Tranquil T2e Atom PC

But a look through the options on Tranquil's site helps to ease any disappointment, with a dual-DVB-T TV tuner for £69, as well as Wi-Fi for £28. An extra £30 buys you the full Media Center remote control package, while there are also options for XP Home (deduct £10), Ubuntu or even no OS at all (deduct £69).

Obviously, you pay a slight premium for that silent running, so the Tranquil won't be for everyone. But the superb heat-pipe technology is the perfect foil to the incredible efficiency of the Atom.

Whether the Atom is appropriate for use in a desktop PC is a different question, and one for which our answer is a little less positive. We criticised the recent MSI Titan 700 for its VIA processor and benchmark score of 0.36, and the Atom doesn't really improve on that - multitasking in particular seems to be a real weakness.

As a step forward in efficiency the Atom is a success, but we're not convinced a PC is the right home for it. As a totally silent, broodingly stylish web browsing and word processing machine, we love the Tranquil T2e Atom PC. We just wouldn't want to throw anything much more intensive at it.

Read the full review of the Intel Atom here.

Author: David Bayon