Labs

The Hydrogen is definitely one of the best all-rounders on test. To confirm its home entertainment credentials, it comes with a hybrid TV tuner, which means you can pick up both normal (analogue) TV and digital Freeview channels through an aerial, and record telly programmes to your hard disk.

It's a great addition to the system, and makes it an even more appealing choice as a family PC - as well as coming in rather handy in the office during any major sporting events that Britons manage to qualify for. Since the installed Windows Vista Home Premium includes Microsoft's Media Center software, you're set to enjoy all manner of audio visual entertainment.

The

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rest of the system is good, too. The 3GHz Core 2 Duo processor is a racy number, and with a sensible 2GB of RAM the Mesh raced through our application benchmarks. There's decent 3D power as well, courtesy of the 8600 GT graphics card.

Complementing this is one of just two 22 inch monitors in the group. The Chimei flat panel that accompanies the Hydrogen is not only physically larger than the 19 inch screens more commonly supplied in this price bracket, but has a significantly higher resolution of 1680x1050 pixels. That doesn't mean much for entertainment (only full 1080 line HD video would demand anywhere near as much resolution, and there still aren't quite enough pixels for that), but it's great for photo editing and other creative tasks.

The 500GB hard disk provides plenty of storage space for your photos, films and TV shows, and inside the Hydrogen's case there's room not only for more storage but also for a second graphics card, should you feel the need for a boost.

The Mesh is a great system with excellent performance. Even so, the Fujitsu Siemens machine is considerably cheaper and has a quad core processor as well as an even better screen. The TV tuner is a nice extra, but could be added to any system without great expense.