Labs

Next to the supermodels in this group, the Advent is the girl next door. Rather than using miniaturised laptop components to squeeze itself into something slinky, the Advent uses a more conventional mini-tower case. It's smartly finished in silver, and comes with a brushed aluminium keyboard and mouse, which are a bit odd but do look quite striking. Inside is an Intel Core 2 Duo processor - this time a desktop model, the E6300

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- and the same 1GB of DDR2 RAM found in the previous two machines. This is adequate, but more would give a bit more oomph in memory-intensive tasks like photo editing. Unlike the ultra-compact machines, the Advent enables you to add more memory, with one free DIMM slot. There's room for another internal hard disk, too, although the existing one offers a healthy 320GB.

Cementing the Advent's credentials as an all-rounder is its nVidia GeForce 7100GS graphics card. While not the most powerful around, it managed a reasonable 7.3 frames per second in our Call Of Duty 2 games test. We use very demanding settings, so in practice the Advent should manage most current games acceptably.

The ViewSonic VA2010wb monitor wasn't quite the best display, but not far off. It lacked a little contrast, but images were sharp, clear and well saturated, with wide viewing angles - perfect for using the built-in TV tuner. You'll need to budget a little extra for a pair of speakers, as none are included as standard.