Our first impressions of the Enspire were very positive. Not only does it look like a living-room friendly Hi-Fi unit, it’s small too. Compare this with the previously A-Listed Maestro Pro 2 and it’s two-thirds the height at 108mm. When we turned it on we heard very little indeed. All internal fans are whisper quiet including one cooling the hard disk bays – we’ve hear noisier set-top boxes. Even the Samsung hard disk is produces unobtrusive very soft rapid clicking.

Despite the small form factor there are plenty of features. Behind the front flap resides a 16x DVD+R and 8x DVD+R9 dual layer DVD writer, two USB 2 ports, FireWire, headphone and mic jacks. At the back are S-Video, composite, component out, DVI, D-Sub video ports. Three audio jacks for the 5.1 onboard audio, four USB 2, FireWire, two PS/2, parallel and a 10/100 Ethernet port. WLAN is included too. Most importantly there are two HDTV digital tuners so you can record one programme while watching another.

Our only real gripe was the full-size MCE receiver being wedged behind the front panel with it’s USB cable passing out trough the case and back in at the back – inelegant, but you won’t see it.

It’s not the highest specified system with a 3000+ CPU and 512MB of RAM, but we found it ran Media Center perfectly smoothly. The onboard Radeon Xpress 200help keep the inside cool and uncluttered but, with our game tests scoring under 5fps it’s no gaming macinge. A 2D score of 0.73 shows there’s certainly enough oomph for occasional encoding duties though.

If you do want to upgrade there is room for two additional hard disks, three sticks of RAM, and two PCI Express slots (1x and 16x). Enspire can add extras (like bigger hard disks) as you wish. There is no keyboard or mouse but Enspire offers Microsoft’s MCE keyboard/mouse/remote combo for an extra $102. A three-month Ice Guide subscription is thrown in too.

Whatever way you look at it it’s a fantastic deal. Costing more than a grand less than Altech’s Maestro Pro 2, while being quieter and much smaller is an outstanding achievement. If you only used it as a TV peripheral and not as a PC it would still be a great buy. A one year RTB warranty isn’t brilliant but it can’t stop the Enspire strolling on to the A List.