For the average person wanting their first foray into the world of media centres we can't think of a better pre-built alternative currently on the market.

Acer has done a great job of disguising this PC as a set-top box. It's easy to setup and simple to use. We would highly recommend waiting for the Core 2 Duo refresh before purchasing this product. However, if you need something right away it will still handle most tasks easily.

The ASUS Digital Home D22 is a great all around media centre. It offers dual HD tuners, with a HDMI output, meaning it will be useful for a great many years to come.

The Acer Aspire iDea 510 makes a set-top box out of a computer, without losing many of the perks of a PC. It's reasonably easy to set up and it worked with a number of test displays. It performed well enough in our performance tests for a media centre, and it did it quietly, too.

If you’ve got somewhere to put it, Claritas’ new media centre PC is more than powerful enough for your high-definition media playback needs.