Convergence is the Holy Grail that almost all computer manufacturers are currently striving towards: trying to combine your PC, music player, TV, DVD and storage systems into one handy box that will hopefully sit conveniently under your large, flat-screen monitor and all be operated though one remote control. Ideally it should make the tea for you as well, and answer the phone and cook your dinner, but that might have to wait for a few more months...

Evesham's latest foray into this niche end of the market is the e-box3, a squat, black, rectangular beast that has certain outward similarities with the old Xbox but promises a lot more. It feels comfortably solid within a comparatively small volume (430 x 288 x 98mm) and the uncluttered front panel has a single silver on/off button, the nearly invisible DVD slot, plus two USB 2.0 ports, a Firewire socket and two audio inputs for a microphone and headphones.

Under the hood is an Athlon64 3000+ processor with memory sizes ranging from 512MB to 2GB and using Hyper Transport technology (up to 4800+X2). Hard disk drive capacities stretch from 160GB to 400GB, using SATA 7,200rpm drives, and the graphics card is the multipurpose ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset, generally viewed favourably.

The heart of the system is Windows Media Centre edition 2005, which is the software that controls all your media options from TV and music to DVD and games.

One of the first things you notice is that the box is impressively quiet; noise has always been the main stumbling block of all-in-one systems. But the main selling point is the box's use as a video recorder, linked to your PC. It functions as either a single hybrid (Digital/Analogue) TV tuner, or as twin tuners which allow you to record one TV channel while watching another or record two TV channels while watching a previously recorded programme. If you have a Freeview account then all thirty-odd channels are also available to you, which means you'll never miss an episode of Lost!

Although this all sounds good, there's a number of grumbles, not least being the fact that the instruction manuals don't match all the equipment or leads and so you're left largely in the dark about how to connect up the Freeview, e-box3 and TV.

Also, while one is grateful for the wireless keyboard and mouse, the load time for TV set-up and operation is long-winded. You may find in the end that you get more benefit from using the 400GB of storage for downloaded pictures, music and videos from your cameras and MP3 players than taking advantage of the 150 hours of TV. Financially, too, you may find Sky Plus is a cheaper and more reliable option. The Holy Grail remains just out of reach.

A versatile multimedia storage box that can combine all your music, pictures, PC and TV needs but is ultimately let down by slow software, unfriendly manuals and a relatively high price point.