I know, I know, it’s a bit bland. And it doesn’t have a monitor. And that chassis is mostly empty as it doesn’t really have much inside it. And it can’t keep up with the other PCs. And there’s actually nothing behind that little door on the front.

But my £250 PC – bought fully formed and totally new from Ebuyer.com – has at least TWO strengths that propel it past the garish nastiness of Mike’s monster, the ageing unreliability of Darien’s pile of tat and Mr Fearon’s little portable non-PC oddity.

For a start it has a proper operating system! Not a combination of an expiring Windows 7 beta and an Ubuntu distro that Mike couldn’t get working. Not Vista Home Basic or XP Media Center (ok, I do actually like the last one). No, my PC has Vista Home Premium, an operating system that even my grandad knows how to work. Slowly.

It also has a warranty, a whole year of cover to guard against any of the bits inside failing – which they won’t because they’re all brand new. And with plenty of spare slots inside you could keep making this system better as you grow to love it like a particularly nerdy, disappointing child.

When all’s said and done, the remit for this challenge was to spend that £250 on a good all-round PC, and I feel reliability is a huge part in that. Is Mike going to pop round to yours after work to fix the CPU he’s pushed too far? Will anyone pay for a new printer when the dust in Darien’s takes its inevitable toll? If mine fails a real, qualified, computer expert will come to your house and fix it. He might even bring chocolates.

For that reason alone, I urge you to do the right thing. Reject exciting unreliability. Reward safe mediocrity. Vote for the internet PC. Please.

If you’re fortunate enough to be living in the UK, you can pick up the latest issue of PC Pro – complete with The £250 Challenge feature – at any good newsagent until the 15th of April. This month’s issue also includes group tests on laptops from as little as £304 (the “netbook killers” shown on the front), motherboards and over 50 CPUs. Other highlights include a guide to setting up a no-risk web business and our step-by-step guide to exploring the stars from your PC.