nokia with its latest mobile phone, the N95.

Both the P180 and Solo are superbly designed and built, without breaking the bank. This is because instead of using costly aluminium, Antec uses steel for the main structure of the case. The P180 is then wrapped in plastic with a thin aluminium sheet

If you’ve bought a new laptop in the last year, chances are you’ve got one of the new express card slots on the side of it. Half the size of a PC card the idea is to be able to offer you a chance to expand your offering.

AMD has always claimed its open platform philosophy encourages healthy competition and thus better products for customers.

But the concept just won’t go away and HP has spent the last four years scurrying away at it, this time with the consumer launch of Vista in mind...