The biggest strike against Ion isn't so much the capabilities of the platform itself, but the direction it's being pushed in by the overzealous marketing. Apparently the Ion "makes games possible." It bloody doesn't, you know. This is the kind of bile-inducing nonsense that we've come to expect from the likes
of Intel and VIA, but not from one of the biggest graphics card manufacturers in the world.

Don't try and pull a fast one here – listing games that are out of date and calling them mainstream fools no one. This isn't a machine we'd want anyone to use for gaming – especially not on a screen capable of 1,080p movies.

Yes you can trick CoD4 into playing at the lowest settings at 800 x 600, but really would you want to? We certainly wouldn't. In fact, every game we tried on this machine looked awful and ran at postcard frame rates. It simply isn't a games machine.

Inconsoleable

This leads to a more worrying problem for the future of this platform – it's encroaching on territory that's already been claimed by the consoles. The PS3 rolls in at just under £300, has no problem playing games, manages HD media with aplomb and packs a Blu-ray drive into the bargain. The Xbox 360 is cheaper still and will happily run as a media extender to your main system.

Should you consider the Revo at all then? We'd say it's worth adding it to your shortlist (if you're the kind to make lists). The problem is that, beyond a few PC specific codecs and the ability to surf in an environment you're used to, can you really put forward a compelling reason to spend this much when you could nab a console for about the same price?

We can't, although maybe we could have our arms twisted for the £150 Linux spin. Watch this space.

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