How many acronyms can a monitor have before it chokes on its own resolution? We have all come to expect CRTs, LCDs, TFTs and God knows what else but now Samsung has come up with a monitor with so many acronyms it will leave you gasping.

Where incremental steps forward are becoming commonplace, the Sony is a giant leap – simply stunning

Intriguing styling makes this near-silent media-centre PC stand out, but it has its foibles

A good-looking, ergonomically excellent laptop with a wealth of multimedia capabilities for home users.

A stylish all-in-one media centre that effortlessly handles all tasks thrown at it. But it’s disgracefully priced.

Flexible, beautifully designed and reasonably priced. An excellent attempt to attract the masses.

Altech's Maestro Pro is a Home Theatre PC based on Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

Slightly older model, but the best 42in TV you can buy, full stop. Not cheap, but the quality is all up there on the screen

We think this TV is a real bargain - a good few quid cheaper than comparable models and every bit as impressive

A poor performer in the face of HP’s similarly-priced, touch screen-enabled rival.

A flexible and powerful livingroom PC that ticks almost all the right boxes, as well as being great value.

While the epithet 'multimedia PC' used to be bandied about to over-hype any PC in the mid-'90's that was capable of playing music, rudimentary video, and games, the descriptive was overused so much on sub-par PCs that the impact of any real multimedia capabilities was diminished in the wash of pretenders.

Bursting at the seams with inputs, this model has it all. Integration of a TV-tuner makes this more than just a PC display - rather, it's a multimedia powerhouse, perfect for game consoles, DVD viewing and TV watching.

Great design and comprehensive features make it a truly great Media Center PC. Only the price lets it down.

Chunky, powerful and intimidating. Everything you want in a PC, but not what you'd want in a media centre.

A decent PC with media abilities bolted on, transforming this into a good lounge machine.

The ASUS is one tough little cookie. Its cover and palmrest are encased in brushed aluminium lending the unit a reassuring sense of rigidity and roadworthiness. The 15.4" screen is bright, and its default resolution of 1680x1050 makes text sharp but a little small to read unless up close. The unit also comes with a built in TV-tuner, and also sports a TV-antenna output.

The Qosmio is the absolute pinnacle in multimedia notebooks. It brings everything you need for a good Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) system and squeezes it into a notebook form-factor. Albeit a large notebook form-factor. Yes the Qosmio is a huge and heavy notebook, but it's not nearly as heavy as it would have been if it was packed with desktop internals as many desknotes of this size usually are.

Eye-catching and very well designed, the new iMac is an excellent all-in-one PC system.

The Sony bandwagon rolls on; this is another simple to use set that produces brilliant big-screen images