Medion Akoya E2005D

Medion is calling its new E2005D computer a 'net-top'. This is a name designed to put buyers in mind of so-called netbooks – mini-notebooks that are small, light, easy to carry and, crucially, cheap. The E2005D is cheap and small but it's a desktop computer, albeit a smaller one than most.

It could be a good home PC for someone who only uses a computer for email, office tasks and the web, but who finds the screen and keyboard too small. Small desktop PCs are often used as entertainment computers – they can sit alongside a hi-fi stack or under a television and can be used to show video or listen to music, although the E2005 struggled a little with the video we put through it.

A lack of sockets means the only video output is a VGA socket for monitors and some flat-panel TVs. It's no good for games, either: the on-board graphics were too puny for any recent games. That said, the Intel Atom processor is the same as the one in most mini-notebooks and along with the 1GB of memory it's quite capable of dealing easily with standard home and office tasks such as word processing and web browsing. Storage is good too with a large 160GB hard disk.

Sadly the disk is large in both senses: it's a full-size desktop model, as is the DVD drive, so while both are nice additions not always found in computers this small they add greatly to the bulk of the computer, which is considerably bigger than many of its competitors.

It looks nice, with a black and silver rounded front panel, although this turned out to be disappointingly plasticky when we got up close. It has full surround sound output, wired and wireless networking and four USB ports, but there's no room for other expansion inside the case, and the memory can't be expanded without removing the existing chip. It runs Windows XP, which is fine for this kind of computer and as is customary with such PCs there's no monitor – you must add your own.

The Medion E2005D is cheap enough and small enough to make it a decent choice for people without the need for a powerful home computer, but it offers nothing that its better priced competitors such as the Asus Eee box don't.