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

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

We heard that Apple may be changing its slogan from “Think Different” to “CONFORM!”

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.

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.

The Acer Aspire has a lot of handy multimedia functions that help it work as a desktop replacement/media unit. One of the Aspire’s main selling points is the Arcade feature, which is a Windows Media Centre clone. A button on the notebook fascia opens Arcade, bypassing the Windows OS and enabling all media player functions: DVD, MP3 etc. It works quite well but isn’t as graphically stunning as MCE.

Punch Technology's Punch Biz+ system features a 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, half gigabyte of PC3200 DDR-SDRAM, 52-speed CD-RW and a 17in monitor for under $2000 -- impressive pricing for this sort of spec machine.

Locating the sweet spot in the market for well kitted out machines on a budget, Pioneer has come to the party by introducing it's Power PC model, featuring all the tech goodies without the sour aftertaste of a high price ticket. This black futuristic PC looks quite schmick with its front mounted LCD readout displaying up to date temperature information on the system, so you know exactly what's happening with your cooling.

The only PC in our mini roundup this month to feature a rather boring beige case, it more than makes up for its looks with blistering performance at a very reasonable price. Inclusion of thumb screws will allow you to get at your hardware quickly and without the need for tools. Always handy for those of us that like to fiddle frequently.

Housed in a fairly attractive albeit plain chassis, this machine comes shipped with performance where it counts as well as plenty of potential for the tweakers and serial upgraders. A Pentium 4 3.0GHz processor is impressive enough for a system with a price tag under $2,500, but to also include a DVD burner, TFT display, good quality 2.1 speaker set up and wireless keyboard and mouse combo is previously unheard of.

Physically similar to the Scorpion Z-Box system with its black anodised midi tower, this unit also features a pair of both front-mounted audio 3.5mm sockets and USB ports, perfect for quick plug and play of both bus and externally powered devices such as keyboards, printers, joysticks and removable USB pen drives.

It's not big, but it's brave - powered by the Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz processor, the classy looking Beyond Avrora was not afraid to show its muscles, scoring very well in office related tasks.

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.

We find this model hovering in the no-man's-land between desktop replacement and notebook. Its large form factor and huge screen come at the expense of weight, while the wireless and large battery do make it viable for users on the move.

Looking sleek and a little smaller than your average midi tower, the t134a sits on top of the Pavilion series. This machine is a powerful home/office PC – not rigged purely for gaming.

The Hi-Grade Xperian can simply be described as a bundle of essential technology ingeniously put together in one desirable package.

The D400S packs the usual gear, and offers well-thought out front-mounted FireWire along with 802.11b on/off controls for the optional WLAN device. We were surprised the right-hand side of the chassis contained absolutely no connectivity options – a shame given the inclusion of only a single PCMCIA port. Three USB ports are present – two rear-mounted and one on the left-hand side.

Dell's new Inspiron 5100 delivers a truckload of performance thanks to a 2.8GHz P4 processor, which even managed to outscore the 3GHz Hi-Grade we tested this month.

From five feet away, you'd be forgiven for mistaking Hi-Grade's new Notino for an Apple PowerBook.

Dell is never one to be outdone when it comes to cutting edge tech