There are plenty of barebones Micro PC chassis around, where you just add drives, but few are built into the back of an LCD monitor. ENlight's LP772 LCD PC chassis is designed this way and the company has taken several decisions which make it an ideal basis for a space-saving PC.

Rather than trying to use notebook technology, which nearly always involves a specialist system board and very limited scope for upgrading, the LP772 has space for a standard Micro-ATX system board, a 3.5-inch hard drive and a 5.25-inch DVD drive... just.

The system is built around a 17-inch LCD monitor (a 19-inch version is also available), complete with a substantial base. The screen is of reasonable quality and quite suitable for general office use. The LT772 version has a touch-screen overlay, too, which might make an interesting Media Center interface. Both models have a multi-card reader and USB 2 sockets on the left edge of the screen.

Remove the back cover of the monitor and you have a metal backplane with the necessary risers to carry a standard Micro-ATX system board and a standard hard drive. All the necessary cables are hanging around and assembly of the system is very similar to building into a mini-tower, small form-factor or Micro-ATX case. You might want to hide a few more of the cables under the system board in this one, and you'll need to fit the supplied plastic insulating sheet under the board, but otherwise assembly is straightforward.

Because of the wide range of Micro-ATX system boards available, you can choose to build a machine into this case with just about any spec you want. The system board mounts vertically and there's a 60mm fan at the bottom of the case, so you get a good through-flow of air. You might want to reverse the fan leads, though, so it sucks in rather than blows out from the bottom, to aid convection.

There are even back-plates at the bottom of the chassis, so you can fit a system board with up to four half-height expansion cards. You could therefore fit a reasonably powerful graphics adapter, as well as a couple of Freeview TV tuner cards, and build a very functional Media Center machine in this case.

In the base of the PC is a 220W power supply and space for a standard 5.25-inch DVD or CD drive. Try to get one of the shorter models if you can (they vary from make to make), as space is very limited. You also need to remove the front of the drive tray to fit the ENlight one. There are a couple of reasonable speakers fitted in the base, too.

Although the LP772 case is none too stylish - a bit plastic looking and chunky - this is a design constraint, given the room needed for a Micro-ATX system board and other standard components. Overall, the compromise is about right, though when you add the cost of your processor, memory and drives, it's not a cheap option.