Shuttle's XPC mini X 200 is about a third of the height of a regular Shuttle small form factor box, but with the same width and length.

It’s an understated black plastic rectangle with a grainy aluminium strip on top to spice things up a little.

Windows Media Center Edition is pre-loaded, although Vista is also an option.

The box is quiet during operation and the sleek, solid remote control and hybrid TV tuner for analogue and Freeview reception means it's got everything it needs to act as a PVR. A silver stand is included to sit the X 200 vertically.

The majority of the internal components are straight from the notebook drawer, and like a notebook the device uses an external power brick.

An Intel Core Duo T2050 (a notebook chip released over a year ago) is used and runs at 1.6GHz; a 533MHz front side bus is used to talk to the Intel 945GM chipset. Two 512MB sticks of 667MHz Ram occupy both available slots, which limits upgrade potential.

In Sysmark 2004 SE the system scored 170, which is uninspiring; similarly priced systems were achieving this sort of score 18 months ago. Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics scored 423 in 3Dmark05, so it's no good for gaming.

To connect it to a display there's a composite output with an S-video dongle. The main video port is a DVI-I output; additionally there's a VGA dongle, a DVI-VGA splitter so you can connect to an analogue and digital monitor at the same time, and finally an HDMI dongle for HD televisions.

The HDMI port is a little bizarre since, in testing, we discovered the unit has no HDCP compatibility and therefore won't playback encrypted high definition content.

Ample storage is provided by a 320GB desktop 3.5in hard disk. It sits below the motherboard and is easy to access by flipping over the unit.

On the front there's a slot loading, dual-layer DVD writer and an almost unnoticeable 4-in-1 card reader sat squarely beneath the blue-glowing power light.

At the rear there's an antennae for 802.11g Wifi, digital SPDIF-out that can pump out 8-channel audio output and a 3.5mm stereo jack for analogue audio.
Four USB2 ports line the back, with one USB port conveniently located on the front of the device.

One of the benefits of using laptop components is low power usage. In our labs, the system drew 30W when idling on the Windows desktop, and up to 50W when the system was running our benchmarks. This is about half of what regular desktop PC will consume.

The downside to using notebook components is that the system has extremely limited upgradeability.

The unit we received, without monitor or keyboard, totalled €1233.75 (approx £843). Shuttles price configuration page lets you adjust the spec if you want to reduce the cost or add in more powerful components.

With Shuttle, you usually pay a premium for an attractive PC. However, since this PC is designed for the living room, style is something most will be happy paying a bit extra for.

The problem is an almost-identically specified Mini PC from Evesham (in a smaller, more attractive box), that admittedly uses a small notebook hard disk, costs £713.99. To make matters worse, Apple is now selling its Mac Mini with a faster dual core processor, but smaller hard disk and no TV tuner, for just £448.99.

We tested an XP version of the Mini X 200, but the Vista option, which comes with more Ram (2GB) and only costs £16 more and, is a much better choice.

Shuttle includes a two year collect and return warranty, but this isn't enough to save it from being an expensive machine when compared to the competition.