This media centre PC is cute, but not perfectly formed

MESH has a reputation for producing high-spec systems at a low price, and sure enough the Elite E6850 GT ANS stands out in several areas. It has a fast CPU in the Core 2 Duo E6850, a hefty 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive, the 18x DVD writer has LightScribe support, and there's still cash left over to thrown in a digital/analogue TV tuner card.

All you dimension-stumbling timelords will be pleased; we’ve discovered that there’s no such thing as ‘now’ in computing. Prices and specifications move so fast that they’re figuratively encrusted with dust as soon as they’ve been announced to the public.

When you unpack the Elite E6400 (ANS) you're confronted with the usual Mesh tower system. It looks good enough from a distance and in photographs, but close up the plastic case feels a little cheap

The average PC display comes with some nasty clip-on stand. So it's just as well that the Mesh Photo 5000 utilises ViewSonic's 20.1-inch VP2030B display, which is as far from 'average' as it's possible to get.