What's not to love about the new Apple iMacs? Their anodized aluminum frames, glass covers, ultrathin keyboards, and 20" or 24" glossy widescreen displays demand your admiration. Under the hood lie Intel Core 2 Duo processors, built-in wireless, and up to 4GB of RAM, plus iSight cameras, iLife '08, and SuperDrive (for playing and burning your own CDs and DVDs). CNET says "unless you're a gamer or an upgrade enthusiast, we can think of very few reasons not to make an iMac your next desktop." Prices start at $1199.

Yellow highlighters are a thing of the past, thanks to the QuickLink-Pen Elite handheld scanner. Ideal for students, researchers, and anyone else who needs to take lots of notes, the QuickLink-Pen Elite lets you scan and store up to 1,000 pages of text (and small images), and then beam the data to your PDA or smart phone, or transfer it to your PC via USB. Scanned URLs will be added to your Internet Explorer favorites list. The scan-and-define function lets you display word definitions, and you can even have your scanned text read out loud to you over the built-in speakers. (If there are other people around, please make use of the headphone jack.)

Thin and light latops are for the weak. Check out the HP Pavilion HDX laptop. It weighs a whopping 15.5 pounds and has a huge 20" widescreen display. Under the hood, the minimum configuration includes a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Windows Vista Home Premium, 2GB of RAM, a 240GB hard drive, and a TV tuner. But this fancy multimedia laptop requires a strong lap - and an even stronger wallet. More laptops with big displays.

Trap your mouse (and other small items) in the Belkin Mouse Trap mouse pad. Ideal for people who move laptops around from home to work, or from room to room, the Mouse Trap, when zipped, is a convenient protective carrying case that easily snaps onto your bag. When unzipped, it's a soft mouse pad that won't slip on most surfaces. It's hand washable and comes in several color combinations.

For just $99, you can get a great multifunction printer that lets you copy, scan, and print photos. Highly recommended by the CNET Editors for home users on a budget ("of all the $100 multifunctions we've tested, this one produced the best text and graphics prints"), the compact Canon Pixma MP470 has a built-in memory card reader and PictBridge port, scans with resolutions up to 2400 x 4800 color dpi, and prints 4" x 6" photos in 46 seconds. Oh yeah, it also prints term papers. More multifunction printers.