We remain skeptical whether Media Center PCs can ever really become mainstream products, but if they do, we expect they'll look a lot like Acer's Aspire iDea (oh, dear Lord…) 500. Resembling a sleek home theater component — with the rear-panel jacks to prove it — the big iDea has an Intel Viiv Core Duo processor, 1 GB of RAM, and a 250-gig hard drive for storing all your media. This is a U.K. product, so its dual digital TV tuners won't work over here, but if you hook up a separate HDTV tuner or cable/satellite feed, it should be ready and willing to record in HD, with its HDMI and DVI connectors souped up for playback of 1080p signals — the highest of high-def (of course, you'll need to have a 1080p-capable set to see every pixel). iDeally, though, it would have an HD DVD or Blu-ray recorder for archiving high-def shows, but a DVD burner will have to do. And it is mighty sleek for a PC. But is it $1,700 sleek? That's for you to decide, and you probably have a little time, since no availability date is set. — Peter Pachal

Acer Aspire IDEA 500, via TechEBlog