Foxconn NT-A3500 barebones small-form factor PC

It's really quite impressive how small computers can get.

The NT-A3500 from Foxconn is a fully functioning PC in a tiny case, the size of a couple of stacked DVD cases (19 x 14cm and 2.5cm tall).

It's not quite fully functioning as it is. The product is a ‘barebones' PC which means that it doesn't have memory, a hard disk or an operating system: you need to add all three yourself.

That accounts for the bargain-basement price, but adding those components needn't be expensive. We put in 4GB of Crucial memory, which cost £20.

A 320GB 2.5in hard disk (larger 3.5in disks won't fit) costs less than £30, and a copy of the Windows 7 operating system costs £70 at Amazon at the time of writing, bringing the total cost up to just under £280.

You can reduce that by £70 by installing Linux instead of Windows, and in fact we cheated slightly, using the OCZ Vertex 2 SSD instead of the hard disk. This provided a performance boost but pushed the price up to £430 in total. Opening the box and fitting the components was no trouble.

The computer has high-quality components: there's a dual-core AMD E350 processor which is one of the new AMD models with a graphics processor built-in.

It connects to all wired and wireless networks including the newest, fastest kinds, and has a memory card reader, two USB3 sockets and two standard USB2 sockets, and HDMI and DVI sockets for attaching a flat-panel TV or a monitor.

The latter is particularly important because this PC is designed to be used under a TV as an entertainment device, and in that role it worked very well.

Games were playable but not superb, but video playback caused it no trouble at all – it was comfortably able to play standard and high-definition video.

One problem is that the case is so small there's no room for a DVD or Blu-ray drive so you're limited to playing video and music supplied over the internet or on a USB storage device (or you can plug in an external drive but that will increase the bulk and cost, and there's already a fairly large external power supply supplied).

The unit itself can sit flat, stand on its side or be mounted on the back of a TV or monitor.

At £280 for a decent home-entertainment computer, the Foxconn NT-A3500 is a very good deal indeed.