This is a relatively simple PC, which has been designed to be as power-efficient as possible. For the most part, it consumes well under 100W of electricity, even under a full load, yet it's definitely not a slow coach. It's suited to large PC roll-outs for schools and government departments, and also for any office where employees forget to switch off their PCs before leaving for the day.

Overall, this isn't a bad system, but it's a little over-designed. For example, the bays for HP's media drives aren't really necessary, they just take up space. But the PC does have a lot of useful connectivity options and also looks quite nice. It's a decent home PC that can also double as a media centre.

A basic and well-featured PC for home or small office use. It's useful for multitasking and for running everyday office applications, as well as photo and video editing.

The Hybrid represents a new wave of small PCs that are actually small yet functional and quite affordable. If you're after a small PC, we think the Hybrid is the one to go for.

A great little unit with plenty of processing power. It's perfect for image and video editing and won't cost you too much.

Its low power consumption, Gigabit Ethernet and small footprint mean its best use is probably as a PC for an Internet cafe. Home users might also want to consider it as a second PC for basic tasks, but office users might want to shy away from it due to its lack of an optical drive.

This PC is worthy of consideration if you want something zippy and good-looking, not to mention easy to maintain and upgrade, for the office.

This business PC has an enticing price tag and is useful for multitasking, but it needs much better graphics capabilities.

The Sony VAIO Panel PC VGCLT28G is certainly a feature-packed unit. Sporting a Blu-ray writer and the latest connectivity options, the main thing holding the unit back is its very high price tag. But if you feel the need to streamline your home entertainment environment, and you’re wealthy enough to care about capital gains taxation, then this may be the unit for you.

A relatively new-breed PC with an intuitive touch-screen interface that would be just as useful in an office as in a home environment.

Big, bold and perhaps beautiful to some, the XPS 730 is a heavy-duty machine with plenty of heart. It could use faster graphics card options, but its twin-8800GTs should do a reasonable job of satisfying most gaming urges.