We looked at mini PCs back in issue 152 but Shuttle - maker of the popular 'barebones' systems used by many companies in the test - isn't one to rest on its laurels. In fact, the company seems to announce new models every month and the latest is the ST61G4.

The ST61G4 measures just 30cm long and 19cm square. Despite these diminutive dimensions, it's still able to cram in just about everything you'd expect to find on a fully decked-out desktop PC. It's also exceedingly stylish, with a brushed aluminium case and a mirrored front panel.

Being a barebones PC, all you get inside the ST61G4 case are the motherboard, power supply and processor cooler, so you'll need to supply and fit your own disk drives, memory and processor. There's room inside for one hard disk and one CD-ROM (or similar) drive but not for a floppy drive. Instead, you get a built-in 6-in-1 memory card reader. which is far more useful.

There are two memory slots and you can fit any recent Intel Pentium 4 processor. Putting everything together isn't a task for the faint-hearted, but the widespread use of thumbscrews keeps screwdriver use to a minimum and the clear, photo-filled manual will help you through the sticky spots. All in all, turning the ST61G4 into a fully functional PC should be no more than an afternoon's work, even for a novice.

Component-wise, we've mentioned just about everything you will need, since the ST61G4 has acceptable on-board 5.1 sound, more-than-capable on-board ATI graphics with TV-out, USB 2, FireWire and a network port. More demanding users can still make use of the free PCI and AGP slots, though.

One final point worth mentioning is that like all Shuttle PCs, the ST61G4 is very quiet. The large, combined case/processor fan and small, twin-power supply fans are temperature-controlled and only kick up to full power when they need to, which means the PC is near silent for much of the time.

Contact: Gemma 020 8961 7008
www.gemma.co.uk