It's interesting to see how far the all-in-one concept of PC has evolved in a short space of time. A year ago it would be easy to dismiss them as a gimmick. They were slower than a lot of notebooks and had a mis-match of technologies making for some unstable platforms.

How things have changed. It's very hard to ignore AJP's incredible all-in-one, the Neo PC-4. Yes, it may be the most expensive machine reviewed here, but it does come with 512MB of RAMBUS memory and it both out-performs and out-features (if that's a word) all of the other machines. It's only let down by its bulky chassis and lack of any manageability options. In other respects it completely outshines the other all-in-one, the Scenic F from Fujitsu Siemens.

However, if manageability and security are more of a factor than price and overall performance, then it is down to a choice between the systems from the big two - Dell and Hewlett Packard. Both the GX240 and e-PC 42 have the management tools and security features normally associated with business systems from these companies. The Dell machine in particular would make any IT manager's dreams come true (well, some of them) with its sheer number of tool-free features.

For connectivity the Tulip C3 takes some beating. It's astonishing how many ports can be packed into such a small space, including USB and 1394 FireWire, while the NEC and Evesham.com units show clever case designs. The Evesham,com is the only non-Intel system reviewed here; it has been cleverly designed and its AMD Duron gives it plenty of performance.

Ultimately, though, which one would we recommend? For its list of features alone the AJP is hard to beat.