MSI’s Wind Top AE1900 takes on the touchscreen nettop competition, but singularly fails to excite.

Part laptop and part nettop, the Gigabyte Booktop M1022M is the first netbook we’ve seen that overcomes the ‘3 USB problem'.

Neither cheap nor beautiful, MSI’s Atom powered nettop is sadly second among equals.

A very likeable all-in-one – albeit limited in its usefulness beyond basic functions. Read our review of Shuttle's new all-in-one X50

Looks, features, value: this is the first nettop we’ve seen to genuinely appeal in all the key areas

An impressive touchscreen all-in-one PC for an equally impressive price, but the single-core Atom holds it back

A retrograde step from its predecessor, but a super low price makes this dinky PC very desirable

Dell’s first foray into using AMD processors is a modest performer, but fair value.

It’s expensive, but Baddog’s Lanbox comes with personality and outstanding support.

Whisper quiet, well built and well designed, but a lack of power and expandability will keep enthusiasts away.

Back in November we wondered just what you could buy for $1500 and Modtech and PC Express showed us two near identical systems (the latter being A-Listed). This month’s submission from PC Market offered few surprises.

Aztec’s PC is a very different take on our $4000 PC A-List challenge.

Producing a PC for under a thousand dollars will inevitably lead to compromises – do you go for a better screen or more processing power?

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

Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 was launched with quite a bit of fanfare late last year, and not least of all because it was the first time in its 18 month life Australians could buy systems based on the OS.

It’s one of the facts of the gaming hobbyist’s life: cutting edge games require cutting edge hardware. It’s as set in stone as Moore’s Law (which is itself now 40 years old). Every 12 to 18 months you need to upgrade or get left behind. Our contenders this month make a very good case for starting with a clean slate, and none more so than this month’s winner, the Modtech Civic-64FX.

Very narrowly pipped for the top placing Labs winner award this month, Plus offers an impressive performing gaming machine with all the bells and whistles you'd expect to find at this price point. Wrapped in the attractive Cooler Master Cavalier wave housing, there's no ultra portability to be found here. The clear advantage of moving away from small form factor housing is not being starved for space internally.

The iMac has always been a little more about style than function and the latest iteration is testament to this philosophy. The most noticeable thing about the iMac G5 is the massive 20 inch widescreen. It's a Big Mac. Geddit?

When it comes to accessories, the Aspire has one of the best bundles supplied for this roundup: including an MCE remote and a radio/TV antenna! It also has a decent specification list: 3Ghz Pentium 4; 160GB HDD; and 512MB RAM. The only sticking point here, amongst all this multimedia goodness, is the inclusion of the Mobility X300 video card. It's like building a Ferrari and installing a two-stroke motor. It doesn't make much sense.

Nominating Sato as our winner for the desktop machines this month was fairly straightforward, especially when compared to deciding the outcome of the closely-fought notebook war. Because, even though the Sato was outdone by one or two systems in terms of performance, nothing beat it on pure value for money.