Labs

This monstrous machine from Demonite is certainly not for those with limited space. Built around the Uneed X15e case, it has certain advantages over the competition. The most obvious is the presence of a 7in touchscreen TFT on the front, which allows the system to be operated without an external display. This sports a resolution of 800 x 480, which is appropriate for mirroring with a TV. It's possible to connect a high-resolution TFT using Extended Desktop, but you have to drag windows onto the second display, which isn't an elegant way of doing things.

Apart from smacking of a gimmick, the main downside is the price. Costing more than £450 on its own, the case adds hugely to the overall price, and the screen's only realistic use is for controlling music and photo playback - it's not intended for watching video and TV. Plus, to keep the panel within arm's reach, you'll

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have to mount the huge case next to your sofa - not ideal in most living rooms.

Of course, there's room for full-sized components and good expansion potential in the future, but upgrading isn't a high priority with a Media Center PC. With a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 550 at its heart, supported by 1GB of DDR2 memory, it scored a slightly underwhelming 0.77 in our 2D benchmarks. 3D performance was good, though; the GeForce 6600 helped it to 16fps in Far Cry, which puts it ahead of all but the Hi-Grade, and we only needed to switch off AA and AF to get a playable 33fps.

A whopping 400GB Hitachi hard disk is included in the price and there's a fast dual-layer Sony DVD writer. Despite the two free PCI slots, only one digital TV tuner is present, but you can add a second for £59. Rear outputs include optical and coaxial S/PDIF plus 7.1-channel mini-jacks, DVI and S-Video. The front panel has a removable USB media-card reader, which is a nice touch.

Despite all the room for cooling, the Demonite was noisy, even when idling. The 35.4dBA is noticeable at all times, and the DVD drive was noisier still at 37.6dBA.

Overall, the Demonite is an interesting machine - and Microsoft's Media Center keyboard is a welcome inclusion - but we can't recommend it for two reasons. It simply doesn't offer good value and it isn't quiet enough. There are smaller systems this month with more power, less noise and that have less impact on your pocket than the Demonite.