Within their target market, Fujitsu definitely have a winner on their hands. For people still running a single CRT television, without a full lounge room setup, the Deskpower is the perfect way to take the plunge.

If you're after the latest in pre-assembled media centres then The CTS1000 is probably right up your alley. Be prepared to pay a premium for the extra features though.

If you want an incredibly small media centre PC for basic media functionality then the DreamVision Mini is a great choice. It isn't a powerhouse by any means, but it's diminutive design certainly makes up for this in some regards.

The Acer Aspire E700 Model S manages to work on both levels, as a PC and as a media centre. It has some upgrade potential, but the configuration we tested will easily handle a wide variety of functions.

While the lack of HDMI and a tower case design are sore points, the m8090a is nonetheless a solid media centre PC. It offers more than enough power to perform most tasks and even packs in some grunt for playing games.

For its price the HP Pavilion m8075a is a neat little unit with some good basic features for the budding media happy user. It's clearly not a high end machine for power users, but for those looking to get a little extra media functionality out of their next PC purchase the HP Pavilion Media Center m8075a PC is a reasonable selection.

While we like the LinkSYS Media Center Extender with DVD Player DMA2200, we found using Media Center too unreliable to replace our Freeview boxes, let alone a service such as Sky+. And although media streaming and DVD upscaling make this a fully-featured device, its Media Center foundation prevents it from reaching its potential.