Labs

When this little system first turned up, it took a while for us to grasp that VeryPC hadn't forgotten to send the actual PC part of the bundle. It's all tucked away in that tiny little silver box that looks as if it could be a handy add-on, like an external hard disk or a pencil case.

The miniature nature of this machine almost inevitably means that performance is hampered, but it also makes it physically versatile. Unlike any of the other systems in this group test, the VeryPC Treeton would be ideal as a media centre even in a less than spacious living room, and equally at home in a space-conscious office. The small size also contributes to its very low power consumption, making

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it greener than any of the other machines on test.

There's no denying that it's somewhat underpowered compared to its rivals here, but the only AMD processor this month - the Black Edition Athlon 2350 - runs at 2.1GHz and is quite adequate for everyday work and multimedia tasks.

Graphically, you won't be surprised to hear that there's so little gaming potential in the integrated ATI X700 graphics that our standard Call of Duty 2 benchmark wouldn't even run. You can't expect to be able to play any recent 3D games on the Treeton, no matter how far you turn down the detail and effects settings. But image editing, basic video tasks and movie playback will be fine, although full HD could be a struggle - which is a shame, because an HDMI port is included to connect to an HD TV for this very purpose.

Also included is a set of surround sound speakers. Creative's T3100 5.1 audio hardware is some of the best we've seen this month and, along with the monitor - a perfectly competent BenQ model - makes the VeryPC ideal for playing DVDs and downloaded movies. We found office work and Internet browsing were handled equally well.

You can't expect too much from this compact PC, but both the system and the price are small enough to attract attention.