I’ve trawled the internet for bargains, customised more online PCs than I can count and consistently found the same few components to be most suited to my £250 price limit. I’m now left with the final decision: from a shortlist of three, which system offers the best return for my budget?

Option 1:

Asus’s little Eee Box PC is limited in its everyday functions due to the Atom inside, and on the optical front it doesn’t even stretch to a CD-ROM drive, but it does have its merits. For a start it’s tiny, quiet and consumes little power when on. It looks good, will fit snugly into any nook or cranny of a desk, and the cheapest I could find it in stock was £245.94 including VAT and delivery – within my budget.

• 1.6GHz Atom N270, 1GB DDR2
• 160GB hard disk
• Windows XP Home

Option 2:

The Zoostorm PC from Ebuyer remains the most powerful PC I’ve yet seen that fits (just) under the £250 limit. The Pentium Dual-Core, 2GB RAM and 250GB hard disk are far beyond all rival systems that have included the same Vista Home Premium OS, and I think I’ve just about exhausted all search avenues to find a PC better. It’s big, ugly and probably not quiet, but for everyday use it makes a strong argument.

• 2.2GHz Pentium Dual-Core E2200, 2GB DDR2
• 250GB hard disk
• Windows Vista Home Premium

Option 3:

There is one other alternative that has merit for a different reason: it includes a monitor. Now, there are plenty of sub-£250 PC and monitor deals around if you know where to look, but most cripple the performance by cramming in slow CPUs, 1GB of RAM and Vista Home Basic. This Compaq Presario SR5601 has a Celeron Dual Core and squeezes Home Premium into a price of £185.94 (if I nip across the road to PC World and pick it up). This leaves me with enough to order a Misco Saver 17in Wide TFT (a HannsG HW17MSV by another name) and squeeze in at £246.67.

• 1.6GHz Celeron Dual-Core E1200, 1GB DDR2
• 160GB hard disk
• 17in widescreen TFT
• Windows Vista Home Premium

The big dilemma:

So which would you go for? Do the small dimensions of an Eee Box appeal to any home users at all or is it more of an office tool? Does the inclusion of a cheap-as-chips 17in monitor make up for the compromises on other key components? Am I right to demand a minimum of Vista Home Premium or XP Home or should I scrap all this and go for a Linux system?

I’ll be placing the order for the weekend, but I won’t be revealing which I’ve gone for. Thanks for your help up to now, if you want to sway my final decision one way or another please dive into the comments below.