That is pretty good going from Medion, and from Tesco, the price isn't too bad considering the spec. Make it an 86.xx series card and i would gladly recommend this to one and all, AFAIK it is an E6750 under the bonnet, so DDR3 support, as long as the board supports it aswell, hopefully there won't be too many proprietary parts, bundle it with a nice sized monitor (which are also getting cheaper) and you're good to go for some Vista related shenanigans!

Guess not one included. Which EXCLUDES first time buyers. Not helpful.

Not that good a deal either compared to some Dell systems (also excl. Monitor)

Now all you need is an Ubuntu/Suse install disk and you can have a stable, free OS and lots of free and really good applications. Vista - pah! (I suppose you could keep that for an occasional spin with one of the killer free apps - say, Notepad or Paint)

Was in my local Tesco tonight and they now stock a 17 inch Medion Laptop, AMD Turion 64 processor of some sort. Couldn't tell you the model as there was no info (either processor or laptop itself). Looked as if it had only been put on the shelf today. Other specs: Vista Home Premium (blergh), 2 gig RAM (I think, I may be wrong and it was 1 gig), 120 gig HD, Dual layer DVD burner, wireless b&g, bluetooth (possibly, looking at the lights on the case). All the usual USB/CardBus Slot/card reader holes. For under 650 quid. Wasn't running so can't comment on the screen quality or anything.

Forgot to add, it doesn't appear to be the the same model that Sainsburys is offering, that is to say it doesn't look like the one in the link in the article.

My 'i' key is nowhere near the 's'...

Does anyone else look at that picture and think 'nasty piece of junk'?

Sure the case is one of the least important features, but a well designed case gives some confidence that the rest of the system is equally well designed - or at least the components used are better than average quality.

The trouble with specs is they are meaningless until you witness performance. I've seen many cheap and nasty PCs with apparently high specs run as if someone has cut the processor in half, replaced the hard disk with something from the early 90s and slowed the memory down to SIMM speed.

The cost indicates good quality if it's comparable with US pricing - however the case shouts E-Machines, and that would put me off without even bothering to check the rest of its features.

Obviously I could be very wrong - it could be a superb machine, but until I see a real review - one with actual application performance as part of the evaluation, I wouldn't touch something like this with a bargepole.

, who have been selling medions for at least 18 months that I know of - although as part of their weekly offers rather than all the time, but quite regularly.

www.aldi.co.uk has the latest multi-media offering (and i'm actually tempted for once) - or should I wait for the inevitable price war!!!

why does no-one publish the vista self score? I know its not the be all and end all but at least its comparitive!

I bought one of these last night. All I went out for was a bag of sugar.

I am quite supprised there is no monitor, but if you go into your local Tesco Extra they all have a selection of monitors on offer so it isn't that much of a problem.

I'll wait for the Buy one Get one Free offer...

Like stuart meadowcroft said, Aldi have been selling Tevion and Medion gear for years. Not only that but their Medion 8824 desktop PC, not unlike the £550 6486 listed in the article is a mere £399 at Aldi.

I have two friends who bought Medion computers (one a desktop, one a laptop). Both failed in weeks, and while Aldi (in this case) was happy to pass the support calls over to Medion, it took one friend a year to finally get a refund - even then it was the Aldi store manager who caved in, not Medion.

All second hand/hearsay, yes, but you get what you pay for.

Err, or Toys R Us, who have been selling Medions for at least 6 years.

So Andy, if I filled a Dell box up with a pile of random components, would you be happier then?

Funny, I've bought quite a few Medion items in the past (as have several people I know) and not a single problem. Depends whether you use it as per the instructions or whether you p**s around with it.

Mind you, Vista would put me off a bit....

We have three Medion's bought at Aldi 2 years ago - they're used in business and for games, so live a hard life, in use 12hrs a day. They've been rock solid, and survived the video cards being upgraded about 12mths ago.

There is a downside, and that is they have 3.4ghz chips which run hot, so the fans are noisy if you work the machine - not a problem web browing, but noisy when playing games.

All in all however, darn good value and we will consider buying the Tesco machines if we can check noise levels.