A PufferSphere is a decently sized display globe, while the Eye of Sauron is ... well ... the Eye of Sauron.

We can imagine this thing saying "2pm deadline ... I'm watching you". Or worse - to be used for eye-tracking-based advertising. Creepy.

• Kinect (Xbox 360)
• Kinect Sports
• Kinect Adventures!
• Best Kinect games

We've delved into what's new in Internet Explorer 9 before and even thrown up a gallery, but time has finally come to take the covers off the finished product.

The new browser represents a shift in Microsoft's thinking, championing standards compliance, speed and shifting the focus to the website and away from the browser. Who would have thought?

While some features are catching up to other browsers like the ability to tear off tabs into new browsers, an all-in-one search and URL bar, minimal menus and a most frequently visited sites start-up screen, it's also keeping pace (or in some cases, defining it) when it comes to hardware acceleration and tracking protection; the former allowing for some fancy graphical effects, the latter to stop ad companies or others tracking your online behaviour.

One of the nicer features that we hope other browser makers include is the ability to pin a site to your taskbar. You can drag and drop the favicon to your Windows 7 taskbar as a direct link to your site as per usual, but this time website owners are able to modify the jumplist (or right-click menu for those unaware) to provide useful content like links to different parts of the site, or to repeat searches you've already performed. It goes deeper than this: Facebook has even enabled notification announcements on the icon in the taskbar. It has the effect of making a website feel like an application, even going so far as to theme the back and forward buttons based off the colour of the site's favicon.

You can download the browser here (Windows Vista and 7 only), or for those who prefer to wait, Microsoft should be rolling it out to different regions around the world through Windows update in the next 12 weeks.

Itching to see what the browser is capable of? Microsoft has proof-of-concept sites here and here, where you can play to your heart's content.

What do you think - does this put Microsoft back in the game?

• Internet Explorer 9 info leaked pre-launch
• Microsoft unveils IE9 beta
• Browser battles: IE vs. Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Opera vs. Safari
• Microsoft Windows 7 (Professional)

• Mouse mat trails are ingenious
• Still manages to include all the Razer mouse config trimmings despite being a movie tie-in

• Annoying sound every time you start up or plug the mouse in can't be turned off
• Floaty feel, isn't as accurate as other gaming mice

It's a bit weird to be reviewing a tie-in product after the hype has died down. Or perhaps sane, ensuring you never actually get caught up in the PR excitement machine.

Razer's Tron kit does its best to be part of the Tron mythos, with blue-on-black angular designs used both on the packaging and the product itself.

The first sign of gimmickry comes when you plug the mouse in, lights race around the device and it makes a sound. There's no way to turn the thing off either, meaning every time you restart your machine you're hit with the effect. Yes, it's authentic, but it's low quality audio and screams "cheap toy".

Not that the Tron set is, at AU$179.95. This is rather exorbitant, even if it does come with a mouse mat with rubberised desk grip that glows in the dark.

OK, the last bit is cool. Made doubly so by the fact that Razer shines an intense light at the bottom of the mouse down on to the pad, causing a light trail to follow the mouse, mimicking light bikes. It's impressive at first, but it takes a while to fade, and if you don't like your mouse pad to look like a toddler scribbled all over it then it may not be for you. Buy the mouse by itself, and it'll set you back AU$119.95.

The lights along the top of the mouse look great in the dark, but somewhat lacking in the light. On its site, Razer claims that "light effects [are] triggered by your in-game actions", but it's not the case: they simply stay on all the time. You can turn them off if you like in three separate zones: the scroll wheel, the side strips and the light pointing at the mouse mat.

Even the driver software gets in on the Tron-theme action. (Screenshot by CBS Interactive)

It's an ambidextrous mouse with a huge and comfortable scroll wheel, two buttons on each side and the required left and right click buttons on either side of the scroll wheel. Razer's effort to make it look more Tron-like has resulted in quite a few angles, meaning the mouse isn't as comfortable as say, SteelSeries' Xai. It's also a small mouse, our fairly normal-sized paw ending up gripping it in an eagle claw fashion.

Apart from the main mouse buttons there's an extra two on each side, and by default the left side buttons are assigned to browse forward and backward functions in your browser, the right buttons for on the fly DPI switching. This isn't the most convenient place to have put these, but then they're the only option. There's also no indication on the mouse as to what DPI you're set at, which is a little silly considering all the lights built in. Razer does have an OSD for it, but it seems to have problems with showing on top of other apps, making it rather useless for gaming.

The mouse does macros too (and does them well), but there's no dedicated button for them - you'll have to give up one of your existing ones to assign the macro function to.

Being a Razer mouse it also supports profiles containing many button set-ups, you can adjust both the X & Y axis DPI independently, turn off mouse acceleration and up the USB polling rate.

Performance was acceptable, but felt strangely floaty compared to the harsh and accurate precision of our fall-back Logitech G500, with Serious Sam HD and Left 4 Dead comparatively difficult to make accurate snap shots in.

We admire Razer for the lengths it's gone to in making this more than just a cash in, it's a proper tribute. Unless you're in it for the prettiness though, we'd recommend another mouse for serious gamers.

• Razer Mamba
• Cyborg R.A.T. 7
• Razer Orochi
• SteelSeries 9HD mouse mat

• Good expandability
• Decent power for the price

• Textured touch pad isn't nice to use
• Low screen quality
• Low battery life

"Sony" and "budget laptop" are two phrases not used to cuddling up next to each other, but here they are almost spooning with the E Series, after the initial Vaio YB flirtation.

Only one of the E series comes with AMD inside though, the rest are Intel. Sony arranged two models for us, which have the soft and cuddly names of VPCEB45FG and VPCEB46FG, with Core i3 and Core i5 respectively.

The E series has actually been around for a while, but it's still hard to get used to the missing trademark of Sony's side-facing power button. While the plastic is incredibly smooth, shiny and there's a definite depth to it, take off the Sony labels and you could have any laptop manufacturer's design, down to the mismatching black keyboard strip.

The keyboard is serviceable, but the textured touch pad is an instant turn off. Expandability is well apportioned given the price range, with three USB ports, a USB/eSATA port, DVD+-RW drive, gigabit Ethernet, VGA and HDMI out, ExpressCard 34 slot, SD card and MS card reader, headphone and microphone jacks, bluetooth and 2.4GHz 802.11n.

Sony's software bundle is decent with only a few blights, the most impressive thing being the bundled copies of Adobe's Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements.

It also includes Office Starter 2010, the first instance we've seen of this. You can choose to buy the full Office Suite, or use the Starter edition, which only includes Word and Excel and is advertising supported, but likely to be all anyone needs. A link to Qriocity, Sony's new subscription music service, is there too.

Vaio Care is back and includes troubleshooting and diagnostic tools, while McAfee pulls security duties. Less useful is the annoying Vaio Gate, a dock that takes up precious screen real estate for nothing more than a few shortcuts already provided elsewhere, and there's also PMB, a Picasa/iPhoto stand-in but not quite as good.

Screen quality is where the E series suffers, with the 1366x768, 15.5-inch screen sporting pitiful viewing angles and supporting the axiom that you get what you pay for.

The VPCEB45FG features a Core i3 380M, 320GB hard drive and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470, and comes in pink, green, blue, white and black. The VPCEB46FG bundles a Core i5, 500GB hard drive and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650, and is offered in blue, black and white. Both laptops feature 4GB RAM and run on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

The AU$999 EB45FG did well in the performance tests, with 3DMark06 and PCMark05 returning scores of 4242 and 6208 respectively, making it capable of handling most household tasks and some older games, or at least more forgiving ones like those that run on the Source engine. As is usually the case, though, with budget laptops is that the battery time wasn't great - with all power-saving features turned off, screen brightness and volume set to maximum and an XviD file played back, the EB45FG only made one hour and 46 minutes.

At AU$1299 the EB46FG provided a small boost thanks to its faster CPU and GPU, clocking in 6951 and 7147 in 3DMark and PCMark respectively. The hit on the battery wasn't as large as expected, giving out at the one hour and 36-minute mark.

Sony's E series are perfectly good budget laptops, with the only real detractors being the screen quality and battery life. But for the price, what you're getting is a good deal.

• Sony Vaio VPCS117GG
• Sony Vaio F Series
• Sony Vaio YB
• Sony Vaio VPCCW15FG

• Great power-saving features
• Phenomenal height adjustment
• Fantastic warranty

• No HDMI
• Screen coating makes things look too soft
• Auto screen turn off didn't work for us

From an industrial design viewpoint, BenQ sure has taken some of the bigger risks in the monitor industry. Where Dell found its niche and keeps working it, BenQ likes to try different things each time.

The BL2400PT is no different, sporting a design that will neither offend nor excite. Coated entirely in matte black, the only defining features are the left-to-right diagonal stripes that sit under the monitor, and a curious reflective piece under the monitor. This can only be an infrared panel or a proximity sensor, and a quick dig into the BL2400PT's menu reveals it's the latter, allowing the monitor to turn off when the user steps a certain distance away. While it's meant to turn off the backlight after 40 seconds, we could never get it to work.

The screen is an odd semi-gloss, something that adds a sheen and a softening to the image - quite off-putting during games at first, but you soon get used to it. The LED is backlit and features speakers, although these should be avoided at all costs as they offer extremely poor and distant sound.

BenQ's design will neither inspire nor offend. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Specs at a glance

Stand and ergonomics

BenQ's stand starts with a solid, high grip rectangular base and extrudes into a curved trapezoidal neck. It has a cable management clip on the rear, and a button that unlocks the height adjustment. What height adjustment too! If you've found that no matter which monitor you buy you always end up putting books underneath to prop it up, this is the monitor for you - the base of the bezel at its highest extent is 203mm off the desk.

Swivel, tilt and 90 pivot are supported too, although the monitor tends to wobble quite a bit after each adjustment.

BenQ's stand allows the panel to be set incredibly high.
(Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Connections

Power, 3.5mm in, 3.5mm out, DisplayPort, DVI, VGA (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Buttons and on-screen display (OSD)

BenQ has again opted to not put buttons on the face, making its monitor harder to use. This time it's under the lip, with the labels particularly difficult to read. Button positioning is not greatly intuitive, but you get used to it after some time. Shortcuts are in action here: if you press the Enter button when not in a menu it cycles inputs, the Right button cycles scaling modes, the Left button is for colour modes. There's also an Auto button, which attempts to tune the monitor to the best settings when using a VGA connector, to knock out those analog kinks.

The labels don't get any easier to read, even with the real thing. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

C'mon BenQ, just put the buttons on the front (practicality before aesthetics). To the left you can see a weedy speaker. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Custom colour settings aside, the OSD is easy enough to use, but the buttons make it harder than it needs to be. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

The menu offers sRGB, Photo, Movie, Standard and Eco modes - as usual we suggest you stick with sRGB or Standard. The BenQ offers full screen and aspect ratio scaling options, but disappointingly doesn't offer 1:1 pixel mapping. It does, however, allow you to turn overscan on or off, if you happen to have a movie player hooked up to it. We'd usually expect this for an HDMI enabled screen, but looks like BenQ is being hopeful that someone will have a DisplayPort enabled console or Blu-ray player. AMA can be turned on or off too: this is BenQ's response time accelerator. If you find things are tearing during games, you can turn it off to help get a more consistent image. In practice, games look significantly better with it on: without it, we found blurriness and ghosting to be present.

The usual sharpness, gamma, colour, brightness, contrast and dynamic contrast are here, with particular options only being available when you're operating in a particular mode.

Apart from the step-away-from-the-monitor tech mentioned in the second paragraph, BenQ introduces one other piece of tech: Eye Protect. This feature will pop a message on the screen reminding you to rest your eyes, and can be set to a minimum of 20 minutes, all the way up to 100 minutes, and the message can nag for five seconds all the way up to 25 if you need extra coaxing to go outside. One thing of note that hindered our calibration process: you'll need to turn off Eye Protect if you want to adjust brightness. Even though the OSD allows you to still change the setting, this won't be reflected on screen at all.

Performance

Lagom.nl LCD tests
After calibrating to a target brightness of 140cd/m² with an X-Rite i1Display 2, Eye-One Match 3 and tweaking with HCFR, the BL2400PT was run through the Lagom.nl LCD tests.

Greyscale gradients were flawless, with only test 4a in the pixel walk tests flickering.

Input lag
Measured against a Samsung SyncMaster 975p CRT, and using a Canon 40D set to a shutter speed of 1/320, an average of over 60 photographs were taken using Virtual Stopwatch Pro. Despite being a VA panel, the BL2400PT returned a zero difference result most times, and other times returned a faster result than the CRT. This is on par with the fastest TN screens - you shouldn't have an issue gaming with this one.

Colour accuracy
ΔE is the measurement of how far a measured colour deviates from its expected value, allowing us to determine the colour accuracy of a monitor. While a ΔE value of one is considered perceivable, as long as it's less than three the shift shouldn't be too obvious. HCFR was used to determine ΔE for the monitor.

Yep, that's pretty bad. (Screenshot by CBS Interactive)

As expected for an affordable monitor, the colours are way off. Let's see what we can do to rectify the situation.

A lot better. This is likely all we can do here, there are no further colour control options available considering the price. (Screenshot by CBS Interactive)

Viewing angles
Viewing angles were taken with a Canon 40D in spot metering mode, with only shutter time adjusted to obtain a good exposure.

While it doesn't have as wide viewing angles as IPS panels, VA has a decent picture and deeper blacks. It tends to get lighter as you move off axis. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Backlight uniformity
Backlight uniformity was measured by placing HCFR into free measure mode, displaying a completely white image and recording the brightness along a 5x3 grid on the screen. This should be considered a guide only, as backlight uniformity is likely to change from unit to unit.

The BL2400PT follows the expected uniformity pattern. (Credit: Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

Light bleed
The BL2400PT suffered from small, faint light bleed in each corner. It's small enough that unless you have a purely black screen, you're unlikely to notice it, and even then you'll have to be paying attention.

It's important to note that the effects of light bleed will likely change from monitor to monitor, regardless of make.

Power consumption
We measured power consumption using a Jaycar mains digital power meter. It's important to note here that due to limitations of the meter, measurements are limited to values 1W and greater, and are reported in 1W increments.

All measurements, screen brightness and contrast were set to 100 per cent, and a test image displayed.

Juice Box
Maximum power draw	27W
Power-saving mode
Off

BenQ's baby is quite energy efficient indeed, even without its extra power-saving features.

Warranty

The warranty for the BL2400PT is impressive: four years, on-site pick-up, with a zero bright or dead pixel guarantee. If only all manufacturers were this generous!

Conclusion

The BL2400PT is a nice monitor, although BenQ's choice of screen coating isn't the best as it tends to make things look too soft, the button placement is vexing and the inclusion of DisplayPort over HDMI puzzling. Still, for AU$449 you get a VA-based monitor with a heck of a lot of vertical adjustability, and an alternative if you need deeper blacks and one more inch than the equally good Dell U2311H.

• BenQ G2222HDL
• BenQ E2220HD
• Dell UltraSharp U2311H
• ViewSonic VX2237wm

Hook in a storage device and you'll have direct access to the PCI-Express bus, with Thunderbolt offering a 10Gbps bi-directional connection. In its current form it also gives 10W of bus power, allowing you to run portable devices off the one port - although this option may not be supported with optical cables in the future.

What's that? Yes, Thunderbolt is expected to transition from copper wiring to optical by the end of the year, potentially pumping up speeds to 100Gbps bi-directionally.

Also new to the table is the expected Sandy Bridge processor update, an entry-level 4GB RAM across the range, and a switch to Intel HD graphics in the 13-inch MacBook Pros, while AMD gets a run in the 15- and 17-inch versions. Sadly, 5400rpm hard drives are standard across the range.

The webcam has been upgraded too, and is now being called the FaceTime HD camera. Offering three times the resolution found in previous MacBooks, as the name gives away, the MacBook is now able to use FaceTime to talk to iPhones and iPads. Bizarrely, this doesn't come free - it costs AU$1.19 from the Mac App Store.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes in two SKUs, both offering 1280x800 displays, 4GB RAM and Intel HD graphics. The AU$1399 model comes with a 2.3GHz Core i5 dual-core processor, while the AU$1698 model bumps up to a 2.7GHz Core i7 dual-core processor with a 500GB hard drive. Sadly, both hard drives are 5400rpm, with no 7200rpm hard drives available, although SSDs are available as upgrade options.

Unlike the 13- and 15-inch models, the 17-inch MacBook Pro is offered as a single SKU, including a 1920x1080 display in either matte or gloss, a 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7 processor, AMD Radeon HD 6750M paired with Intel HD graphics and 750GB hard drive. It is the only MacBook Pro to offer an ExpressCard 34 slot, and goes for AU$2899.

• Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Early 2011)
• Apple MacBook Pro 15 (Early 2011)
• Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (April 2010)
• Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, June 2009)

Hook in a storage device and you'll have direct access to the PCI-Express bus, with Thunderbolt offering a 10Gbps bi-directional connection. In its current form it also gives 10W of bus power, allowing you to run portable devices off the one port - although this option may not be supported with optical cables in the future.

What's that? Yes, Thunderbolt is expected to transition from copper wiring to optical by the end of the year, potentially pumping up speeds to 100Gbps bi-directionally.

Also new to the table is the expected Sandy Bridge processor update, an entry-level 4GB RAM across the range, and a switch to Intel HD graphics in the 13-inch MacBook Pros, while AMD gets a run in the 15- and 17-inch versions. Sadly, 5400rpm hard drives are standard across the range.

The webcam has been upgraded too, and is now being called the FaceTime HD camera. Offering three times the resolution found in previous MacBooks, as the name gives away, the MacBook is now able to use FaceTime to talk to iPhones and iPads. Bizarrely, this doesn't come free - it costs AU$1.19 from the Mac App Store.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro comes in two SKUs, both offering 1440x900 displays, although they do come with a 1680x1050 matte option. Quad-core Core i7 processors are the norm, as is 4GB RAM. The AU$2099 model comes with a 2.0GHz Core i7 and an AMD Radeon HD 6490M paired with Intel HD graphics and a 500GB hard drive, while the AU$2499 model bumps up to a 2.2GHz Core i7 with an AMD Radeon HD 6750M and a 750GB hard drive.

• Apple MacBook Pro 17 (Early 2011)
• Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Early 2011)
• Apple MacBook (Early 2010)
• Apple MacBook (June 2009)

Hook in a storage device and you’ll have direct access to the PCI-Express bus, with Thunderbolt offering a 10Gbps bi-directional connection. In its current form it also gives 10W of bus power, allowing you to run portable devices off the one port - although this option may not be supported with optical cables in the future.

What’s that? Yes, Thunderbolt is expected to transition from copper wiring to optical by the end of the year, potentially pumping up speeds to 100Gbps bi-directionally.

Also new to the table is the expected Sandy Bridge processor update, an entry-level 4GB RAM across the range, and a switch to Intel HD graphics in the 13-inch MacBook Pros, while AMD gets a run in the 15- and 17-inch versions. Sadly, 5400rpm hard drives are standard across the range.

The webcam has been upgraded too, and is now being called the FaceTime HD camera. Offering three times the resolution found in previous MacBooks, as the name gives away, the MacBook is now able to use FaceTime to talk to iPhones and iPads. Bizarrely, this doesn’t come free - it costs AU$1.19 from the Mac App Store.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes in two SKUs, both offering 1280×800 displays, 4GB RAM and Intel HD graphics. The AU$1399 model comes with a 2.3GHz Core i5 dual-core processor, while the AU$1698 model bumps up to a 2.7GHz Core i7 dual-core processor with a 500GB hard drive. Sadly, both hard drives are 5400rpm, with no 7200rpm hard drives available, although SSDs are available as upgrade options.

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