Acer subsidiary Packard Bell is making sure it is ready for the back to school shopping season by rolling out some new, compact imedia desktop models. Coming in glossy black cases with matte accents, the PCs are rather stylish, but more importantly, are 60% smaller than a standard desktops while providing similar processing power and features. In fact, the 'fresh' imedia models resemble Acer's newly-introduced M series PCs but that's not really shocking, it's more of a trend with both Packard Bell and Gateway.

The imedia systems are available in configurations featuring and Intel Core 2 Quad or Phenom II X4 processor, with up to 8GB of RAM, a maximum of 1TB storage space, integrated graphics or a GeForce discrete graphics card (topping at a GeForce FT 230 with 1.5GB of memory), and a DVD or Blu-Ray drive.

The new releases also comes with multi-card readers, optional WiFi and DVBT TV tuner, and have Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed. Their starting price is £299 so check them out if you're on the market for a low-cost desktop.