Photos, videos and audio are easy to edit and remix. The only area that will make the XPS creak is the editing and crunching of very large video files, but like the little engine that could, the XPS can handle this, though at times you might want to go on to a coffee break while it happens.

2
HP TOUCHSMART IQ770 Available now from most HP resellers HP brings touchscreen technology to a desktop PC. Many tablet PCs have this functionality, but this new Touchsmart has upped the game. Stylishly dressed in black, this computer doesn't need to be covered up and hidden away, it can take pride of place in most rooms in the household.

When it comes to processing power it holds its own but gets shaky when it comes to raw video editing. The Touchsmart is powered by an AMD Turion 64 X 2 Dual Core chip and an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics card with 256MB video memory. This is tailored to playing and displaying multimedia rather than making it, but is still a perfect fit for most family and small business uses. Worth checking out for the touchscreen playing alone.

3
SONY VAIO VGC-RM1N Around /3,800 from Sony centres The Sony Vaio VGC-RM1N is one serious machine . . . or rather, machines. There are two cases instead of one, making it look more like a high-end stereo system. This is designed to be used by professional or semi-professional HD video makers. The VGC-RM1N is powered by a four-core Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor, 2GB of DDR 2 memory, two 500GB 7200rpm SATA hard drives con"gured for RAID 0 and with graphics powered by an Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS.

For those who crunch through a lot of raw video, there is also the ability to expand the system by adding another two hard drives and additional graphics processing power, DVD and Bluray-writer along with USB and firewire points.

This is one of the most powerful computers I've tried. Sony listened to what multimedia producers wanted and gave it to them in spades. Loading and editing video is easy, without any lag or stalling. However, given that the computer has a lot of power, it reflects this in noise as it is processing. If you have the money and you want a proper video editing system, this is recommended.