World's dearest laptop and a lot cheaper stuff

I855GMEM-LFS. This name may not say anything to your ears but then if I tell you that it is the first desktop Intel Dothan motherboard to be on sale in the US, then that might bring out some "aahhhh" insted of "hmmmm". Basically, it will allow you to use Intel's Pentium III based mobile CPU in an ordinary casing. Unsurprisingly, the board is sold at a manufacturers outfit, in this case Aopen. And the price also is not what one would call affordable.

At $267, it is more expensive than a Dual Opteron board and more than twice as expensive as a Xeon motherboard. The processor also ain't cheap at $439 at newegg for an Intel Pentium 2GHz sporting a 2MB cache. At $706, you will be better off purchasing two Opteron 242 CPU and a board or two Xeon 3GHz plus a motherboard, if you want buying a whole system. Returning back to the board, it supports 479pins Pentium M processors - both Dothan and Banias.

It comprises the i855GME chipset with a ICH4-M. It has two DIMM sockets and a 4x AGP slot. Only three PCI slots are available though which is the best you can possibly get out of a mATX format. Other interesting specs to be underlined - it has an Integrated VGA Engine in the Chipset as well as SATA RAID support via a Promise controller, a Dual Marvell Gigabit LAN which will be ideal if you want to get a top notch file server, a Realtek 5.1 sound channel, six USB 2.0 ports as well as a Firewire port. It is impressive that Aopen has been able to bundle that much connections into a single board. Accessories and software include AOconfig and other AOpen only utilities.

The board is well formed and was used by GamePC in its latest review. A Pentium M 755 running at 2.0Ghz was slightly overclocked to 2.3Ghz and was still able to compete with much higher speed and expensive processors. The results in the Gaming performance especially were astounding to say the least.

And the reviewers were quick to point out that even then the platform does suffer from some inherent disadvantages - 400MHz FSB, no Hyperthreading, DDR333 memory support, AGP4x, which should be solved with the forthcoming chipset, it was fast enough to give P4EE supporters a chilling welcome. A very promising piece of silicon if prices fall down quick.

If you can travel to Bedfordshire, then you might get yourself a superb 18.1-inch NEC Multisync 1810x flat panel for only £185+VAT - substantially less than a new 18.1in screen. The seller is well known ebayer PCefficient. As you might guess, it is not exactly what we would call a new model. It was reviewed back in 2001 by Cadence Lab. That particular model comes with its power lead and adaptor moreover, it has a maximum resolution of 1024x768 which might put off some potential buyers. For the rest, it is pretty standard. DVI and VGA ports, pivot enable, a 75Hz refresh rate a superb image. Note though that it has no built-in USB hub and no control monitor. Furthermore, its bland look will look perfect to match a beige box if it is what you are looking for.

The quest for the most powerful laptop is now on. I found this monster down at myopen. The Naturetech Proso 2000 is more a transportable rather than a laptop and reminds us of the luggables family which were very much in vogue two decades ago. This one is not an x86 compatible rather it will find its application in SPARC or Solaris sector - Biomedical and Bioengineering, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare etc. It comes with two US IIIi processors, 16 GB memory, a 15in LCD monitor supporting 1600x1200 pixels, an ATI Radeon 7000 graphic cards and one DVD drive - no hard drive. You also get two U160 SCSI connectors, DVI and CDR one, four USB ports and one full size PCI slot. Interestingly, you do get a Java Card reader, builtin keyboard and toughpad and surprisingly, you can also order a 15900mAH battery which is sure to add some weight to the already heavy 9.5KG this mamooth weighs. Of course, it is compatible witha number of components from Sparc but its price - $12765 is more than twice that of any geekers most desirable laptop which we will see tomorrow.

FNAC, the French Dixons, is selling a package called the PalmOne Campus 2004 which includes the Zire 31, seven software - one multi lingual dictionnary, one public transport guide, like and electronic A2Z guide, one scientific calculator - PowerOne2 and three games as well as one 128MB SD card for an altogether price of Eur 180.

Its colour screen with a resolution of 160x160 pixels and 4096 colours is two notches down compared to what a Palm Tungsten can offer but it is still reasonable for its price. The Zire 31 comes with 24 MB of ROM and RAM and has an Intel ARM 200Mhz processor coupled with a Palm 5.2.8 OS. The PDA has an autonomy of up to seven days and a feather like weight of 116g. Interestingly, it can be used as an MP3 player since it has MMC/SD slot and a multimedia sound player with that 18MB MMC card provided.

As you saw it, it is a standard entry level PDA which currently has no match from PocketPC contenders especially with a colours creen. PDAbuyersguide rightly says that "The Zire 31 is the most affordable color PDA to hit the market and packs a lot of features in for a low price. This is the perfect entry level unit for those of you who have limited budgets, are first time buyers or aren't sure if you want to make a significant financial commitment to a PDA just yet." Overall a very potent buy especially as Palmone and FNAC are looking to attract younger customers with this kind of deal. µ